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Meta Platforms (META-0.48%) chief executive Mark Zuckerberg is willing to pay seven figures to win the favor of the incoming Trump administration.
The Facebook parent has donated $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural fund, Meta confirmed to several outlets. The tech giant didn’t donate to Trump’s 2017 inaugural fund or Joe Biden’s in 2021, according to The Wall Street Journal (NWS-3.72%), which first reported the funding.
This is the latest effort from Zuckerberg to enter Trump’s good graces. Earlier this month, Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, said Zuckerberg hopes to play “an active role in the debates that any administration needs to have about maintaining America’s leadership in the technological sphere.”
Clegg emphasized the importance of U.S. tech policy in coming years, according to the Financial Times, particularly given the rapid development of artificial intelligence and its role in both cybersecurity and global competition.
On the campaign trail, Trump promised to roll back the Biden administration’s 2023 executive order on AI, which set goals to establish the U.S. as a leader in the safe and ethical use of AI.
While Zuckerberg hasn’t remained as close to Trump’s elbow as X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk, he has visited the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Following the meeting, Meta said in a statement that Zuckerberg was “grateful” for the invitation and that “[i]t’s an important time for the future of American innovation.”
Zuckerberg and his company have had a complicated relationship with the federal government and regulators. In an August letter, Zuckerberg said he regretted not pushing back against calls from the federal officials to remove COVID-19 related posts from Facebook and Instagram.
Over the years, the CEO has also testified before Congress for a range of issues related to the company’s social media platforms, including user data privacy, the company’s role in elections, and online dangers to children.
His relationship with Trump went from warm to strictly professional over the course of the first Trump administration after the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, when Facebook suspended the then-president for inciting the riot.
Trump said in a statement that June: “Next time I’m in the White House there will be no more dinners, at his request, with Mark Zuckerberg and his wife. It will be all business!”