Zuckerberg, once a champion for the undocumented, embraces Trump
Donald Trump campaigned for a second term on a pledge to carry out the "largest deportation effort in American history" starting on his first day in office. He has promised to declare a national emergency, construct massive detention camps, and deploy the U.S. military. Meanwhile, last week, at CEO Mark Zuckerberg's direction, Meta donated $1 million to help celebrate Trump's second inauguration.
The donation came after Zuckerberg had "dinner with Trump on the patio of his private Mar-a-Lago club." Zuckerberg's staff reportedly "told the inaugural fund before the dinner that Meta planned to donate." During his visit, Zuckerberg also met with Trump advisor Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump's child separation policy who was caught collaborating with white nationalists. The Wall Street Journal also reported that Zuckerberg "has told other business leaders that he is optimistic about a Trump presidency."
The $1 million donation is the culmination of a striking turnaround for Zuckerberg. He has gone from advocating for humane treatment for undocumented immigrants to offering his financial support to a President-elect who has pledged a brutal crackdown.
In 2013, Mark Zuckerberg announced he was creating FWD.us, a group dedicated to advocating for immigrants, including the undocumented. In a column published in the Washington Post, Zuckerberg said he was inspired to start the organization by an undocumented middle school student in a class he was teaching about entrepreneurship.
One day I asked my students what they thought about going to college. One of my top aspiring entrepreneurs told me he wasn’t sure that he’d be able to go to college because he’s undocumented. His family is from Mexico, and they moved here when he was a baby… These students are smart and hardworking, and they should be part of our future.
Zuckerberg said he supported a "welcoming immigration policy" that reflected America's status as a "nation of immigrants." He advocated for "comprehensive immigration reform" that included "a path to citizenship" for undocumented immigrants. Zuckerberg pledged to "strongly support those willing to take the tough stands necessary to promote these policies in Washington."
During Trump's first run for the presidency, Zuckerberg's group blasted his calls for the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants. "Mass deportation is absurd on its face and these policies are indefensible on human, economic, and political grounds," Todd Schulte, the president of FWD.us, said. Schulte remains the group's president today.
Zuckerberg himself criticized Trump at an April 2016 conference for Facebook developers. "I hear fearful voices calling for building walls," he said. "Instead of building walls, we can help people build bridges." On Facebook, Zuckerberg called his comments "personally important to me" because "I care deeply about connecting the world and bringing people together."
FWD.us created a six-part video series, 11 Million Stories, that explains the "costs of removing that many undocumented immigrants from the United States and imagines what a 'deportation force' like that suggested by Trump … would look like." (FWD.us has removed the video series from YouTube.) "We are trying to draw a line in the sand for those for and against mass deportation," FWD.us spokesman Michael Rekola said. "We are on the side of any politician against mass deportation who wants to present a serious solution to fixing our broken immigration system."
In 2017, Zuckerberg hosted three undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children "at his Silicon Valley home… live-streaming their personal stories and pressing Congress to pass a law that protects them — and 800,000 others — from possible deportation." The livestream came days after Trump announced he was rescinding DACA, the program former President Barack Obama established to protect young undocumented immigrants from deportation. Zuckerberg urged Congress to "show they can lead" and block Trump's executive action.
A few years later, Zuckerberg is no longer speaking out about protecting the undocumented from deportation. Instead, he is ingratiating himself with the incoming Trump administration. Zuckerberg has offered no public explanation for his change of heart. Popular Information's request for comment was not returned.
Zuckerberg is not the only billionaire to effectively abandon his signature policy issue in preparation for a second Trump term.
Bezos, who declared climate change "the biggest threat to our nation," embraces Trump
In January 2020, Jeff Bezos, the founder and current executive chairman of Amazon, blasted anyone who failed to recognize the reality of climate change. “Anybody today who is not acknowledging that climate change is real — that we humans are affecting this planet in a very significant and dangerous way — those people are not being reasonable," Bezos said at an Amazon conference in India.
In February 2020, Bezos claimed that climate change was "the biggest threat to our planet." Curbing climate change, he said, would "take collective action from big companies, small companies, nation states, global organizations, and individuals." Bezos announced he was so passionate about the issue that he was creating the Bezos Earth Fund and putting in $10 billion to help protect the earth. (So far, the Bezos Earth Fund has distributed $2 billion in grants.)
The announcement built on Amazon's own "Climate Pledge," which committed the company to "reach the goals of the Paris Agreement 10 years early, and… operate on 100% renewable electricity by 2030." Bezos wanted other companies to follow suit and even bought the naming rights to the home of the NHL's Seattle Kraken, dubbing it "Climate Pledge Arena."
Trump holds the opposite view. For many years, Trump has called the idea of climate change a "hoax," pushing a variety of false claims to support his position. At a September rally, Trump called climate change "one of the greatest scams of all time." Trump has pledged that, as president, he will roll back regulations limiting fossil fuel production and initiatives designed to reduce carbon emissions, like incentives for the production of green energy and electric cars. These actions would accelerate climate change. He is also expected to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement for a second time, dealing a significant blow to global efforts.
Bezos, however, is not sounding the alarm about any of this. Instead, through Amazon, he followed Zuckerberg's lead and donated $1 million to Trump's second inaugural celebration. “Bezos is donating through Amazon,” a person close to Bezos told the Wall Street Journal. The company "also will stream the inauguration through its Prime Video business, a separate, in-kind donation valued at $1 million."
In an interview with the New York Times' Andrew Ross Sorkin, Bezos said he was "very optimistic" about the second Trump presidency. Specifically, Bezos said he was "very hopeful" about Trump's agenda "around reducing regulation." Bezos did not mention that many of the regulations Trump wants to roll back are critical to reducing carbon emissions and curbing climate change.
Bezos is also the owner of the Washington Post and said he was "very proud" of his decision to kill a piece by the paper's editorial board endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris. Now that Trump is returning to the White House, Bezos said it was his job to convince Trump that the press is not his enemy.
"I have had a lot of success in life not being cynical," Bezos concluded.
They forget the first rule of Trump - loyalty only flows one way. They also forget the first rule of blackmail - the first payment is only a down payment. They also forgot the second rule of Trump - $1M is not nearly enough to keep him from slamming you when it serves his purposes. F'k them all.
So, post 2024 election, you can see which way the wind is blowing, what matters more: your principles or your pocketbook? Certainly ironic that it seems the bigger the pocketbook, the more obvious the answer.