\n It follows a years-long push by Meta to bolster its relationship with the White House and Republicans \u2014 one that Zuckerberg and Meta pursued very intentionally.\n <\/p>\n
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\n Zuckerberg has frequently traveled to Washington or talked with Trump on the phone, allied himself with other prominent tech executives in the president\u2019s orbit, and played a chief role in encouraging Trump\u2019s own enthusiasm for the rapid development of AI models, people familiar with the dynamics said.\n <\/p>\n
\n Trump, a former television star who remains closely attuned to people\u2019s appearances, has also approvingly noted Zuckerberg\u2019s physical transformation over the years from slender, hoodie-wearing Washington newcomer to a muscular billionaire who practices jiu jitsu and works with professional stylists, one of the people said. Zuckerberg was among the mixed martial arts enthusiasts who watched a UFC fight on the White House lawn with Trump in June.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cMark saw that Elon (Musk) made a high-risk, high-reward decision in backing Trump before the election and saw how much influence he was having on the administration,\u201d said Katie Harbath, a tech consultant and former public policy director for Meta.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cHe realized that if he wanted to have that same sort of influence for the company, he was going to have to figure out how to repair relations \u2014 and what we saw (at the White House AI meeting) is a definite symbol that, for the moment, he has.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Like many in Silicon Valley at the start of the 2010s, Zuckerberg was friendly with former President Barack Obama, an early pioneer in using social media for politics.\n <\/p>\n
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\n But that shifted<\/a> in subsequent years, as lawmakers and government officials on both sides of the aisle called Zuckerberg to task for issues on his platforms.\n <\/p>\n \n Then, shortly after the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, Zuckerberg temporarily banned<\/a> Trump from Facebook and Instagram, over concerns about escalating violence.\n <\/p>\n \n Trump raged at Zuckerberg in response, accusing Zuckerberg of plotting against him, and threatening<\/a> him with \u201clife in prison.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n In the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, Trump warned that he would pursue \u201cELECTION FRAUDSTERS\u201d who would be \u201csent to prison for long periods of time.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe already know who you are. DON\u2019T DO IT! ZUCKERBUCKS, be careful!\u201d Trump wrote in July of that year on Truth Social.\n <\/p>\n \n Just days after that post Trump would survive an assassination attempt during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. A week later, Zuckerberg declined to endorse anyone for president but said<\/a> \u201cseeing 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\u2019ve ever seen in my life.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Weeks later, Trump said<\/a> he liked Zuckerberg \u201cmuch better now.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n When Trump won the election, many in Silicon Valley made the decision to support the president-elect, earning prime seats<\/a> during the Inauguration.\n <\/p>\n \n Zuckerberg and Meta made a concerted effort to repair relationships within the GOP and align with the conservative faction of Silicon Valley that has succeeded in exercising broad influence over the administration\u2019s tech priorities.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201c(Zuckerberg) is very good at being a political chameleon. He\u2019s a survivor in terms of his relationships in DC,\u201d one person familiar with the dynamics told CNN.\n <\/p>\n \n Zuckerberg visited Mar-a-Lago<\/a> weeks after Trump\u2019s reelection, and then began shoveling money toward the incoming president and his pet projects.\n <\/p>\n \n Meta donated $1 million to Trump\u2019s inauguration, a move that earned Zuckerberg a prominent spot on the dais alongside a bevy of other tech executives. The company was also one of the major initial funders to Trump\u2019s White House ballroom project. Last year, Meta agreed to pay<\/a> roughly $25 million to settle a lawsuit brought by Trump over his suspension from the company\u2019s platforms, with most of that money set to go toward Trump\u2019s future presidential library.\n <\/p>\n \n Republicans also point to Zuckerberg\u2019s 2025 decision to tap longtime Republican operative Joel Kaplan as his main envoy to Washington \u2014 replacing former center-left British politician-turned-Meta global affairs chief Nick Clegg \u2014 for driving the political reset on Capitol Hill.\n <\/p>\n \n Meta\u2019s subsequent rollback of content moderation policies that conservatives had blamed for \u201ccensoring\u201d right-wing views on its platforms served as another overt olive branch to the Republican Party.\n <\/p>\n \n Zuckerberg later hired former senior Trump official Dina Powell McCormick as Meta\u2019s president, an addition that the people familiar with the matter said was critical in establishing a friendly conduit between the company and Trumpworld. Powell McCormick \u2014 who was deputy national security adviser during Trump\u2019s first term and is also the wife of Pennsylvania GOP Sen. Dave McCormick \u2014 has remained close to Trump and many of his advisers, and played what one of the people described as an outsized role in the AI policy debate.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI said, \u2018how did he think of that one?\u2019 That was a good move, he\u2019s very smart,\u201d Trump said, in an apparent reference to Zuckerberg\u2019s hiring of Powell McCormick as he showered praise on her during a speech on AI last week.