Zuckerberg’s charm offensive has included two meetings with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida over the past seven weeks, where the two discussed resolving a lawsuit Trump filed against Facebook in 2021 over the
blacklisting of his account in 2020. Options on the table include a potential monetary settlement.
Zuckerberg also
made an appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, using the platform to criticize the outgoing Biden administration and praise the virtues of masculinity in corporate leadership. “I do think a lot of our society has become…kind of like, neutered, or like, emasculated,” Zuckerberg told Rogan, who endorsed Trump just before the election.
During the interview, Zuckerberg added, “When you’re running a company, people typically don’t want to see you being like this ruthless person.” He added that people who have seen him competing in jujitsu have remarked, “That’s the real Mark.”
These personal image adjustments are being mirrored by seismic policy shifts at Meta. The company has
torched longstanding diversity initiatives,
appointed a Republican head of global policy, and
added UFC CEO Dana White to its board. Zuckerberg also announced Meta will relax “hate speech” rules, add political content back into user feeds, and
scrap third-party fact checkers — unwinding many content moderation practices put in place in recent years.