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CV NEWS FEED // One of billionaire Mark Zuckerberg’s top executives recently stated that the Meta Platforms, Inc. (“Meta”) CEO wishes to seek an “active role” in advising the incoming Trump administration on technology policy.
The comments by Meta President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg came less than a week after Zuckerberg shared a meal with President-elect Donald Trump at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.
Zuckerberg wants to play “an active role in the debates that any administration needs to have about maintaining America’s leadership in the technological sphere,” Clegg told journalists, as reported by the Financial Times on Tuesday.
The United States continuing to be a world leader in technology “is tremendously important given all the geostrategic uncertainties around the world, and particularly the pivotal role that AI [artificial intelligence] will play,” Clegg added.
Clegg also acknowledged to reporters that Meta “overdid it a bit” when it came to censoring posts on its platforms related to COVID.
Meta is the parent company of social media platforms Facebook and Instagram, as well as the instant messaging service WhatsApp and several other, smaller platforms.
Trump and Zuckerberg share a complicated history as the 45th and soon-to-be 47th president was banned from both of Meta’s major platforms in January 2021. Trump was still serving his first term in the White House at the time.
Trump’s accounts on both Facebook and Instagram were eventually reinstated just two years later.
The Financial Times noted:
Clegg’s comments come as Silicon Valley leaders are jockeying to curry favour with Trump, who in the past has repeatedly clashed with what he considers a left-leaning constituency that has funded his opponents and censored him.
Clegg notably served as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2015. He moved to the United States sometime after losing reelection to his parliamentary seat in 2017.
The New York Post reported last Wednesday – the day before Thanksgiving – “Zuckerberg dined with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago.”
Per the Post, the Meta CEO had requested the meeting “with the president-elect to discuss ‘the incoming administration.’”
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A Meta spokesperson then told the Post: “It’s an important time for the future of American Innovation. Mark was grateful for the invitation to join President Trump for dinner and the opportunity to meet with members of his team about the incoming Administration.”
Incoming White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller had told FOX News hostess Laura Ingraham at the time:
Mark Zuckerberg has been very clear about his desire to be a supporter of and a partnership in this change that we’re seeing all around America, all around the world, with this reform movement that Donald Trump is leading.
“Mark Zuckerberg, like so many business leaders, understands that President Trump is an agent of change, an agent of prosperity,” Miller added.
As of Tuesday, Zuckerberg was the fourth-richest person in the world with a net worth of $212 billion, per Forbes.
Elon Musk, who is set to serve as a co-commissioner of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a planned advisory commission to Trump, remained the world’s wealthiest person. Musk’s net worth clocked in at $333 billion – or a third of a trillion dollars.
