Meta Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg has decided not to support any candidate in the 2024 race.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Zuckerberg, 40, stated he does not intend to be heavily involved in the 2024 election.
“I’m not planning on doing that this time, and that includes not endorsing either of the candidates,” he said, acknowledging that he had “done some stuff personally in the past.”
Following the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump last Saturday at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, several prominent figures in the tech industry, including Elon Musk of X, Tesla, and SpaceX, have endorsed the president.
While Corey Comperatore, 50, a former fire chief, was shot and murdered while protecting his family from gunshots, Trump was hit in the ear.
Snipers with the Secret Service shot and killed the gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks.
According to The Hill, a number of erstwhile Democratic donors, such as Shaun Maguire of Sequoia Capital and Palantir advisor Jacob Helberg, have endorsed Trump. According to Reuters, Trump is receiving support from venture entrepreneurs Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz in the presidential contest.
“Watching 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 Bloomberg, hesitating to back Trump.
He continued: “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.”
In keeping with Meta, the parent corporation of Facebook and Instagram, Zuckerberg has chosen to attempt to avoid politics this election season. Meta also wants to restrict political information on its platforms.
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Instagram declared in February that it will no longer actively suggest political content. If users would choose to continue receiving recommendations for political content, they would need to make changes to their settings.
“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. So, that’s what we’re going to do,” Zuckerberg stated.
“We give people control over this, but we’re generally trying to recommend less political content,” he continued. “So, I think you’re going to see our services play less of a role in this election than they have in the past.”
Trump has received criticism from Meta on several occasions for posting false information and violating the guidelines of its platforms. Following the Capitol incident on January 6, 2021, Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts were suspended for almost two years; he still seems to find this upsetting.
On July 9, Trump stated on Truth Social: “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. We already know who you are. DON’T DO IT! ZUCKERBUCKS, be careful!”
