‘Political chameleon’: How Mark Zuckerberg charmed Trump and got his way on AI

It was a triumphant moment for Mark Zuckerberg. He sat at the center of last month’s White House AI meeting, with the CEOs of some of the biggest tech companies in the world signing onto a document he crafted for how to “self-police” and attempt to manage serious AI safety risks. After the meeting, Zuckerberg called it “historic.”

“I don’t think anything like this has come before,” he said outside the White House last week.

The AI accord is not a lone instance of Zuckerberg’s ascendancy in Washington, DC. He’s used his ties to Trump to help stymie the creation of an AI regulatory agency proposed by Meta’s rivals. The White House also helped get Zuckerberg off the hook for testifying in a planned senate committee hearing earlier this year.

It’s a far cry from the Mark Zuckerberg who President Donald Trump once threatened to send to prison, and the same Mark Zuckerberg who once reportedly once told friends and confidants that he was done with politics.

The Meta CEO’s rising influence in Washington comes at a crucial time. Government officials are scrambling to sort out AI policy amid growing safety concerns, and as Zuckerberg fights to earn his company’s place among the oft-chaotic and hungry industry. Meta is also looking to shape the conversation around youth online safety, following two court losses and a historic settlement over claims it intentionally created addictive and harmful platforms.

It follows a years-long push by Meta to bolster its relationship with the White House and Republicans — one that Zuckerberg and Meta pursued very intentionally.

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Zuckerberg has frequently traveled to Washington or talked with Trump on the phone, allied himself with other prominent tech executives in the president’s orbit, and played a chief role in encouraging Trump’s own enthusiasm for the rapid development of AI models, people familiar with the dynamics said.

Trump, a former television star who remains closely attuned to people’s appearances, has also approvingly noted Zuckerberg’s physical transformation over the years from slender, hoodie-wearing Washington newcomer to a muscular billionaire who practices jiu jitsu and works with professional stylists, one of the people said. Zuckerberg was among the mixed martial arts enthusiasts who watched a UFC fight on the White House lawn with Trump in June.

“Mark saw that Elon (Musk) made a high-risk, high-reward decision in backing Trump before the election and saw how much influence he was having on the administration,” said Katie Harbath, a tech consultant and former public policy director for Meta.

“He realized that if he wanted to have that same sort of influence for the company, he was going to have to figure out how to repair relations — and what we saw (at the White House AI meeting) is a definite symbol that, for the moment, he has.”

Like many in Silicon Valley at the start of the 2010s, Zuckerberg was friendly with former President Barack Obama, an early pioneer in using social media for politics.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images/File

But that shifted in subsequent years, as lawmakers and government officials on both sides of the aisle called Zuckerberg to task for issues on his platforms.

Then, shortly after the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, Zuckerberg temporarily banned Trump from Facebook and Instagram, over concerns about escalating violence.

Trump raged at Zuckerberg in response, accusing Zuckerberg of plotting against him, and threatening him with “life in prison.”

In the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, Trump warned that he would pursue “ELECTION FRAUDSTERS” who would be “sent to prison for long periods of time.”

“We already know who you are. DON’T DO IT! ZUCKERBUCKS, be careful!” Trump wrote in July of that year on Truth Social.

Just days after that post Trump would survive an assassination attempt during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. A week later, Zuckerberg declined to endorse anyone for president but said “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.”

Weeks later, Trump said he liked Zuckerberg “much better now.”

When Trump won the election, many in Silicon Valley made the decision to support the president-elect, earning p rime seats during the Inauguration.

Zuckerberg and Meta made a concerted effort to repair relationships within the GOP and align with the conservative faction of Silicon Valley that has succeeded in exercising broad influence over the administration’s tech priorities.

“(Zuckerberg) is very good at being a political chameleon. He’s a survivor in terms of his relationships in DC,” one person familiar with the dynamics told CNN.

Zuckerberg visited Mar-a-Lago weeks after Trump’s reelection , and then began shoveling money toward the incoming president and his pet projects.

