Haberman says Zuckerberg's Mar-a-Lago visit a signal industry may be courting Trump
National political correspondent Maggie Haberman said Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's recent visit to President-elect Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort may show that industries are seeking to build a bridge with Trump ahead of the inauguration, and not the other way around.
"It's not clear that whether Zuckerberg sought this meeting or Trump sought this meeting, but one person described it as Trump essentially saying hey ... 'why don't you come over to Mar-a-Lago?'" she said Wednesday evening on CNN's "AC360."
"And as you said, Zuckerberg had expressed praise for Trump earlier this year for his defiant posture after he was shot in Butler, Pennsylvania, by a would-be assassin," she told host John Berman, adding later that "clearly Zuckerberg wants to have a better relationship with Trump."
"I think we will learn more, but we are seeing as with a number of industries," Haberman, a senior reporter with The New York Times, continued. "But certainly, the tech industry, a lot of people coming to Trump and not the other way around."
The meeting was first reported by Trump adviser Stephen Miller, the incoming deputy chief of policy, on Wednesday. Miller, in an interview on Fox News, said Zuckerberg and other industry leaders wanted to be a "supporter" of "making our economy prosperous."
"They want to be an element, a supporter, a booster of making our economy prosperous, delivering for American workers and making sure that America is the most powerful, wealthiest, freest nation on the face of the earth,” Miller said.
Zuckerberg is the latest tech CEO to try to mend his relationship with the former president after past tensions. Trump seemingly changed his tune on the Facebook founder after he chose to withhold an endorsement during the 2024 presidential election.
Meta’s platforms — including Facebook and Instagram — have also increasingly sought to move away from political content. Instagram updated its standards earlier this year to no longer recommend political content unless users manually request it.
The president-elect has also become close with SpaceX and Telsa CEO Elon Musk. Trump tapped Musk, who endorsed him for president, along with biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, to head a brand new "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE) when he returns to the White House.
In the same interview, Haberman signaled that the Trump-Musk partnership could last "for quite some time" despite criticism.
“If Trump is getting tired of him, Trump is not making that, especially public,” she said.
“Musk is also, and depends on the day, the richest or one of the richest men in the world, and Trump has a huge fascination with wealth,” the veteran journalist added later. “As you noted, Trump equates wealth with intelligence, and so I actually think this relationship could last for quite some time.”