Former President Trump said he likes Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg “much better now,” as the head of Facebook and Instagram increasingly looks to stay out of politics.
“I actually believe he’s staying out of the election, which is nice,” Trump said in an interview on the latest episode of the Barstool Sports podcast “Bussin’ With The Boys” released Tuesday.
Trump and Zuckerberg have had a contentious relationship since Facebook banned the former president from the platform in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. His account was reinstated in 2023.
The former president has continued to rail against Facebook in recent months, labeling it an “Enemy of the People” and arguing that efforts to ban TikTok in the U.S. would empower the platform and Zuckerberg.
“If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in March. “I don’t want Facebook, who cheated in the last Election, doing better. They are a true Enemy of the People!”
However, Zuckerberg has recently made a concerted effort to extract himself from politics.
Meta’s platforms have increasingly sought to move away from political content. Instagram updated the platform earlier this year so that it no longer recommends political content unless users manually change their settings.
Zuckerberg also said he would not endorse either Trump or President Biden — who later dropped out of the race and was replaced by Vice President Harris — and did not plan to play a “significant role” in the 2024 election.
“I’ve done some stuff personally in the past,” the Meta CEO said of his previous political involvement in an interview with Bloomberg in July. “I’m not planning on doing that this time, and that includes not endorsing either of the candidates.”
However, he did express awe at Trump’s reaction to an attempt on his life at a campaign rally earlier that month, describing it as “badass.”
“Seeing 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’ve ever seen in my life,” he said at the time.
“On some level as an American, it’s like hard to not get kind of emotional about that spirit and that fight, and I think that that’s why a lot of people like the guy,” Zuckerberg added.
Trump said last month that the Meta CEO called him after the assassination attempt and told him he could not vote for a Democrat in the upcoming election.
Meta denied the story, emphasizing that “as Mark has said publicly, he’s not endorsing anybody in this race and has not communicated to anybody how he intends to vote.”