Meta donates $1mn to Donald Trump’s inauguration fund
Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has donated $1mn to a fund for Donald Trump’s inauguration events in the latest overture by the social media platform aimed at mending relations with the US president-elect.
The donation marks the first time Facebook’s owner has contributed to an inauguration fund and comes after recent jockeying to curry favour with Trump, who has previously accused the platform of censoring rightwing voices and threatened to jail its chief executive.
Last week, Meta’s head of global affairs Nick Clegg conceded the company “overdid it a bit” when moderating pandemic-related content, an admission that appeared designed to placate the president-elect’s concerns.
Clegg also said Zuckerberg was keen to play “an active role in the debates that any administration needs to have about maintaining America’s leadership in the technological sphere”, including in areas such as artificial intelligence.
Executives in Silicon Valley, which Trump has previously considered a left- leaning constituency, have been racing to court him since his election victory last month.
