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Mark Zuckerberg has been burned before. In the elections of 2016 and 2020, Facebook came under intense scrutiny. (And it's still going on: There was a Supreme Court hearing Wednesday over lingering issues from the Cambridge Analytica scandal.)
In 2024, Zuckerberg and Meta played it safe by trying to stay as far away from the election as possible. No more elaborate efforts to register voters on Facebook. No more $400 million donations to get-out-the-vote efforts like in 2020. No more promoting news pages or Facebook Groups that might do things like organize a large and dangerous rally.
Meta nipped the whole thing in the bud by tamping down news and political content recommendations across Facebook, Threads, and Instagram. Sure, this was at least in part because user feedback told them we all wanted less political content — but it also happened to be quite convenient for a company that wanted out of the nightmare of continuous controversies anyway.
The strategy paid off: On Tuesday, there's little talk of Meta's role in the election. Zuckerberg's would-be grappling partner, Elon Musk, did the exact opposite: He went all-in on Trump with both his own money and the heft of his social platform. That turned out well for Musk — but it was a risk.
So Meta made it through the election without half the country convinced that it helped cause the result. Meanwhile, Zuckerberg is unlikely to be dragged in front of Congress to answer questions about his platform's perceived bias.
What a Trump administration means for Meta, well, we'll see. There are some potential downsides for Big Tech — tariffs could hurt parts of their businesses, for example. And Meta is already facing a variety of legal battles with states. But any possible outcomes — good or bad — are more in the realm of normal ups and downs, not existential reckonings or crises. For Meta, it'll likely be broadly business as usual.
As far as Trump's threat to jail Zuckerberg? I'll eat my hat and Trump's if that actually happens. It was part of the rhetoric from Trump grumbling about the 2020 election outcome. Now that he's won in a clear and decisive way, I think he'll move on.
And Zuckerberg, like some other CEOs, seems to have figured out the most effective way to manage Trump: deal with him privately — Zuckerberg met with Trump at an undisclosed dinner in 2019 — and praise him publicly. After the assassination attempt on Trump in July, Zuckerberg referred to Trump as looking "badass."
On Wednesday, Zuckerberg continued to play it safe. He posted a message to Threads congratulating Trump on his win. But he was apparently playing it truly safe: He didn't post his message until two hours after Jeff Bezos posted a congratulations message of his own.
