Meta has donated $1m (£786,000) to Donald Trump’s inaugural fund, in another sign of the tech giant’s boss, Mark Zuckerberg, trying to build bridges with the president-elect.
Mr Trump has previously been highly critical of Mr Zuckerberg and Facebook – which owns Meta – branded the platform “anti-Trump” in 2017.
But the duo Dine at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Resort in November, after a meeting Mr. Zuckerberg described himself as “grateful.”
Inaugural funds are used to pay for events and activities when a new president takes office — some consider it an attempt to curry favor with the new administration.
Meta — which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp — is not believed to have made a similar donation to President Joe Biden’s 2020 inauguration fund or to Trump’s previous such fund in 2016.
The donation was confirmed by CBS, the BBC’s US media partner, on Wednesday. First reported By The Wall Street Journal.
The BBC has contacted Meta for comment.
Trump will be sworn in as the 47th President of the United States on January 20.
Relations between Mr Trump and Mr Zuckerberg have historically been less cordial.
He was particularly upset when Facebook and Instagram suspended the former president’s accounts in 2021, after he said he praised those involved in the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Since then, Trump has waged a war of words against Meta — calling out Facebook “Enemy of the People” in March.
He said a law that would ban TikTok in the US unless its parent company ByteDance is sold would give Facebook an unfair advantage.
In August, Mr. Zuckerberg said in a letter to Republican lawmakers that He regretted bowing to the pressure of the Biden administration. to “censor” some Facebook and Instagram content during the coronavirus pandemic.
Trump wrote in a book published in September that Mr Zuckerberg would “spend the rest of his life in prison” if he tried to interfere in the 2024 election.
But the president-elect seems to have softened his stance since then.
He told a podcast in October that it was “good” that Mr Zuckerberg had “stayed out of the election” and thanked him for a personal phone call after facing an assassination attempt.
Still, Mr. Zuckerberg is much less close to Trump than fellow tech titan Elon Musk.
The owner of Tesla and X has been called Trump’s “first buddy” because of his extensive campaign donations.
This has put Mr. Musk in charge. Department of Government Performance (Doge).
There has been no such rapport between Mr Musk and Mr Zuckerberg – although a cage fight between them was once discussed. Now it starts closing.