President-elect Trump should push back on efforts in Europe and other countries to crack down on the US tech industry, according to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Zuckerberg, who has scrambled to ingratiate himself with Trump since the president-elect’s win in the 2024 presidential election, made the case for stronger government support during an appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast last Friday.
“I think it’s a strategic advantage for the United States that we have a lot of the strongest companies in the world, and I think it should be part of the US strategy going forward to defend that,” Zuckerberg said. “It’s one of the things I’m optimistic about with President Trump is, I think he just wants America to win.”
EU antitrust officials have imposed a series of harsh fines totaling “more than $30 billion” over the last decade or so, Zuckerberg added. Last July, the EU charged Meta with violating its sweeping tech competition law – which could ultimately result in fines of up to 10% of its global revenue, or nearly $13.5 billion.
Zuckerberg, who met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, argued the fines are “almost like a tariff” and have become “sort of like an EU-wide policy for how they want to deal with American tech.”
“If some other country was screwing with another industry that we cared about, the US government would probably find some way to put pressure on them, but I think what happened here is actually the complete opposite,” Zuckerberg said.
Trump has historically clashed with Zuckerberg and Meta – once referring to Facebook as “a true enemy of the people” and repeatedly accusing the social media giant of censorship and election interference.
However, Zuckerberg has taken several steps to mend fences with the incoming administration – including appointing a Republican as the company’s top policy executive, ending fact-checking programs and killing DEI initiatives that have long irritated conservatives.
Zuckerberg isn’t the only Big Tech executive who has pressed Trump to weigh in on Europe’s enforcement actions.
Last October, Trump said he had received a call from Apple CEO Tim Cook – who grumbled that the iPhone maker has faced billions of dollars in fines overseas.
“Two hours ago, three hours ago, he (Cook) called me,” Trump told podcaster Patrick Bet-David at the time. “He said the European Union has just fined us $15 billion. … Then on top of that they got fined by the European Union another $2 billion,” Trump added.
During his nearly three-hour interview with Rogan, Zuckerberg said Biden officials had phoned executives at Meta to “scream” and “curse” at them while demanding that they remove any negative posts about the coronavirus vaccine on Facebook.
He also criticized Meta rival Apple, asserting that the company hasn’t “really invented anything great in a while.”
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