Mark Zuckerberg's MAGA Rebrand Sparks Major Policy Shifts At Meta
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been going through a bit of a MAGA rebrand, complete with a new look - gold chains, grown-out hair, custom boxy, black T-shirts - and appearances on so-called manosphere podcasts hosted by MAGA-friendly comedians like Theo Von and Joe Rogan.
Those changes have translated to his company, too. Since January, Meta has rolled back diversity efforts, weakened hate speech policies, disbanded its civil-rights team, eliminated its outside fact-checking system and added a prominent Trump ally to its board of directors.
On today's Big Take podcast, Bloomberg's Riley Griffin joins host Sarah Holder to discuss the political evolution of Mark Zuckerberg: What he hopes to gain from getting closer to Trump and what he has to show for it.
Here is a lightly edited transcript of the conversation:
Sarah Holder: You might have noticed that lately, Mark Zuckerberg has been going through a bit of a rebrand. The Meta CEO has been sporting a new look: gold chains, grown-out hair and custom boxy, black T-shirts with Greek and Latin phrases. He's appeared on so-called manosphere podcasts hosted by MAGA-friendly comedians like Theo Von and Joe Rogan.
Mark Zuckerberg: Just I think a lot of the corporate world is, is like pretty culturally neutered.
Holder: That's Zuckerberg on Rogan's show back in January, talking about martial arts, bow hunting and what he sees as corporate America's backlash to masculinity.
Zuckerberg: The kind of masculine energy, I think, is good.
Joe Rogan: Yeah.
Zuckerberg: And obviously, you know, society has plenty of that, but I think corporate culture was really like trying to get away from it.
Holder: Zuckerberg's newly conservative talking points...
Zuckerberg: I think having a culture that like, celebrates the aggression a bit more has its own merits that are really positive.
Holder:...and embrace of MAGA has led to changes at Meta, too. Since January, Meta has added Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO and prominent Trump ally, Dana White, to its board of directors. It's also rolled back diversity efforts, weakened hate speech policies, disbanded its civil-rights team and eliminated its outside fact-checking system. For outside observers, it's felt like a dramatic shift. And according to Bloomberg Meta reporter Riley Griffin, it's felt that way for some people inside Meta, too. Zuckerberg declined to be interviewed for this story. But Riley and our colleague, Bloomberg reporter Kurt Wagner, have spoken to more than 30 current and former Meta employees about Zuckerberg's changing approach to politics - plus a dozen government officials who've engaged with Meta during three presidential administrations. Many of their sources asked for anonymity, out of fear of retribution. Riley and Kurt learned that these tensions came to a head at an internal meeting of Meta's senior leadership in January.
Riley Griffin: Some of these senior leaders were frustrated.
Holder: Zuckerberg faced questions about those policy changes and exactly what he meant when he spoke about masculine energy on Joe Rogan's podcast.
Griffin: He acknowledged that maybe masculine was not the right use of words, but he said that corporate culture had become less aggressive and should get a little bit more aggressive and competitive. And as for the other questions about content policy changes and fact checking, he was unapologetic. He didn't wanna relitigate these decisions and from everyone we speak to, that remains true.
Holder: I'm Sarah Holder, and this is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. Today on the show: The political evolution of Mark Zuckerberg. What he hopes to gain from getting closer to Trump - what he has to show for it - and how his MAGA leanings are already changing Meta.
Holder: Bloomberg's Riley Griffin says that to understand Mark Zuckerberg's shift to the right, you have to go back nearly two decades to the Obama administration.
Griffin: He and Obama would have dinners. They took calls with each other. President Obama even participated in a Facebook town hall. There was a light-touch approach to technology, a lot of optimism and very little regulation. And in the wake of the 2016 election, all that changed.
Holder: Facebook was thrust into the center of a global scandal - around the role the social network played in spreading political misinformation and how it may have influenced the outcome of the election.
Griffin: In the immediate aftermath of the election, we saw Zuckerberg experience shock and confusion around the outcome. He, at the time, said that it was a "crazy" - quote unquote - idea that misinformation had influenced the election outcome, but we also start to see the company make amends, if you will. They shore up fact checking efforts. They focus on election integrity. He also actually went on a nationwide tour. He was trying to understand the electorate. So, it was a period of processing but also the beginning of immense backlash for a company that had, until this time, had a pretty productive relationship to Washington and especially the Democratic party.
Holder: Zuckerberg appeared before Congress and said his company hadn't done enough to prevent its platform from being used for harm.
Zuckerberg: And that goes for fake news, for foreign interference in elections and hate speech, as well as developers and data privacy. We didn't take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake and it was my mistake and I'm sorry.
Holder: Meanwhile, his company tried to build inroads with the new administration. Joel Kaplan - a former GOP strategist who's now Meta's chief global affairs officer - was focused on ensuring Zuckerberg had connections in Trump's orbit.
