Meta, in Latest Republican-Friendly Hire, Brings on Former Trump Campaign Staffer for Communications Role

As American corporations cozy up to President Trump ahead of his second term in office, Mark Zuckerberg’s tech conglomerate, Meta, will welcome another Republican-friendly staffer to its ranks. The latest hire, Francis Brennan, will be leaving his role as the House GOP’s deputy communications director under chairwoman Elise Stefanik to join Meta’s strategic response team, he announced on Monday morning. Mr. Brennan, according to his LinkedIn profile, previously worked as the director of strategic response for Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign. Before that, he worked for a conservative research and communications firm, America Rising Corporation. The news of Mr. Brennan’s appointment follows the decision by Meta to swap out its erstwhile chief global affairs officer, Nick Clegg, a former left-wing British politician, for his deputy, Joel Kaplan, who has served as Meta’s most prominent Republican voice since his hiring in 2011. Mr. Kaplan, who worked as the White House deputy chief of staff under President Bush, has been an outspoken opponent to restrictions on political speech within Meta’s social media platforms. Meta’s MAGA-friendly makeover comes as its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, has made moves to repair his fraught relationship with Trump. Mr. Zuckerberg, who has publicly supported progressive causes for years, ruffled feathers when he banned Trump from Facebook and Meta in light of the January 6 riots. Trump later accused the Meta head of “plotting” against his 2020 campaign by “steering” Facebook against his favor, and threatened Mr. Zuckerberg with spending “the rest of his life in prison” should he act similarly in 2024. After Trump’s near-fatal assassination, however, Mr. Zuckerberg appeared to offer the 45th president an olive branch, calling his post-shooting fist-pump “one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen in my life.” Since Trump’s electoral victory, Mr. Zuckerberg has dined with the president-elect at Mar-a-Lago and announced that he would be donating $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund. Mr. Zuckerberg isn’t the only billionaire chief executive hoping to curry favor with the president, however. In recent months, scores of major American corporations have been lining up to splash out on larger-than-ever donations to President Trump’s inaugural committee. It’s typical for companies to issue donations to an incoming president’s fund — which can accept unlimited contributions from individuals and corporations — as a gesture of goodwill. This year, however, quite a few companies have been shelling out considerably larger contributions to President Trump’s inaugural committee than they have in years past, the Wall Street Journal reported. Tech companies, hoping that the incoming administration will implement favorable policies regarding artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency, have been leading the pack. Such is the case with Uber Technologies and Amazon, both of which have, at least, doubled what they gave to President Biden in 2021. Same goes for Apple, which, according to financial filings, only gave $43,200 to Mr. Biden’s fund in 2021. Over the weekend, Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook, announced that he would be giving $1 million to Trump this year. Companies that have historically avoided issuing inaugural donations, like Meta, OpenAI, and Intuit, have reversed course, and forked up cash for the cause. As a result, Trump’s inaugural committee has raked up a record-breaking $200 million and counting, the New York Times reported over the weekend. The sum is more than three times larger than the $62 million President Biden raised in 2021, and nearly double the previous record of $107 million that was donated to Trump in 2017. The cash, according to sources who spoke with the Times, will “fund his inauguration, his political operation and eventually his presidential library.” Trump, for his part, seems to be feeling the love. Shortly after dining with Amazon head Jeff Bezos, the president-elect enthusiastically posted on Truth Social: “EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE MY FRIEND!!!”

Meta, in Latest Republican-Friendly Hire, Brings on Former Trump Campaign Staffer for Communications Role

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