“Seeing Donald Trump get up after getting shot in the face and pump his fist in the air with the American flag is one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen in my life,” Zuckerberg told Bloomberg. “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.”
Though Zuckerberg didn’t explicitly endorse Trump, his comments may help to soothe the former president’s anger toward the Facebook founder, whom he has previously referred to as an “Election Fraudster.”
“All I can say is that if I’m elected President, we will pursue Election Fraudsters at levels never seen before, and they will be sent to prison for long periods of time,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “We already know who you are. DON’T DO IT! ZUCKERBUCKS, be careful!”
Trump and other Republican politicians have rallied against “the elite,” even while members of that very class in the tech world raise millions of dollars in support of his campaign.
To get a sense of the relationship between Trump and Silicon Valley, look no further than the person selected as his running mate: Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, whose successful 2022 campaign was bankrolled by PayPal cofounder and right-wing booster Peter Thiel. Vance is a former employee of Thiel’s and a friend — and now, perhaps, a direct line into policy for the tech elites, who are increasingly under government scrutiny from both the right and the left.
