Meta Platforms announced on Wednesday that it has agreed to pay about $25 million to settle a lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump over the suspension of his accounts following the January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack.
Trump filed lawsuits in July 2021 against Twitter, now known as X, Facebook, and Alphabet’s Google, as well as their CEOs, alleging that they unlawfully silenced conservative viewpoints.
Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts were suspended after his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol following a speech in which he repeated false claims about election fraud regarding his defeat.
Out of the settlement amount, $22 million will go to a fund for Trump’s presidential library, and the rest will cover legal fees and other plaintiffs in the case.
Meta, Facebook’s parent company, filed a notice about the settlement in a federal court in San Francisco.
Discussions about the lawsuit, which had not progressed much since the fall of 2023, reignited after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg visited Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida for a dinner in November.
Under Zuckerberg’s leadership, the social media giant has been making efforts to repair relations with a leader who has criticized its political content policies and previously threatened to imprison its CEO.
In December, Meta made a $1 million contribution to Trump’s inaugural fund.
In January, Meta ended its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs and also scrapped its U.S. fact-checking program, reducing restrictions on discussions about contentious topics like immigration and gender identity.
It also appointed prominent Republican Joel Kaplan as its chief global affairs officer and added Dana White, the CEO of Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and a close friend of Trump, to its board.