Meta donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration, a move that earned Zuckerberg a prominent spot on the dais alongside a bevy of other tech executives. The company was also one of the major initial funders to Trump’s White House ballroom project. Last year, Meta agreed to pay roughly $25 million to settle a lawsuit brought by Trump over his suspension from the company’s platforms, with most of that money set to go toward Trump’s future presidential library.

Republicans also point to Zuckerberg’s 2025 decision to tap longtime Republican operative Joel Kaplan as his main envoy to Washington — replacing former center-left British politician-turned-Meta global affairs chief Nick Clegg — for driving the political reset on Capitol Hill.

Meta’s subsequent rollback of content moderation policies that conservatives had blamed for “censoring” right-wing views on its platforms served as another overt olive branch to the Republican Party.

Zuckerberg later hired former senior Trump official Dina Powell McCormick as Meta’s president, an addition that the people familiar with the matter said was critical in establishing a friendly conduit between the company and Trumpworld. Powell McCormick — who was deputy national security adviser during Trump’s first term and is also the wife of Pennsylvania GOP Sen. Dave McCormick — has remained close to Trump and many of his advisers, and played what one of the people described as an outsized role in the AI policy debate.

“I said, ‘how did he think of that one?’ That was a good move, he’s very smart,” Trump said, in an apparent reference to Zuckerberg’s hiring of Powell McCormick as he showered praise on her during a speech on AI last week.

The relationship has proven fruitful.

Earlier this summer, the White House intervened after the Senate Judiciary Committee said it would call tech CEOs to testify about youth safety. Afterward, committee leader Sen. Chuck Grassley adjusted the plan from calling Zuckerberg to seeking testimony from his deputy, Instagram head Adam Mosseri, according to two people familiar with the matter. The hearing has been repeatedly rescheduled and doesn’t currently have a set date.

Zuckerberg was also among those who personally counseled Trump against a proposal championed by Google AI leader Demis Hassabis to create an independent AI regulator over the summer, a person familiar with the situation told CNN.

At the Chinese State Dinner last month, Zuckerberg took advantage of his prime seat assignment next to House Speaker Mike Johnson to discuss the leading issue looming over the AI industry and Washington: how to regulate AI, and what to accomplish at the White House meeting the following week between top tech CEOs and government leaders.

Zuckerberg, in conversation with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, came up with the draft for the AI safety accord. Zuckerberg took the lead, with Huang weighing in on how to ensure the agreement would get broad industry support, a source familiar with the discussions said.

Soon, many of the executives that would be at the White House began exchanging messages about a “pact that allows us to implement standards, implement governance, and then have third parties check it and see it,” said Exiger CEO Brandon Daniels, who was at the meeting.

As they sat around the massive table in the White House’s East Room last week — Zuckerberg seated next to Huang, who was next to Trump — the group massaged the wording of the accord, which was printed out then and there. It was put together so quickly, it seems, that a typo in the word “United States” appeared in the copy posted by Trump.

Speaking to the press after the meeting, Trump pushed Zuckerberg to explain what they had signed, noting he thought the Meta CEO, “had a view that was, I thought, really right down, right down the middle.”

In his comments, Zuckerberg framed the accord as a way for the American people to have “confidence the technology works in the way that we intend.”

“The idea isn’t that this is the only thing that we will ever do, it is that this is a start and an accord that the whole industry can come to. And I was very proud to have that discussion,” he said.

Sources in the AI industry and Washington say it comes as a no surprise that Zuckerberg and Huang who spearheaded the “morally binding” accord , rather than anything with significant legal or regulatory teeth. Like Zuckerberg, Huang has argued against an industry-wide slowdown, saying the recent spike in safety concerns sparked by AI agents going rogue and hacking into other companies is just an engineering problem that needs to be solved.

“Zuckerberg’s messaging and Jensen’s messaging about their beliefs is simply closer to where Trump wants to be,” said one person familiar with the relationships, unlike other executives, like Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who have earned the White House’s ire for warning about AI’s risks.

A White House official told CNN the accord will “advance American innovation and strengthen responsible development” and that the administration “has worked closely with all industry partners, including Meta, to balance innovation and security in (superintelligence) policymaking.”

