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Meta Offers to Settle Trump Lawsuit for $25m


— January 29, 2025

“This is going to be a big year for redefining our relationships with governments,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said.


Meta has offered to pay $25 million to settle a longstanding lawsuit filed by President Donald after the social media company suspended his accounts in response to the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol building.

According to NBC News, Meta filed a notice of settlement with a San Francisco-based federal court. In a statement, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone confirmed that, under the terms of the agreement, Meta will pay $25 million to settle the president’s claims. Of that amount, $22 million will go into a fund for Trump’s presidential library, with the remainder going to legal fees and costs.

Stone emphasized that the settlement does not include any admission of wrongdoing.

However, the New York Times suggests that the payment could be construed an eager concession: although Trump has long been a vocal critic of social media platforms, he has recently begun cultivating close ties with technology executives, including Tesla founder Elon Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Trump in front of American flag. Image via Flickr/user:thejointstaff. (CCA-BY-2.0).

On Wednesday, Zuckerberg went so far as to praise the Trump administration in a call with investors, telling them that the president is “defending our values.”

“This is going to be a big year for redefining our relationships with governments,” Zuckerberg said.

Trump first filed his lawsuit against Meta in July of 2021, several months after the company suspended his Facebook and Instagram accounts.

Twitter, which was named as a defendant in a related lawsuit, indicated that Trump had been banned for the “glorification of violence.” In a blog post, Twitter pointed to a series of posts published by Trump on January 8, 2021, wherein he repeated baseless claims that the presidential election had been rigged to favor Joe Biden.

Trump said that the lawsuits were intended to stop purported bias against conservatives and conservative viewpoints across on social media.

“We are demanding an end to the shadow-banning, a stop to the silencing, and a stop to the blacklisting, banishing, and cancelling that you know so well,” Trump said at a press conference.

The abrupt settlement, along with Trump’s blossoming relationship with Mark Zuckerberg, has led some Democrats to speculate that Meta’s offer of $25 million was meant more to curry favor with the president than to right a legal wrong. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, for instance, said that the settlement “looks like a bribe and a signal to every company that corruption is the name of the game.”

“After Meta pays to play, what does Mark Zuckerberg expect as a return on this investment?” Warren said.

Sources

Meta agrees to pay $25 million to settle Trump lawsuit over suspended accounts

Meta Agrees to Pay Trump $25 Million to Settle His Lawsuit

Meta agrees to pay Trump $25 million to settle lawsuit over Facebook and Instagram suspensions

Meta to Pay $25 Million to Settle 2021 Trump Lawsuit

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