Griffin: Joel Kaplan had been discussing with Mark Zuckerberg the benefits of a Republican administration that was business-friendly and a conservative Supreme Court. And this strategy, folks inside the company told me, came to be known as the Clarence Thomas strategy. The idea here being that any major existential threat to Facebook would ultimately rise to the Supreme Court. And so, the company didn't wanna alienate conservative justices who would be essentially making those key decisions.
Holder: But the criticism was still unrelenting, and it came from all sides. Zuckerberg's apology tour didn't persuade Democrats that he could be trusted to lead a social media empire that had grown to have billions of users. And the content moderation efforts he put in place after the 2016 election angered Trump and his allies, who increasingly complained about what they saw as an anti-conservative bias on Facebook. Then, came the pandemic.
Griffin: I was actually a COVID reporter at the time, and remember those early days when we were writing a lot about misinformation? Conspiracy theories were really proliferating on the platform.
Holder: This was all happening in the months leading up to the 2020 election, as unfounded concerns about election integrity were swirling online.
Griffin: The Stop the Steal movement was already cropping up and the Biden campaign was really frustrated that they felt Facebook wasn't taking that seriously.
Holder: After Biden won, the misinformation and division on Facebook just picked up steam.
Griffin: And ultimately we saw January 6 emerge.
Bloomberg TV: Stop the steal. Stop the steal. Stop the steal.
Holder: And within 24 hours of rioters storming the Capitol, Facebook took action.
Bloomberg TV: For the first time ever, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram suspended President Trump's Twitter accounts yesterday and now Mark Zuckerberg is saying in a post that, "We believe the risks of allowing the president to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great."
Holder: Facebook felt it was taking a strong approach to countering misinformation around the election and also around Covid and vaccines. But it wasn't enough for Democrats.
Griffin: Congressional probes ultimately revealed correspondence between the White House and then-Facebook that show there was a lot of skepticism from the White House as to how effective that was and whether they were being run around. In one email from a White House staffer, the subject line was titled, "You are hiding the ball." And speaking with a lot of folks in Washington, including in the Biden administration, I've learned that President Biden privately with his aides would call Zuckerberg, Little Twerp. And he also used a term that replaced the Z in Zuckerberg with an F.
Holder: A spokesperson for Biden's office declined to comment for this story. Riley says these long-simmering tensions reached a boiling point in July of 2021.
Griffin: What happened on that Friday afternoon as President Biden was walking to board his helicopter to camp David, a reporter shouted a question and asked about misinformation and Biden, you know, walked towards the reporter and said:
Joe Biden: They're killing people. I mean, it really, they look, the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated and that, and they're killing people.
Griffin: They're killing people. And that kind of comment is not a normal thing for a president to allege a major US company is doing, but that was how the president felt it was a moment of candor, and having that out in the open was a big PR crisis for the company. Many people pulled all-nighters. They were in touch with the White House. We've reviewed messages between Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg and others at the company. They felt that it was disingenuous, it didn't encompass the kind of work that they'd been doing on COVID. It was one of those moments where this tension really spilled into the public and showed how bad things had gotten between the administration and the company during this time.
Holder: Did that one moment help lead us to Zuckerberg's MAGA-ification today?
Griffin: My reporting suggests so. It's an important moment. It's a pivotal moment, but it's one of many moments you can look to that, I think, create a snowball effect, according to the people we've spoken with and have increasingly pushed Mark Zuckerberg in this direction.
Holder: By 2024, with Trump's third campaign in full swing, Zuckerberg dropped a big hint about his new political allegiances. In July of that year, days after Trump survived an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, Zuckerberg spoke with Bloomberg's Emily Chang.
Zuckerberg: I mean, 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.
Holder: After the break, Zuckerberg doubles down.
Holder: Since Donald Trump's reelection, Bloomberg Meta reporter Riley Griffin says Mark Zuckerberg has put a lot of effort into getting on the administration's good side. Meta made a $1 million donation to the inauguration fund. The night Trump was sworn in, Zuckerberg co-hosted a black-tie reception in the president's honor. In March, he acquired a $23 million mansion steps away from the Vice President's residence. And Riley says flight records for Zuckerberg's private jet show he has been making monthly trips to Washington. Meta has said Zuckerberg has traveled to Washington to discuss AI and American technology leadership and Zuckerberg has said that any American company should try to have a productive relationship with whoever is running the government.
Holder: Why is Zuckerberg doing all this? Why align with Trump? What's in it for him?
Griffin: This is the question we've posed to people for months now. We wanted to understand that, too. Because Mark Zuckerberg is a man who had supported diversity initiatives, who'd supported immigration reform, election integrity. What was happening here in terms of an about-face? What we've learned from the dozens of people we've spoken with is that Mark Zuckerberg is not a man with one specific political ideology or very specific values when it comes to politics or left or right. What's emerged instead, Sarah, is a portrait of a man who is focused on self preservation and dominance and ensuring his company is in the best position possible.
Holder: And there was potentially another influence at play, from another tech CEO who'd recently undergone a major political makeover.
