Donald Trump and Mark Zuckerberg have a tense relationship.
As former president of the United States and head of one of the country’s largest companies, Trump and Zuckerberg are no strangers to each other.
Zuckerberg recently said Trump’s response to being shot at a Pennsylvania rally was “badass,” but has refused to endorse a presidential candidate this election cycle. Trump, in contrast, has said he would jail Zuckerberg if re-elected.
How did we get here?
Below is a look at their tumultuous relationship over the years.
Trump and Zuckerberg have met several times.
In September 2019, they had an unannounced meeting at the White House.
“Mark is in Washington, DC, to meet with policymakers to hear their concerns and discuss future internet regulation. He also had a good, constructive meeting with President Trump at the White House today,” a Meta spokesperson said at the time.
“Nice meeting with Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook today in the Oval Office,” Trump said of their meeting.
Trump and Zuckerberg met again the following month.
Trump, Zuckerberg and Peter Thiel had a secret dinner in October 2019.
Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, was the first outside investor in Facebook. He was an outspoken supporter of Trump during the 2016 presidential election.
“We talked about a number of things that were on his mind and some of the things you read about in the news about our work,” Zuckerberg said of the dinner in an interview with “CBS This Morning.”
Zuckerberg was in Washington DC to testify before Congress about Facebook’s cryptocurrency Libra.
Trump said he would ban Facebook when he was president, but Zuckerberg “kept harassing him.”
In 2021, Trump praised Nigeria for banning Twitter.
“More countries should ban Twitter and Facebook because they do not allow free and open expression — all voices must be heard,” Trump said in a statement at the time.
“Maybe I should have done it when I was president,” he added. “But Zuckerberg kept calling me and coming to the White House for dinner to tell me how great I was.”
Nigeria has lifted its ban on Twitter after seven months.
Trump has heavily criticized Zuckerberg for indefinitely banning his Facebook account after his comments inciting the January 6 Capitol riot.
In 2021, Meta suspended Trump’s accounts “indefinitely” following the January 6 Capitol riots, citing ““Using our platform to incite a violent uprising against a democratically elected government.”
“His decision to use his platform to condone, rather than condemn, the actions of his supporters in the Capitol building has rightly alarmed people in the US and around the world,” Zuckerberg wrote in a after “We removed these statements yesterday because we judged that their effect — and likely their intent — would be to provoke further violence.“
Meta restored Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts in 2023.
Since the suspension, Facebook’s Oversight Board has been investigating the decision.
Ultimately, Meta decided to reinstate Trump’s account.
At the same time, “new measures were taken to prevent repeated violations”, including tougher penalties for violations of Meta’s rules.
As of July 2024, the company lifted the last restrictions on Trump’s account ahead of the November presidential election.
In July, Meta removed the additional restrictions that were still in place on Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts after they were reimposed.
“As we assess our responsibility to allow political expression, we believe the American people should be able to hear from our presidential nominees on the same basis,” Meta said in a statement at the time. “As a result, former President Trump, as the Republican Party’s nominee, will no longer be subject to the enhanced disbarment penalties.”
Meta added that it “will periodically review accounts subject to this protocol to determine whether higher suspension penalties for violations of the Community Standards are still appropriate.”
Trump has expressed interest in suing Facebook.
“We should sue Google and Facebook and all those things,” he said in a June 2019 interview with Fox Business. “Which we may do.”
Trump made these comments in the context of fines imposed by the European Union on major technology companies such as Google for violating the bloc’s antitrust rules.
In 2021, Trump did just that.
Trump filed a lawsuit in July 2021 against Facebook, Google, Twitter and the respective CEOs of these companies, alleging that they unlawfully censored him and other conservatives.
In May 2022, Trump’s lawsuit against Twitter was dismissed.
Zuckerberg called Trump’s response to being shot at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in 2024 “cool” so far.
Zuckerberg spoke about the former president in an interview with Bloomberg.
“Seeing Donald Trump stand up after he gets shot in the face and put his fist in the air with the American flag is one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen in my life,” Zuckerberg told Bloomberg of the attempted assassination of Trump. “On some level, it’s hard as an American not to get emotional about that spirit and that fight, and I think that’s why a lot of people like him.”
But Meta’s CEO said he has no plans to endorse a presidential candidate this election campaign.
Now Trump has threatened to jail Zuckerberg if he is elected in November.
Trump says that if elected, he will “prosecute election fraudsters” and “send them to prison for a long time.”
“We already know who you are. DON’T DO IT! ZUCKERBUCKS, be careful!” Trump wrote on Truth Social this month.
Trump appears to have changed his mind about banning TikTok, likely because of the potential benefits for Meta.
During his time in office, Trump signed an executive order banning TikTok, but President Biden rescinded the order when he took office after Trump.
Trump now views the TikTok ban differently.
“Now that I think about it, I’m for TikTok because you need competition,” Trump told Bloomberg Businessweek this month. “If you don’t have TikTok, you have Facebook and Instagram, and that’s, you know, that’s Zuckerberg.”
In March, he made similar statements in an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” calling Facebook “an enemy of the people.”
“There’s a lot of good and a lot of bad about TikTok,” he said. “But what I don’t like is that you can make Facebook bigger without TikTok. And I consider Facebook an enemy of the people.”
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