Mark Zuckerberg has praised Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s reaction to his attempted assassination at a Pennsylvania rally last weekend.
The Meta CEO, in a Thursday interview with Bloomberg’s Emily Chang, recalled seeing the former president get up after the shooting and then pump his fist in the air, a moment documented in widely shared photos from the attack that killed one rally attendee.
Zuckerberg described the scene, which featured an American flag waving in the sky, as “one of the most badass things” he’s seen in his life.
“On some level as an American, it’s like hard to not get kind of emotional about that spirit and that fight, and I think that that’s why a lot of people like the guy,” Zuckerberg said of Trump.
The Meta Platforms chief, who once criticized Trump over his immigration policies back in 2017, declined to endorse the Republican nominee or President Joe Biden as they compete for the White House this year.
“I’ve done some stuff personally in the past. I’m not planning on doing that this time,” said Zuckerberg, who has previously made headlines for his political moves.
Zuckerberg’s remarks arrive after fellow billionaire Elon Musk endorsed Trump following his assassination attempt.
Musk has reportedly pledged to donate $45 million a month to America PAC, a political action committee working to elect Trump.
Zuckerberg, elsewhere in his interview with Chang, said that users of Meta’s services “actually want to see less political content.” Meta’s Instagram announced earlier this year that the platform wouldn’t “proactively recommend” political content from accounts that users don’t follow.
“I think you’re going to see our services play less of a role in this election than they have in the past,” Zuckerberg said Thursday.
Trump — whose Facebook and Instagram accounts were suspended in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection before being reinstated last year — has referred to Facebook as the “enemy of the people” and seemingly warned Zuckerberg that he’d go to prison if Trump were to retake the Oval Office.
Trump recently told Bloomberg Businessweek that he’s against banning the Chinese-owned platform TikTok since “you need competition,” before disparaging Facebook and Instagram.
“That’s, you know, that’s Zuckerberg,” the former president said.
Ahead of the 2020 election, Biden similarly said that he’s “never been a big Zuckerberg fan,” referring to the CEO as “a real problem.”