6 hours Ago By News Ghana
Former U.S. President Donald Trump and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, have reached a $25 million legal settlement stemming from Trump’s 2021 lawsuit over the suspension of his social media accounts following the January 6 Capitol riots.
The agreement, first reported by The Wall Street Journal , marks a notable détente between the former president and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, whose relationship had been fraught for years. Under the terms, approximately $22 million will fund a presidential library in Trump’s name, with the remainder covering legal fees and other plaintiffs. Meta did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement, which comes three years after the company banned Trump for inciting violence during the Capitol attack.
The ban was partially lifted in July 2024, just months ahead of the U.S. presidential election, allowing Trump full access to his Facebook and Instagram accounts.
The resolution follows a series of reconciliatory gestures between Trump and Zuckerberg. After Trump’s November 2024 election victory, Zuckerberg visited the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, a move interpreted as mending ties. Meta later donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund, and Zuckerberg attended the January 2025 swearing-in ceremony, seated among tech billionaires.
This thaw contrasts sharply with Trump’s earlier rhetoric; he once labeled Facebook “anti-Trump” and, in 2024, declared it an “enemy of the people.” The settlement coincides with Meta’s aggressive pivot toward artificial intelligence (AI), even as U.S.
tech stocks wobbled this week amid the meteoric rise of China’s DeepSeek, an AI app developed at a fraction of the cost of American rivals. Zuckerberg defended Meta’s $65 billion AI investment during an investor call Wednesday, arguing that open-source AI development—a strategy diverging from competitors—would cement U.S.
leadership in the field. “There’s going to be an open-source standard globally, and for our national advantage, it’s important that it’s an American standard,” he said. Meta’s stock rose in after-hours trading following stronger-than-expected Q4 2024 earnings, including 48billioninrevenue(up21 48 bi ll i o nin re v e n u e ( u p 21 20 billion in profit (a 49% jump).
Despite AI costs, the results underscored investor confidence in Zuckerberg’s vision, which includes ambitions to replace traditional glasses with smart glasses within a decade and revive Facebook’s “cultural relevance” amid competition from TikTok and Instagram. Yet the settlement and Zuckerberg’s AI fervor raise broader questions. Critics argue Meta’s reinstatement of Trump—coupled with its decision to scrap fact-checking in favor of “community notes”—risks amplifying misinformation ahead of a contentious election cycle.
Meanwhile, Trump’s return to mainstream platforms contrasts with his continued presence on X (formerly Twitter), reinstated by ally Elon Musk in 2022. As Zuckerberg navigates these political and technological crosscurrents, the deal with Trump underscores a recurring theme: in tech and politics, alliances are often as fluid as they are strategic. For Meta, the path forward hinges on balancing innovation with accountability—a challenge as complex as the AI systems it aims to dominate.
.
