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After the January 6 Capitol attack, Meta suspended President Trump from Facebook and Instagram. In a 2021 federal lawsuit, Trump alleged First Amendment violations and other claims. Meta has now agreed to a $25 million settlement to resolve the case.
This settlement ends the lawsuit that Trump had brought against Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg, alleging that they engaged in “impermissible censorship” by deleting the president’s posts from their sites.
The Wall Street Journal was the first to announce the settlement amount, and a representative from Meta has now verified it. An executive from the corporation stated that the president’s library would get around $22 million from the settlement.
K. Winn Allen, Zuckerberg’s attorney, informed a judge in Northern California that the “parties have reached an agreement” and that they will shortly ask to dismiss the case, but he did not disclose the amount of the settlement in a letter he sent to the court on Wednesday.
There was a delay in a response from a White House spokesman.
Zuckerberg’s Efforts to Mend Relations with Trump
Like other tech, corporate, and government elites, Zuckerberg made a visit to Trump at his private Florida club in November in an effort to make changes with the future president. According to the sources, Trump initiated two months of negotiations between the parties by bringing up the issue during the dinner and suggesting they attempt to resolve it.
This settlement is seen as another step in Zuckerberg’s attempt to improve relations with Trump. Over the years, several Silicon Valley executives, including Zuckerberg, contributed $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund.
He terminated the fact-checking initiative at Meta earlier this month after Trump supporters had heavily criticized it for quite some time. Additionally, Zuckerberg appointed Republican lobbyist Joel Kaplan to oversee Facebook’s international operations. Meta also appointed Trump supporter Dana White to their board of directors.
After years of rivalry, Zuckerberg has finally embraced Trump.
In a book that Trump published prior to his victory, he expressed his displeasure with the over $400 million that Zuckerberg gave in 2020 to help local electoral offices deal with the coronavirus emergency. The president went on to say that he is keeping a close eye on Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and threatened to imprison him for “the rest of his life.”
Meta’s Legal Defense
As of late, Meta’s legal team has been actively defending the company in court, arguing that the lawsuit lacks merit since “Meta and its CEOs are private parties” and the First Amendment protects free expression only when it’s used by the government to prohibit speech.
Trump’s lawsuit claimed that elected officials pressured Meta to suspend his accounts, and Meta later acknowledged this as government overreach.
In response, Meta’s legal team clarified that Trump’s suspension was due to policy violations including promoting violence, and not to any remarks made by a member of Congress.
It was “little sense to attribute a private party’s action to the government based on a handful of statements from individual members of Congress,” according to Meta’s lawyers who submitted a suit.
The Meta payment is the second one given to Trump in the last few months. E. Jean Carroll has accused Trump of sexual abuse, and ABC News settled a case by paying $15 million to Trump in December.
