KUALA LUMPUR – US President Donald Trump has signed a legal settlement requiring Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, Meta, to pay him approximately $25 million (RM110mil).
Trump had sued Meta and its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, in 2021 after the social media giant suspended his accounts following the January 6 Capitol riots.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the settlement, which was finalised months after Meta lifted the last restrictions on Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts in July 2024 ahead of the US presidential elections.
Of the settlement amount, about $22 million (RM96million) will go to a fund for Trump’s presidential library, while the remainder will cover legal fees and compensation for other plaintiffs. Meta has not admitted to any wrongdoing.
Meta suspended Trump’s accounts in 2021, initially barring him for at least two years. After Trump won the presidency in November, Zuckerberg visited his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, in what was widely seen as a sign of warming ties between the two. The following month, Meta donated US$1 million (RM4.39 million) to Trump’s inauguration fund. Zuckerberg also attended Trump’s swearing-in ceremony at the US Capitol earlier this month, seated near other tech industry leaders.
Trump has long criticised Zuckerberg and Facebook, branding the platform “anti-Trump” in 2017. Tensions escalated further after his ban, with Trump calling Facebook an “enemy of the people” in March 2024.
Twitter, now known as X and owned by Trump ally Elon Musk, had also “permanently” suspended Trump’s account.
However, after acquiring the platform for $44 billion (RM193 billion), Musk reinstated the account in 2022 following a user poll that narrowly supported the decision.
Separately on Wednesday, according to the BBC, Meta defended its $65 billion (RM285 million) investment in artificial intelligence (AI) amid market turbulence caused by the rapid rise of Chinese AI app Deepseek. Zuckerberg told investors that while Deepseek’s emergence was notable, it was too early to draw firm conclusions about its impact on AI’s future.
“If anything, I think the recent news has only strengthened our conviction that this is the right thing for us to be focused on,” he said.
Despite a broader decline in US tech stocks this week, Meta’s shares rose, buoyed by better-than-expected financial results. However, DeepSeek’s claim that it was developed at a fraction of the cost of US rivals has raised questions about the competitive landscape of AI.
In a call with investors, Zuckerberg reiterated Meta’s commitment to open-source AI, arguing that it was crucial for the US to remain at the forefront of AI development.
“There’s going to be an open-source standard globally, and I think for our own national advantage, it’s important that it’s an American standard,” he said.
“We take that seriously. We want to build the AI system that people around the world are using.”
Meta has diverged from many US tech firms by releasing an open-source AI model, a strategy Zuckerberg believes will help maintain the country’s leadership in the field. – January 30, 2025
