Trump says he likes Zuckerberg more now that he’s ‘staying out of the election’

Donald Trump has said he likes Mark Zuckerberg “much better now” that he is “staying out of the election.”

The Republican candidate, who has previously referred to Facebook as “a true enemy of the people,” appears to be warming up to the billionaire since he has pulled back from politics.

“I actually believe he’s staying out of the election, which is nice,” Trump told Barstool Sports’s podcast Bussin’ With The Boys in an episode released on Tuesday.

“He called me up after I was shot and he said, ‘that was so brave,’ which was nice.”

Zuckerberg has previously described Trump’s reaction to the assassination attempt in July in Butler, Pennsylvania – when he stood up, raised his fist in the air and chanted “fight, fight, fight” – as “one of the most bada** things” he’d ever seen.

The two men were once at loggerheads following Facebook’s decision to ban Trump from the platform in the wake of the January 6 Capitol riot. His account was later reinstated in 2023.

“If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business,” Trump once said of Zuckerberg in a post on Truth Social.

“I don’t want Facebook, who cheated in the last Election, doing better. They are a true Enemy of the People!”

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But now the ice between the pair seems to be thawing.

Zuckerberg has called Trump twice to try and patch up their relationship and has been telling people close to him that his politics are now more “libertarian” or “classical liberal” than progressive, according to The New York Times.

Trump also told New York Magazine that Zuckerberg told him in a phone call that there was “no way” he would vote for a Democrat in the 2024 election.

“Mark Zuckerberg called up and said, ‘I’ve never supported a Republican before, but there’s no way I can vote for a Democrat in this election,’” Trump told the magazine. “He’s a guy that, his parents, everybody was always Democrat. He said, ‘I will never vote for the people running against you after watching what you did.’”

Having once taken a harsh line against Covid misinformation and Trump’s election conspiracy theories, Zuckerberg previously used his vast personal wealth to fund left-wing causes.

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But now the 40-year-old said he wants Meta to be “nonpartisan.” Referring to his political activity, he told Bloomberg earlier this year: “I’ve done some stuff personally in the past. I’m not planning on doing that this time, and that includes not endorsing either of the candidates.”

In August, Zuckerberg wrote a letter to the House Judiciary Committee where he acknowledged that senior officials in Joe Biden’s administration “repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humorous and satire.”

In the letter, titled to House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, Zuckerberg admitted that he regretted not pushing back more on the administration.

“I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it,” he said. “I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today.”

Now, in a move that appears to have pleased Trump, Zuckerberg has also reportedly abolished Meta’s dedicated election integrity team, cut its once-regular election year “war room,” canceled transparency tools used by journalists to track misinformation, and down-ranked political content in his apps’ news feeds.