Meta has agreed to pay $25 million to settle a lawsuit filed against the company after President Donald Trump suspended its accounts following the Capitol attack on January 6, 2021, according to three people familiar with the matter.
This is the latest instance of a large corporation settling lawsuits with the president, who has threatened retaliation against his critics and rivals, as Meta and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg have joined other big tech companies in trying to curry favor with the new Trump administration.
Meta spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the settlement on Wednesday. The terms of the agreement include $22 million going to the nonprofit that will become Trump’s future presidential library, two people said. The rest of the money will go to legal fees and other litigation costs, they said.
The settlement was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Zuckerberg met with Trump at his private Florida club in November to try to mend ties with the incoming president. It’s another step that tech, business and government officials have taken. Trump suggested he take up the case over dinner and try to resolve it, the people said, and the parties began two months of talks.
Meta also donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee, and Zuckerberg was among several billionaires who gave him prime seats at Trump’s inauguration in the Capitol Rotunda last week. Among them were Google’s Sundar Pichai, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk, the owner of Platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
Before Trump’s inauguration, Meta announced that it would drop fact-checking on its platform — a longtime priority for Trump and his allies.
Trump filed the lawsuit a few months into his first term, calling the social media companies “unlawful, shameful censorship of the American people.”
Twitter, Facebook, and Google are all private companies, and users must agree to their terms of service to use their products. Under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, social media platforms are allowed to moderate their services by removing posts that are obscene or violate the services’ own standards, as long as they act “in good faith.” The law generally exempts internet companies from liability for material posted by users.
But Trump and some other politicians have long argued that X, Facebook and other social media platforms have abused that protection and that their immunity should be removed — or at least limited.
ABC News reached a settlement last month after Meta agreed to pay Trump’s presidential library $15 million to settle a defamation lawsuit over a false on-air claim by anchor George Stephanopoulos that the president-elect was civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll.
The network also agreed to pay Trump’s lawyer, Alejandro Brito, $1 million in legal fees.
The settlement describes ABC’s presidential library payment as a “charitable contribution,” and the money is earmarked for a nonprofit organization set up to handle the library, which has yet to be built.
The president has filed suit, arguing that legacy media companies have targeted him for unfair coverage.
Trump has filed a lawsuit against CBS News, accusing the network of airing a misleading interview with his 2024 opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, on “60 Minutes,” which he says constitutes “biased and illegal election and voter interference practices” intended to “mislead the public and attempt to tip the balance.” The program has denied the allegations.
The Des Moines Register, the news outlet’s parent company, Gannett, and Iowa newspaper pollster Ann Selzer were sued for releasing a poll that significantly underestimated his support in the state just days before the November election. The newspaper and Selzer have denied wrongdoing.
