- Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg held an unannounced meeting with President Trump during his visit to Washington on Thursday.
- After the meeting, Trump posted an uncharacteristically passive tweet confirming their meeting. The tweet possibly came from one of his staff, rather than the president himself.
- In the past, Trump has been more outspoken and descriptive on Twitter after meeting with other tech CEOs such as Google’s Sundar Pichai or Twitter’s Jack Dorsey.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Trump posted an uncharacteristically lukewarm tweet after meeting with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg this week.
On Thursday, Trump shared a photo of himself and Zuckerberg captioned with: “Nice meeting with Mark Zuckerberg of @Facebook in the Oval Office today.”
Nice meeting with Mark Zuckerberg of @Facebook in the Oval Office today. https://t.co/k5ofQREfOc pic.twitter.com/jNt93F2BsG
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 20, 2019
The unannounced meeting was first reported by Axios on Thursday. A spokesperson for Facebook told Axios that Zuckerberg was in Washington DC to meet with policymakers to talk about internet regulation. This comes as Facebook faces ongoing pressure from regulators and lawmakers over privacy on the platform.
But Trump's passive tone on Twitter stands in stark contrast to some of his previous tweets when he has met with Zuckerberg's competitors.
In March and August this year, he met with Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Trump initially praised their first meeting saying that it had "ended very well", although he wrongly described Pichai as Google's president.
Just met with @SundarPichai, President of @Google, who is obviously doing quite well. He stated strongly that he is totally committed to the U.S. Military, not the Chinese Military....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 27, 2019
....Also discussed political fairness and various things that @Google can do for our Country. Meeting ended very well!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 27, 2019
But by the time of their next meeting in August, the mood had changed. Trump sent out lengthy messages ridiculing Pichai, saying that he was "working very hard to explain how much he liked me" and "what a great job the Administration is doing."
.@sundarpichai of Google was in the Oval Office working very hard to explain how much he liked me, what a great job the Administration is doing, that Google was not involved with China’s military, that they didn’t help Crooked Hillary over me in the 2016 Election, & that they...
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 6, 2019
... are NOT planning to illegally subvert the 2020 Election despite all that has been said to the contrary. It all sounded good until I watched Kevin Cernekee, a Google engineer, say terrible things about what they did in 2016 and that they want to “Make sure that Trump losses...
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 6, 2019
...in 2020.” Lou Dobbs stated that this is a fraud on the American public. @peterschweizer stated with certainty that they suppressed negative stories on Hillary Clinton, and boosted negative stories on Donald Trump. All very illegal. We are watching Google very closely!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 6, 2019
In April, Trump also met with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey just hours after he blasted the social-media platform for what he deemed as "very discriminatory" behavior against him, which he said included lowering his follower count. Twitter has altered its rules so that frozen accounts no longer show up in people's follower count.
Trump praised his meeting with Dorsey as being a "great meeting" and said he looks forward to "keeping an open dialogue."
Great meeting this afternoon at the @WhiteHouse with @Jack from @Twitter. Lots of subjects discussed regarding their platform, and the world of social media in general. Look forward to keeping an open dialogue! pic.twitter.com/QnZi579eFb
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 23, 2019
