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Meta will pay Donald Trump roughly $25 million as part of a settlement agreement resolving a 2021 lawsuit, brought after the company suspended the president’s Facebook accounts.
Trump filed the suit after his accounts were taken offline in the wake of the January 6 attack on U.S. Capitol.
Sources familiar with the agreement, told The Wall Street Journal that of the sum, $22 million will go toward a fund for Trump’s presidential library, and the rest for legal fees and the other plaintiffs who signed onto the case.
The president signed the settlement agreement Wednesday, the sources said.
It comes just over a week after Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg was seen alongside fellow billionaires and tech bros at Trump’s inauguration.
In recent months the pair have seemingly repaired their previously frosty relationship, with Zuckerberg visiting the president for dinner at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida shortly after the election as part of several efforts to soften relations between Meta and the incoming administration.
Meta also donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund.
The sources told the WSJ that the President had raised the matter of the lawsuit with Zuckerberg at the end of their dinner in November and implied that it had to be resolved before he could be “brought into the tent.”
Zuckerberg returned to Florida in early January for a day of mediation, during which time Trump reportedly stepped out briefly to face sentencing in his high-profile hush money trial.
More follows …