Former President Donald Trump has recently claimed that Zuckerberg has been reaching out frequently, one such call being an apology. This followed a mishap where Meta’s AI assistant denied the occurrence of an assassination attempt against Trump.
Trump had previously accused Meta and Google of election interference by suppressing details about the incident. Meta attributed the error to a bug and content moderation, stating, “In both cases, our systems were working to protect the importance and gravity of this event. And while neither was the result of bias, it was unfortunate and we understand why it could leave people with that impression.”
In an interview, Trump recounted, “Mark Zuckerberg called me — first of all, he called me a few times. He called me after the event and he said, ‘That was really amazing, it was really brave.’ And he actually announced he’s not going to support a Democrat, because he can’t, because he respected me for what I did that day.”
Interestingly, Zuckerberg has not publicly endorsed any political candidates. A Meta representative highlighted this inconsistency, noting that Zuckerberg has not made any such endorsements in previous elections. However, Zuckerberg did express admiration for Trump’s resilience in a Bloomberg interview, stating, “Seeing Donald Trump get up after getting shot in the face and pump his fist in the air with the American flag is one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen in my life,” adding that the display evoked a sense of American spirit and determination.
This newfound rapport between Trump and Zuckerberg follows Trump’s shift in stance on banning TikTok. Previously, Trump argued that removing TikTok would unfairly benefit Meta. “If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business. I don’t want Facebook, who cheated in the last Election, doing better. They are a true Enemy of the People,” he wrote.
Despite the amicable exchanges with Zuckerberg, Trump’s sentiment towards Google remains unchanged. Trump noted that no one from Google reached out after the shooting, although CEO Sundar Pichai did tweet his well wishes and condemnation of political violence. Trump has accused Google of censoring auto-complete suggestions related to the shooting, a claim Google denied, explaining that their safeguards prevent autocomplete on searches involving political violence.