\n <\/p>\n \n The relationship has proven fruitful.\n <\/p>\n \n Earlier this summer, the White House intervened after the Senate Judiciary Committee said it would call tech CEOs to testify about youth safety. Afterward, committee leader Sen. Chuck Grassley adjusted the plan from calling Zuckerberg to seeking testimony from his deputy, Instagram head Adam Mosseri, according to two people familiar with the matter. The hearing has been repeatedly rescheduled and doesn\u2019t currently have a set date.\n <\/p>\n \n Zuckerberg was also among those who personally counseled Trump against a proposal championed by Google AI leader Demis Hassabis to create an independent AI regulator over the summer, a person familiar with the situation told CNN.\n <\/p>\n \n At the Chinese State Dinner last month, Zuckerberg took advantage of his prime seat assignment next to House Speaker Mike Johnson to discuss the leading issue looming over the AI industry and Washington: how to regulate AI, and what to accomplish at the White House meeting the following week between top tech CEOs and government leaders.\n <\/p>\n \n Zuckerberg, in conversation with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, came up with the draft for the AI safety accord. Zuckerberg took the lead, with Huang weighing in on how to ensure the agreement would get broad industry support, a source familiar with the discussions said.\n <\/p>\n \n Soon, many of the executives that would be at the White House began exchanging messages about a \u201cpact that allows us to implement standards, implement governance, and then have third parties check it and see it,\u201d said Exiger CEO Brandon Daniels, who was at the meeting.\n <\/p>\n \n As they sat around the massive table in the White House\u2019s East Room last week \u2014 Zuckerberg seated next to Huang, who was next to Trump \u2014 the group massaged the wording of the accord, which was printed out then and there. It was put together so quickly, it seems, that a typo in the word \u201cUnited States\u201d appeared in the copy posted by Trump.\n <\/p>\n \n Speaking to the press after the meeting, Trump pushed Zuckerberg to explain what they had signed, noting he thought the Meta CEO, \u201chad a view that was, I thought, really right down, right down the middle.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n In his comments, Zuckerberg framed the accord as a way for the American people to have \u201cconfidence the technology works in the way that we intend.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThe idea isn\u2019t that this is the only thing that we will ever do, it is that this is a start and an accord that the whole industry can come to. And I was very proud to have that discussion,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n \n Sources in the AI industry and Washington say it comes as a no surprise that Zuckerberg and Huang who spearheaded the \u201cmorally binding\u201d accord<\/a>, rather than anything with significant legal or regulatory teeth. Like Zuckerberg, Huang has argued against<\/a> an industry-wide slowdown, saying the recent spike in safety concerns sparked by AI agents going rogue and hacking into other companies is just an engineering problem that needs to be solved.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cZuckerberg\u2019s messaging and Jensen\u2019s messaging about their beliefs is simply closer to where Trump wants to be,\u201d said one person familiar with the relationships, unlike other executives, like Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who have earned the White House\u2019s ire for warning about AI\u2019s risks.\n <\/p>\n \n A White House official told CNN the accord will \u201cadvance American innovation and strengthen responsible development\u201d and that the administration \u201chas worked closely with all industry partners, including Meta, to balance innovation and security in (superintelligence) policymaking.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Meta declined to comment.\n <\/p>\n \n Yet even as Zuckerberg has grown closer to Trump, he\u2019s continued to face deep skepticism in some corners of the president\u2019s orbit. Some advisers wary of the risks posed by AI have grumbled over the influence wielded by wealthy outsiders like Zuckerberg, especially as Trump has increasingly gravitated toward their more accelerationist worldview.\n <\/p>\n \n Cozying up to Trump and Republicans could also be risky for Meta if Democrats take control of Congress in November \u2014 or the White House in 2028 \u2014 as some lawmakers continue to call for legislation that could hit the company\u2019s bottom line.\n <\/p>\n \n Sen. Elizabeth Warren last month offered a preview of the harsh scrutiny that Meta might soon face, launching an inquiry into the ways it and other tech companies have benefited from Republican policies.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cYour company has spent lavishly to stay on the good side of President Trump, and it appears that you are now seeing your investment bear fruit,\u201d she wrote in a letter<\/a> to Zuckerberg signed by five other Democratic senators and demanding specifics on Meta\u2019s donations to GOP groups and a litany of Trump\u2019s own pet projects.\n <\/p>\n \n To that end, some in Trump\u2019s circle say they simply don\u2019t buy Zuckerberg\u2019s transformation into a MAGA ally as anything more than political opportunism. And they argue that the outsized influence wielded by tech executives over the administration\u2019s priorities has only ended up hurting its standing with Trump\u2019s populist base.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI would never have let him in,\u201d lamented one longtime Trump ally. \u201cI don\u2019t understand it at all. It doesn\u2019t make any sense to me.\u201d\n <\/p>\n ![\"Joel](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/03-ap25047415436210.JPG\")
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