Zuck Kissed the Ring

Welcome back to Barf Bag. 

What did you do on Wednesday night? Were you food-prepping for Thanksgiving, packing ahead of a bus or train ride to see loved ones, or maybe mourning the end of Vanderpump Rules as we know it? If you were the fourth-richest person on Earth, you were having dinner with the future president in Palm Beach, then hopping on your private jet back to Hawaii.

Yes, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg dined with Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago club on Wednesday. A Meta spokesperson told the Associated Press that Trump invited Zuckerberg to have dinner with him and other team members to discuss his incoming administration.

Zuckerberg’s private jet reportedly landed in Palm Beach at 8:47 p.m. on Tuesday and departed shortly before 1 a.m. on Thursday. (It’s unclear what Zuck did during the day on Wednesday. Lit $100 bills on fire during conference calls about why people prefer Bluesky over Meta’s Threads, perhaps? (P.S. Follow Jezebel on Bluesky.)

Mark Zuckerberg's G650 Landed in West Palm Beach, Florida, United States. Apx. flt. time 18 min.

— Mark Zuckerberg's Jet (@zuckjet.grndcntrl.net) 2024-11-27T01:47:57.822299+00:00

Trump’s incoming deputy chief of staff and racist ghoul Stephen Miller talked to Fox News about the dinner meeting and said that Zuck is on board with Trump’s economic plans. “Mark, obviously, he has his own interest, and he has his own company and he has his own agenda,” Miller said, per the AP. “But he’s made clear that he wants to support the national renewal of America under Trump’s leadership.”

Hmm, what could the personal interests of a man worth nearly $200 billion possibly be? Lower taxes for himself and his gigantic company? Pressuring Trump to end an antitrust case over said company’s acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp? Who’s to say!

Zuckerberg has been slowly warming up to Trump and the GOP recently. Yes, Meta kicked Trump off Facebook following the January 6 insurrection, but it restored his account in early 2023, shortly after Trump declared he was running for president a third time. In 2022, a Zuckerberg-linked nonprofit said it would stop donating to even non-partisan election infrastructure efforts following conservative backlash.

This year, Zuckerberg not only called Trump after a July assassination attempt in Pennsylvania, but told a reporter that Trump’s raised fist was “one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen in my life.” In August, Zuck said he regretted having Meta de-prioritize content about Hunter Biden’s laptop and decried “pressure” from President Joe Biden‘s administration to moderate posts about covid-19.

Now following confirmation that Zuck is dining with Trump, it’s abundantly clear that he knows where his bread is buttered.

I’d like to know who Vice President-elect JD Vance forced to make this image of him as Trump’s wife delivering the election map to a table of white people.

pic.twitter.com/xAx6kCo6I8

— JD Vance (@JDVance) November 29, 2024

• Speaking of Trump’s economy: Possible tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada could cost the U.S. 400,000 jobs. [Bloomberg]
• Trump’s pick for Health Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said at a 2019 autism conference that child vaccine programs were like the sex abuse cover-ups by the Catholic Church. *Laughs nervously* Are GOP Senators going to block this guy? [NBC News]
• South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds (R) introduced a bill to abolish the Department of Education. [Argus Leader]
• Headline: “Rudy Giuliani tells judge he can’t pay his bills in courtroom outburst” [The Guardian]
• Candace Owens has been banned from traveling to New Zealand and Australia for speaking events due to a history of minimizing the Holocaust. [Associated Press]
• An aide assisting with the Trump transition, Boris Epshteyn, was reportedly asking people for money to “promote” them to Trump as possible administration picks. [CNN]
• Hulk Hogan suggested that Trump may nominate him to serve on the President’s Council on Physical Fitness. [The Hill]

This has been your weekly Barf Bag, thanks for reading!