Meta declined to comment.

Yet even as Zuckerberg has grown closer to Trump, he’s continued to face deep skepticism in some corners of the president’s orbit. Some advisers wary of the risks posed by AI have grumbled over the influence wielded by wealthy outsiders like Zuckerberg, especially as Trump has increasingly gravitated toward their more accelerationist worldview.

Cozying up to Trump and Republicans could also be risky for Meta if Democrats take control of Congress in November — or the White House in 2028 — as some lawmakers continue to call for legislation that could hit the company’s bottom line.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren last month offered a preview of the harsh scrutiny that Meta might soon face, launching an inquiry into the ways it and other tech companies have benefited from Republican policies.

“Your company has spent lavishly to stay on the good side of President Trump, and it appears that you are now seeing your investment bear fruit,” she wrote in a letter to Zuckerberg signed by five other Democratic senators and demanding specifics on Meta’s donations to GOP groups and a litany of Trump’s own pet projects.

To that end, some in Trump’s circle say they simply don’t buy Zuckerberg’s transformation into a MAGA ally as anything more than political opportunism. And they argue that the outsized influence wielded by tech executives over the administration’s priorities has only ended up hurting its standing with Trump’s populist base.

“I would never have let him in,” lamented one longtime Trump ally. “I don’t understand it at all. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

对马克·扎克伯格来说，这是一个辉煌的时刻。上个月，他出席了白宫人工智能会议，与会的包括一些全球最大科技公司的首席执行官，他们签署了一份由他起草的文件，旨在“自我监管”并尝试管理严重的人工智能安全风险。会后，扎克伯格称这次会议“具有历史意义”。

“我认为以前从未发生过这样的事情，”他上周在白宫外说道。

人工智能协议并非扎克伯格在华盛顿特区影响力日益增强的唯一例证。他利用与特朗普的关系，阻挠了Meta竞争对手提出的成立人工智能监管机构的计划。此外，白宫还帮助扎克伯格免于出席今年早些时候计划举行的参议院委员会听证会。

这与唐纳德·特朗普总统曾威胁要将马克·扎克伯格送进监狱的形象截然不同，也与据报道曾告诉朋友和密友他已退出政坛的马克·扎克伯格的形象大相径庭。

Meta首席执行官在华盛顿日益增长的影响力正值关键时刻。政府官员正忙于应对日益增长的安全隐患，制定人工智能政策；与此同时，扎克伯格也在努力为公司在这个竞争激烈、混乱不堪的行业中赢得一席之地。此外，在经历了两次败诉以及就其被指控故意创建成瘾且有害平台一事达成历史性和解后，Meta也希望能够影响关于青少年网络安全的讨论。

此前，Meta 多年来一直致力于加强与白宫和共和党人的关系——这是扎克伯格和 Meta 非常有意识地追求的结果。

Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

据知情人士透露，扎克伯格经常前往华盛顿或与特朗普通电话，与总统圈子里的其他知名科技高管结盟，并在激发特朗普对人工智能模型快速发展的热情方面发挥了主要作用。

据知情人士透露，曾是电视明星的特朗普对人们的外表非常关注，他曾赞赏地注意到扎克伯格这些年来的外貌变化：从最初身形纤瘦、穿着连帽衫的华盛顿新人，变成了如今肌肉发达、练习柔术、聘请专业造型师的亿万富翁。今年6月，扎克伯格也和其他一些综合格斗爱好者一起，与特朗普在白宫草坪上观看了一场UFC比赛。

“马克看到埃隆（马斯克）在选举前支持特朗普是一个高风险、高回报的决定，也看到了他对政府的影响力有多大，”科技顾问、Meta公司前公共政策总监凯蒂·哈巴斯说。

“他意识到，如果他想对公司拥有同样的影响力，他就必须想办法修复关系——而我们在（白宫人工智能会议上）看到的，无疑是一个明确的象征，表明他目前已经做到了这一点。”