Griffin: Through our reporting and speaking with more than 50 people, we've heard a term quite often, and this is 'Elon Envy'. Many sources inside of Meta have described a kind of envy that Mark Zuckerberg had for Elon Musk, feeling that he had not faced the same kind of political scrutiny that he was subject to, feeling that he was able to lay off employees from X without real consequence. Elon was moving fast and breaking things and not suffering the same kind of consequences that Mark Zuckerberg was feeling.
Holder: And this is when we see Zuckerberg move away from policies that have infuriated Trump for years, like Meta's fact checking program. Like we mentioned, Meta also broke up its civil rights team and rolled back hate speech policies.
Griffin: They rolled back diversity programs at Meta, also at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. They also reached a settlement - a $25 million settlement with Trump - over the removal and suspension of him from the platforms in the wake of January 6. A lot of that money is going to Trump's library. But I think the question stands, do these moves put him in the best position possible?
Holder: And that's a really good question, Riley, and it's one that I think a lot of people are wondering too, like if he's making this big shift, what does he have to show for it?
Griffin: I would say speaking with folks in the MAGA movement, including one Trump advisor, there's still a lot of distrust from MAGA, from people who have seen different postures towards Trump over the years. It created a lot of distrust for Mark Zuckerberg, and I think some people are still holding onto that. Trump as well as over the years suggested Mark Zuckerberg is a bit two-faced. He called him an ass kisser many a-time.
Holder: Riley says that so far, from a policy perspective, there isn't much evidence any of this is working out to Zuckerberg's advantage - at least, not yet. Take Trump's stance on TikTok, for instance.
Griffin: TikTok is a key competitor to Meta. There have been questions about whether it would be allowed to remain in the United States. So on that ground, we haven't necessarily seen him act in a way that would benefit Meta.
Holder: Meta is also currently facing an antitrust suit from the Federal Trade Commission, which threatens to break up Zuckerberg's $1.6 trillion business by forcing him to split off Instagram and WhatsApp.
Griffin: Mark Zuckerberg in the weeks before that trial lobbied essentially both the president, the administration, and the FTC chair himself, to try to reach a settlement before it went to trial. That didn't work. We saw Mark Zuckerberg take the stand in April and we will hopefully, in coming weeks, get a better sense of the outcome. But that went despite Mark Zuckerberg's pleas.
Holder: Even if Zuckerberg's realignment hasn't won him political favors, Riley says it has succeeded in opening up a channel to the president.
Griffin: This is something he'd lost over the Biden years and has now regained. For example, Mark Zuckerberg met with Vice President JD Vance in advance of an AI summit in Paris. And when JD Vance spoke before European leaders, he really hammered home a lot of the ideas that Mark Zuckerberg had presented to him just days prior. So that's the kind of soft influence we're tracking.
Holder: A White House spokesperson said in an email that Trump quote "takes meetings with many CEOs who are eager to participate in the Trump economy." In the meantime, Riley says Meta's new policies are having a clear impact on its platforms.
Griffin: I've spoken with several activist groups and groups that represent trans folk, women, the LGBTQ community more broadly, Jewish people. And again and again, folks are trying to assess whether hate speech is on the rise. One organization said they anticipate millions more, hundreds of millions more pieces of content that would've otherwise been removed to now remain on the platform due to these policy shifts.
Holder: Even Meta's own independent Oversight Board, which was created to weigh in on complicated content moderation decisions, was concerned by how quickly the changes were made and announced. In late April, it advised the company to assess and report on the potential harm of the new policies. Meta said it would respond to the recommendation within 60 days. In a statement to Bloomberg, Meta said, "While we will still address content that violates our policies, we are focused on reducing mistakes and over-enforcement of our rules."
Holder: Is this how it always works when political tides turn? That business leaders try to cozy up to whoever they think is best positioned to help their companies, whatever the stated values of that politician? What's different about Trump?
Griffin: I think what's notable about Trump - and really what makes him different from Biden before him - is a willingness to negotiate with people he formerly saw as an enemy. This is a president who's been quite aggressive and on-the-attack against Zuckerberg in the past. And now, we see a willingness to meet with him in Mar-a-Lago and in the West Wing. And so, I think that deal-making that detaches itself from history is a part of what makes Trump so notable. But we find that Zuckerberg offers a pretty revealing test case for that kind of negotiation strategy. This is a CEO who has gone well beyond many of his peers in making overtures and comments in support of the president, calling him badass, you know, on tape with us. So I think we still have to wait and see what this looks like.
Holder: While this may all serve Zuckerberg and Meta while Trump's in office - it raises serious questions about his longer term strategy.
Griffin: In speaking with people familiar with the company and its deliberations around its Trump strategy, we've learned that Meta is working on a plan to try to gain Democrats support in the case that they win power in Washington, be it a new administration or even in Congressional races that are upcoming.
Holder: But Riley says, given Zuckerberg's history, the Democratic party might be harder to win over if he tries to pivot himself and his company again someday.
Griffin: This is a guy who is always evolving and adapting to the situation at hand, and I think we found it's no different when it comes to politics.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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