Meta agreed to pay $25 million to settle Donald Trump‘s lawsuit alleging censorship over the social media giant’s suspension of his Facebook and Instagram accounts after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Meta did not respond to a request for comment. The White House declined to comment.
A source close to Trump confirmed that Meta will pay $25 million under the terms of the settlement. According to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the settlement, $22 million of Meta’s payment will go toward a fund for Trump’s presidential library. The remainder will go toward “legal fees and the other plaintiffs who signed onto the case,” per the report.
Meta’s settlement comes after ABC News last month agreed to pay $15 million toward a Trump presidential foundation and museum — and to issue a public apology — to settle Trump’s defamation lawsuit brought against anchor George Stephanopoulos and the network after Stephanopoulos inaccurately stated on-air that Trump had been found liable for rape. Trump’s lawsuit against CBS News demanding $10 billion for alleged election interference over the editing of Kamala Harris’ “60 Minutes” interview remains pending; CBS filed a motion to dismiss the suit.
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In a court filing Wednesday, a lawyer for Meta and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who was named in Trump’s lawsuit, said “the parties have reached an agreement to settle the named plaintiffs’ individual claims and resolve this matter” but didn’t include details of the settlement.
In July 2021, Trump sued Meta (then called Facebook), Twitter and Google over the internet companies’ moves to suspend his accounts on their platforms. Trump alleged the actions were “unconstitutional” and violated his First Amendment rights, but that is a fundamental misunderstanding of what the U.S. Constitution actually says. The First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting free speech and does not apply to private companies.
Meta on Jan. 7, 2021, suspended Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts for an indefinite time period, with Zuckerberg citing the potential for ongoing violence for the decision after Trump praised rioters who engaged in violence at the U.S. Capitol the day before. “We believe the risks of allowing the president to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great,” Zuckerberg said at the time. Subsequently, the company said Trump would be banned for a two-year period.
In January 2023, Meta said it was reinstating Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts with “new guardrails in place to deter repeat offenses.”
Zuckerberg has been cozying up to Trump since Trump won the 2024 presidential election. On Nov. 27, Zuckerberg traveled to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to dine with the president-elect. Meta, at Zuckerberg’s behest, donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund. In addition, in early January, Meta appointed UFC CEO Dana White — a close Trump friend — to its board.
Trump raised the issue of his lawsuit against Meta and Zuckerberg “toward the end of the November dinner” at Mar-a-Lago and “signaled that the litigation had to be resolved before Zuckerberg could be ‘brought into the tent,’” the Wall Street Journal reported, citing an anonymous source.
Trump’s lawsuit against Twitter (now X, owned by Elon Musk) was dismissed by a federal judge. His suit against Google was “administratively closed” in 2023 but could be reopened, the Journal noted.
Judge William Alsup, a federal district judge in San Francisco who has overseen Trump’s lawsuit against Meta, cast skepticism on some of Trump’s lawyers arguments at a hearing in November 2023. “His account has been restored, so is it really plausible that President Trump, who is as vigorous a person as could possibly exist, is afraid of his shadow and will be chilled in his — what he says on the platform? I rather doubt it,” the judge said.
Alsup directed the plaintiffs to file an amended complaint that “would point the finger at Meta and say that Meta has done something wrong here, and not use generalities.”
“Because if it’s just a bunch of platitudes and blather, that’s not going to be very persuasive,” Alsup said. “It won’t advance things. You’re going to have to have some zingers in there that really show that Meta has done something wrong.”