与 2010 年代初硅谷的许多人一样，扎克伯格与前总统巴拉克·奥巴马关系友好，奥巴马是利用社交媒体进行政治活动的早期先驱之一。

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images/文件

但此后几年情况发生了变化，两党议员和政府官员都对扎克伯格平台上的问题提出了质疑。

随后，在 2021 年 1 月 6 日美国国会大厦遭到袭击后不久，扎克伯格出于对暴力升级的担忧，暂时禁止特朗普使用 Facebook 和 Instagram。

特朗普对此勃然大怒，指责扎克伯格密谋陷害他，并威胁要判他“终身监禁”。

在 2024 年总统大选前夕，特朗普警告说，他将追究“选举舞弊者”的责任，并将他们“送进监狱长期服刑”。

“我们已经知道你是谁了。别这么做！扎克伯格，小心点！”特朗普在那年7月在Truth Social上写道。

就在那篇帖子发布几天后，特朗普在宾夕法尼亚州巴特勒市的一次集会上遭遇暗杀未遂。一周后，扎克伯格拒绝为任何总统候选人背书，但他表示：“看到唐纳德·特朗普在脸部中枪后站起来，挥舞着美国国旗，那是我一生中见过的最酷的事情之一。”

几周后，特朗普表示他现在“更喜欢扎克伯格了”。

特朗普赢得大选后，硅谷许多人决定支持这位当选总统，并在就职典礼上获得了黄金席位。

扎克伯格和Meta齐心协力修复与共和党内部的关系，并与硅谷的保守派结盟，后者成功地对政府的科技优先事项施加了广泛的影响。

一位熟悉内情的人士告诉 CNN：“（扎克伯格）非常擅长在政治上扮演变色龙的角色。他在华盛顿的人际关系方面是个生存高手。”

扎克伯格在特朗普连任几周后访问了海湖庄园，然后开始向这位即将上任的总统及其心仪的项目投入大量资金。

Meta公司向特朗普的就职典礼捐赠了100万美元，此举使扎克伯格与其他众多科技高管一起在主席台上占据了显眼的位置。该公司也是特朗普白宫宴会厅项目的主要早期资助者之一。去年，Meta同意支付约2500万美元，以和解特朗普就其账号被该公司平台封禁而提起的诉讼，其中大部分资金将用于特朗普未来的总统图书馆建设。

共和党人还指出，扎克伯格在 2025 年决定任命长期担任共和党职务的乔尔·卡普兰为他在华盛顿的主要特使，取代了前中间偏左的英国政治家、现任 Meta 全球事务主管尼克·克莱格，这一决定推动了国会山的政治重组。

Meta随后撤回了保守派指责其“审查”平台上右翼观点的内容审核政策，这无疑是向共和党伸出的又一根公开的橄榄枝。

扎克伯格后来聘请了前特朗普高级官员迪娜·鲍威尔·麦考密克担任Meta公司总裁。知情人士表示，此举对于在Meta公司和特朗普阵营之间建立友好沟通渠道至关重要。鲍威尔·麦考密克曾在特朗普第一任期内担任副国家安全顾问，同时也是宾夕法尼亚州共和党参议员戴夫·麦考密克的妻子。她与特朗普及其多位顾问保持着密切联系，并在人工智能政策辩论中扮演了举足轻重的角色。一位知情人士如此形容道。

“我说，‘他是怎么想到这个主意的？’这步棋走得好，他很聪明，”特朗普说道，显然是指扎克伯格聘用鲍威尔·麦考密克一事，他在上周关于人工智能的演讲中对她大加赞赏。

事实证明，这种合作关系卓有成效。

今年夏天早些时候，参议院司法委员会表示将传唤科技公司首席执行官就青少年安全问题作证，白宫随后介入此事。据两位知情人士透露，之后，委员会主席查克·格拉斯利参议员调整了计划，将传唤扎克伯格改为传唤其副手、Instagram负责人亚当·莫塞里作证。听证会已被多次改期，目前尚未确定具体日期。

