Big Tech giant Meta has agreed to pay $25 million to settle President Donald Trump’s lawsuit over his suspended social media accounts, — and $22 million of the settlement will be designated for Trump’s future presidential library, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal.
The settlement emerged following a November meeting at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, where Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg visited as part of what sources described as “a pilgrimage to Palm Beach to try to mend fences with the incoming president.”
“There were talks between the two of them, Zuckerberg and Trump, with me and other lawyers in the room, of course,” Trump attorney John Coale said Wednesday. “I’ve been working to get people to the table for two years now. Of course, the election helped.”
The library funding represents the latest corporate settlement directing money toward Trump’s presidential legacy project.
ABC News agreed last month to pay $15 million toward the library to settle a separate defamation lawsuit, along with $1 million in legal fees to Trump’s attorney Alejandro Brito.
Meta’s settlement allocates the remaining $3 million to legal fees and four additional plaintiffs who joined Trump’s 2021 lawsuit, which claimed their Facebook accounts were unlawfully suspended at the government’s urging.
The agreement comes as Meta implements broader policy changes. Earlier this month, Zuckerberg announced the end of third-party fact-checking, which conservatives had claimed showed bias. The company also appointed Republican lobbyist Joel Kaplan to lead its global policy team and added Ultimate Fighting Championship head Dana White to its board.
“I think generally other social media companies, most of them, have come around to trying to combat the censorship that they did back then, but they also hurt a lot of people back then, and I think it’s good for Meta to take some responsibility for that,” Coale said.
A Meta spokesperson confirmed the settlement but declined further comment.
House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) praised what he called Meta’s “dramatic change” in approach to content moderation under the new administration.