Zuckerberg sought to escape federal fines by courting Trump (2025)

Mark Zuckerberg spent millions of dollars cozying up to President Donald Trump in an effort to avoid paying billions in fines to the Federal Trade Commission and seeing his Meta empire dismantled, a shocking new report revealed on Wednesday.

Zuckerberg is in federal court this week, pushing back against the government's allegation that his company committed anti-trust violations when it bought up rivals as a way to preserve its power and increase its bottom line.

If the judge rules against Zuckerberg, the 40-year-old could see his $1.3 trillion business empire broken into pieces.

In a frantic attempt to save his corporation, Zuckerberg turned to the president, visting the White House three times. He and his aides met with Trump, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and other administration officials as part of his lobbying campaign, the Wall Street Journal reported.

One official told the news outlet Zuckerberg was 'relentless in trying to get the case dropped.'

As part of his campaign, theFacebook founder also called FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson last month and offered to pay $450 million to settle the case ahead of the trial.

But that was far below the $30 billion fine the FTC wanted the company to pony up.

On the call with Ferguson, however, Zuckerberg indicated Trump would back him against the FTC.

He had been courting the president hard. His Meta company donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration and settled a $25 million lawsuit with the president over the suspension of his Facebook account.

Additionally, Zuckerberg traveled to Mar-a-Lago twice after the election, attended Trump's inauguration, and made changes to his company's policy that conservatives wanted, including cutting its fact-checking program.

But Ferguson was also working the president, playing up MAGA theories that social media companies – including Facebook – cost Trump the 2020 election.

The FTC chair told Fox Business that Meta's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp had given the company 'a tremendous amount of power, power we all saw on full display in 2020,' he said.

'And so that's what this case is about, is about addressing the power of Meta and making sure that the situation we had in 2020 can never arise again.'

Ferguson also met with Trump in the Oval Office to argue why the case should go forward.

Trump gave his blessing for it to do so.

Also in that crucial Oval Office meeting was Mike Davis, Semafor reported. Davis is a former Senate aide who has become a rampant Trump defender.

Davis told Steve Bannon's War Room that Trump should break up Meta and described the company as the president's political enemy.

'Mark Zuckerberg rigged and stole the 2020 election, and that's why President Trump got chased out of the WH, why he faced 4 years of unprecedented, Republic-ending lawfare,' Davis said.

He was referring toZuckerberg and his wife, who, in the runup to the 2020 election, donated $400 million to a nonprofit effort to expand pandemic-era voting accommodations.

Conservatives say that spending was used to bolster turnout on the left.

But the Facebook founder has sought to reassure Trump those donations were not meant to boost Democrats.

The FTC's case against Meta dates back to Trump's first term in office and continued through Joe Biden's presidency.

If the FTC wins, it will force Meta to divest Instagram and Whatsapp, two highly valuable properties.

That could prove a deadly blow for Zuckerberg as Instagram is estimated to bring in half of Meta's U.S. advertising revenue.

Zuckerberg has been in Washington D.C. this week to testify on the matter.

He was grilled on the witness stand about his reasons for acquiring of Instagram in 2012 for $1 billion and for its take-over of WhatsApp in 2014 for $19 billion.

The trial is expected to last two months.

For its part, Meta argues it's not a monopoly and claims the federal government is punishing the company for its success.