Mark Zuckerberg calls Trump ‘badass’ over reaction to assassination attempt

July 19, 2024

Mark Zuckerberg called former President Donald Trump “badass” over his response to last weekend’s assassination attempt, although the tech billionaire stopped short of endorsing him for the 2024 election.

The boss of social-networking giant Meta – who has a net worth of $167 billion according to Forbes – applauded Trump’s strength after surviving an assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania rally over the weekend that left him bleeding from the ear.

“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,” Zuckerberg said Thursday during a Bloomberg interview.

“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.”

The praise comes despite years of bad blood between the social media titan and former president.

Trump’s Facebook posts were often flagged for containing misinformation and breaking Meta’s rules. Then the company suspended Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts for two years after the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riots – prompting him to create Truth Social, a Trump-centric remake of X.

Back then, Zuckerberg posted that Trump was using his account to “undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power” to President Joe Biden.

But now Zuckerberg said he’s “not planning” to be involved in the election and wants to depoliticize Facebook.

“The main thing that I hear from people is that they actually want to see less political content on our services because they come to our services to connect with people,” Zuckerberg said.

He said Facebook has already started showing users less political content.

“I think you’re going to see our services play less of a role in this election than they have in the past,” Zuckerberg said.

Zuckerberg joins a growing number of business bigwigs and Wall Street titans clapping Trump on the back.

Elon Musk issued a last-minute Trump endorsement just 30 minutes after the Pennsylvania shooting, and has since pledged $45 million monthly to a Trump super PAC. Venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz also reportedly have plans to donate to a Trump PAC.

Wall Street CEOs including Jamie Dimon and David Solomon spoke in support of Trump soon after the shooting.

Regardless of Zuckerberg’s praise, Trump doesn’t seem to have forgiven the social media mogul. In fact, he threatened the billionaire with imprisonment just last week.

“All I can say is that if I’m elected President, we will pursue Election Fraudsters at levels never seen before, and they will be sent to prison for long periods of time,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “We already know who you are. DON’T DO IT! ZUCKERBUCKS, be careful!”

During his presidency, Trump fought to ban Chinese-owned video app TikTok – a yearslong legislative battle still in progress. He has since changed his tune.

“I’m for TikTok because you need competition,” Trump told Bloomberg BusinessWeek in an interview posted Tuesday. “If you don’t have TikTok, you have Facebook and Instagram.”

Trump holds a majority stake in Trump Media and Technology Group – the company that owns his network Truth Social. The company has a $7 billion market cap despite quarterly revenue of $770,000 – comparable to two US Starbucks shops – as the social media app has struggled to grow and retain its small user base.

Zuckerberg said he welcomes competition in the social media space.

“I think we’re doing pretty well here,” he said during the Bloomberg interview. “We’re gaining market share. So I don’t know. They’ll go what they need to do but I think we’re gonna be fine and we’re gonna continue doing well in this space either way.”

When asked if TikTok should be banned in the US, Zuckerberg ducked the question and said: “That’s above my pay grade.”