Back in 2021, Meta banned Donald Trump from Facebook as a result of his role in the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol. Trump responded with a federal lawsuit alleging First Amendment violations and other claims, and it sounds like he’s just seen a pretty significant victory in that case.
According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, Meta has agreed to pay Donald Trump a $25 million settlement to resolve the lawsuit which claimed “impermissible censorship.
“Meta Platforms has agreed to pay roughly $25 million to settle a 2021 lawsuit that President Trump brought against the company and its CEO after the social-media platform suspended his accounts following the attack on the U.S. Capitol that year, according to people familiar with the agreement,” the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
“Of that, $22 million will go toward a fund for Trump’s presidential library, with the rest going to legal fees and the other plaintiffs who signed on to the case. Meta won’t admit wrongdoing, the people said. Trump signed the settlement agreement Wednesday in the Oval Office.”
The Wall Street Journal reported that discussions surrounding the lawsuit heated up recently after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg traveled to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago golf club in Florida for a dinner with him in November. The meeting was part of an effort by Zuckerberg and Meta to mend ties with Trump as he took office.
The report claims that Trump brought up the lawsuit, making it clear that the lawsuit needed to be settled before Zuckerberg could be “brought into the tent,” a source told the Wall Street Journal.
Trump also sued Twitter, now renamed X, and YouTube, along with their corporate leaders. The suit against Twitter has since been dismissed by a federal judge, and the Google suit was administratively closed in 2023.
This settlement appears to be a step toward mending the relationship between Trump and Zuckerberg.
