Mark Zuckerberg asked AG Pam Bondi how to effectively speak to Trump: book | Latest Tech News
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg secretly met with Attorney General Pam Bondi in the spring to search her advice on how to strategy President Trump about his company’s growing legal troubles, according to a new book.
The assembly, which happened March 12 at the Department of Justice, got here just hours before Zuckerberg sat down with Trump at the White House, ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl wrote in his new book, “Retribution: Donald Trump and the Campaign That Changed America.”
Zuckerberg asked Bondi for steering on how to “effectively speak” to the president about “Meta’s concerns,” according to an excerpt cited by Business Insider.
Mark Zuckerberg secretly met with Pam Bondi this spring to search her advice on how to strategy President Trump about Meta’s growing legal troubles, according to a new book. AP
It’s not clear what advice Bondi gave the techie.
Neither Meta nor the Justice Department supplied remark on the assembly when reached by The Post.
The dialog occurred only weeks before the Federal Trade Commission opened its long-anticipated antitrust trial against Meta — a case that might power Zuckerberg to break aside his social media empire by spinning off Instagram and WhatsApp.
The authorities’s lawsuit, first filed during Trump’s first time period, accuses Meta of shopping for rivals to crush competitors in social media.
A federal decide has yet to rule on whether or not Meta violated antitrust legal guidelines.
Since Trump’s return to energy, Zuckerberg has visited Washington, DC, a number of instances, often turning up at high-profile White House occasions alongside other tech moguls.
The CEO’s appeal offensive has unfolded as Meta faces a number of fronts of strain from Washington regulators and European authorities.
The reported assembly between Zuckerberg and AG Pam Bondi happened March 12 at the Department of Justice. AP
The FTC has accused Meta of stifling competitors, while the European Union is getting ready steep fines under its Digital Markets Act focusing on US tech companies for alleged anticompetitive practices.
Earlier this 12 months, The Post reported that Zuckerberg had personally lobbied senior Trump aides to settle the FTC case before trial.
He has made at least three identified journeys to the White House since Trump’s inauguration and met privately with top officers, including Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Deputy Chief Stephen Miller, according to sources acquainted with the visits.
Zuckerberg has reportedly lobbied Trump to help Meta keep away from antitrust penalties. Getty Images
In one of those conferences, Trump praised Meta’s plans to invest $50 billion in a Louisiana data middle to energy its artificial intelligence systems.
But some White House aides privately warned that Zuckerberg’s overtures had been being watched skeptically.
“There are people in the Trump orbit who want to extract pain from Zuckerberg,” one official told The Post earlier this 12 months.
“But I don’t know that the case is going to go where they want it to go.”
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