Former President Donald Trump is vowing to punish Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg if he does anything “illegal” during the election.
In an excerpt of his forthcoming book “Save America” obtained by Politico, Trump says Zuckerberg “would come to the Oval Office to see me. He would bring his very nice wife to dinners, be as nice as anyone could be, while always plotting to install shameful Lock Boxes in a true PLOT AGAINST THE PRESIDENT,”
The outlet notes that the comment about lock boxes refers to a $420 million donation the Meta chief made to help improve election infrastructure in 2020.
Trump’s book went on, “He told me there was nobody like Trump on Facebook. But at the same time, and for whatever reason, steered it against me.”
“We are watching him closely, and if he does anything illegal this time, he will spend the rest of his life in prison — as will others who cheat in the 2024 Presidential Election,” it added.
Politico reports, “Trump has made similar remarks about Zuckerberg before. Trump wrote in a July post on Truth Social that if elected he would pursue ‘ELECTION FRAUDSTERS at levels never seen before, and they will be sent to prison for long periods of time. We already know who you are. DON’T DO IT! ZUCKERBUCKS, be careful!’”
The excerpt of the book surfaced days before it was due to hit shelves, but also shortly after Zuckerberg said he regretted that Facebook caved to pressure from the White House to censor content on its platform.
In a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), he wrote, “Senior officials in the Biden Administration, including in the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain Covid-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree.”
“I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it,” the letter continued. “I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today,”
Zuckerberg also admitted Facebook wrongly demoted a story about a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden, the son of President Biden, amid concerns it was part of a Russian disinformation operation ahead of the 2020 election.
However, Mr. Zuckerberg said, “It’s since been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we shouldn’t have demoted the story.” He added Meta has “changed our policies and processes to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
