Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been pretty busy ever since President Donald Trump threatened to sue his company back in June.
The 35-year-old has reportedly been hosting "informal talks and off-the-record dinners," with right-wing figures since July, according to Politico. He's been talking with conservative pundits and lawmakers about issues such as free speech and creating partnerships with them.
“The discussion in Silicon Valley is that Zuckerberg is very concerned about the Justice Department, under Bill Barr, bringing an enforcement action to break up the company,” a former government official told Politico. “So the fear is that Zuckerberg is trying to appease the Trump administration by not cracking down on right-wing propaganda.”
Zuckerberg is aware of the claims of bias from the right about Facebook, and has been hosting the dinners as a way to mitigate their outrage. Fox News host Tucker Carlson, editor-in-chief of the Daily Wire Ben Shapiro, and right-wing talk radio host Hugh Hewitt are just a few of the high-profile figures to have appeared at the talks. The meetings are off-the-record, Politico reports.
The Facebook CEO's dinners are primarily about “free expression, unfair treatment of conservatives, the appeals process for real or perceived unfair treatment, fact checking, partnerships, and privacy,” a source told the news outlet. The dinners are held at Zuckerberg's California homes.
The Facebook CEO has had other things to worry about lately—like an Elizabeth Warren presidency.
"You have someone like Elizabeth Warren who thinks that the right answer is to break up the companies ... if she gets elected president, then I would bet that we will have a legal challenge, and I would bet that we will win the legal challenge," Zuckerberg said during an internal meeting. "And does that still suck for us? Yeah. I mean, I don’t want to have a major lawsuit against our own government. ... But look, at the end of the day, if someone’s going to try to threaten something that existential, you go to the mat and you fight."