据一位知情人士向 CNN 透露，扎克伯格也是今年夏天亲自劝阻特朗普反对谷歌人工智能负责人德米斯·哈萨比斯提出的创建独立人工智能监管机构的提案的人之一。

上个月在中国的国宴上，扎克伯格利用他坐在众议院议长迈克·约翰逊旁边的黄金位置，讨论了人工智能行业和华盛顿面临的主要问题：如何监管人工智能，以及在下周白宫举行的顶级科技公司首席执行官和政府领导人会议上应该取得哪些成果。

据一位知情人士透露，扎克伯格与英伟达首席执行官黄仁勋共同起草了人工智能安全协议草案。扎克伯格主导了起草工作，黄仁勋则就如何确保该协议获得广泛的行业支持提出了建议。

Exiger 首席执行官 Brandon Daniels 出席了会议，他表示：“很快，许多将要前往白宫的高管开始交流有关一项‘协议’的信息，该协议允许我们实施标准、实施治理，然后让第三方进行检查和监督。

上周，他们围坐在白宫东厅那张巨大的桌子旁——扎克伯格坐在黄仁勋旁边，黄仁勋又坐在特朗普旁边——他们仔细斟酌着协议的措辞，并当场打印了出来。这份协议似乎草草完成，以至于特朗普发布的版本中，“United States”（美国）一词出现了拼写错误。

会后，特朗普在接受媒体采访时，敦促扎克伯格解释他们签署了什么文件，并指出他认为这位 Meta 首席执行官“观点非常中立”。

扎克伯格在评论中表示，这项协议旨在让美国人民“相信这项技术能够按照我们预期的方式运作”。

“我们的想法并非认为这是我们唯一要做的事情，而是认为这是一个开端，也是整个行业可以达成的共识。我很荣幸能进行这样的讨论，”他说。

人工智能行业和华盛顿的消息人士表示，扎克伯格和黄仁勋牵头达成的这项“道德约束性”协议，而非任何具有实质性法律或监管效力的协议，这并不令人意外。与扎克伯格一样，黄仁勋也反对整个行业放缓发展步伐，他认为近期人工智能代理失控并入侵其他公司引发的安全担忧激增，仅仅是一个需要解决的工程问题。

一位熟悉扎克伯格和詹森关系的人士表示：“扎克伯格和詹森在表达他们的信念时所传递的信息，与特朗普想要表达的信息更加接近。” 这与 Anthropico 首席执行官达里奥·阿莫迪等其他高管不同，后者因警告人工智能的风险而激怒了白宫。

一位白宫官员告诉 CNN，该协议将“促进美国创新，加强负责任的发展”，并且政府“与包括 Meta 在内的所有行业伙伴密切合作，以在（超级智能）政策制定中平衡创新与安全”。

Meta公司拒绝置评。

尽管扎克伯格与特朗普的关系日益密切，但他仍然在总统身边的一些人士中面临着深深的质疑。一些对人工智能带来的风险持谨慎态度的顾问对扎克伯格这类富有的局外人所拥有的影响力颇有微词，尤其是在特朗普越来越倾向于他们那种加速主义的世界观之后。

如果民主党在 11 月控制国会，或者在 2028 年入主白宫，那么与特朗普和共和党人走得太近对 Meta 来说也可能很危险，因为一些议员继续呼吁立法，这可能会影响该公司的利润。

上个月，参议员伊丽莎白·沃伦预示了Meta可能很快将面临的严厉审查，她发起了一项调查，调查Meta和其他科技公司如何从共和党的政策中受益。

“贵公司为了讨好特朗普总统不惜重金，现在看来，您的投资终于开始见效了。”她在写给扎克伯格的一封信中这样说道。这封信由其他五位民主党参议员联署，要求扎克伯格提供Meta公司向共和党团体捐款的具体细节，以及列举特朗普本人支持的一系列项目。

为此，特朗普圈子里的一些人表示，他们根本不相信扎克伯格转变为“让美国再次伟大”（MAGA）的盟友有什么更深层的含义，这不过是政治投机罢了。他们认为，科技高管对政府优先事项施加的巨大影响力，最终只会损害政府在特朗普民粹主义支持者中的地位。

一位特朗普的长期盟友感叹道：“我绝不会让他进来。我完全无法理解。这对我来说毫无道理。”