CHRIS CRUCIAL: Why Mark did it 🕵️

PLUS: Presidents Elon and Donald 🤝

This nightly newsletter is for paid subscribers only. If you want a daily summary of what matters in politics — and why — “Chris Crucial” will scratch that itch. Become a paid subscriber today for just $6 a month or $60 for the year. That gives you access to not just this newsletter but ALL of my content. A subscription also comes with lots of other perks — including a 15 minute, one-on-one Zoom with me! 📞

1. Meta’s Moves

(Mark Zuckerberg. Photo via Wikimedia Commons)

“Mark Zuckerberg is nothing more than a toadie to President-elect Donald Trump.”

That’s the dominant narrative of the media coverage of the Meta founder’s re-positioning of his company on several fronts in the wake of the 2024 election.

On Friday, for example, Axios reported that Meta was rolling back a number of its diversity, equity and inclusion policies in areas like hiring and training.

“The legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing,” Meta vice president of human resources Janell Gale wrote in an internal memo. “The Supreme Court of the United States has recently made decisions signaling a shift in how courts will approach DEI. … The term 'DEI' has also become charged, in part because it is understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others.”

That move came just days after Zuckerberg announced that Meta was abandoning its third-party fact-checking efforts begun in the wake of the 2016 campaign.

These twin decisions — coupled with Zuckerberg’s recent trip to Mar-a-Lago to huddle with the president-elect and a $1 million donation by the company to Trump’s inauguration fund — are seen as proof-positive to many that the tech giant has fully capitulated to the incoming president.

And, look — I am not here to tell you that Zuckerberg (and Meta more broadly) are visiting with Trump and making a seven-figure donation to the inauguration fund solely out of the goodness of their hearts.

Meta is a business. And businesses are singularly focused on making money. And you don’t make money — or you make way less than you could — if the president of the United States hates you or views you as the enemy.

But, I also think though that Zuckerberg is up to something a little more strategic here when it comes to some of the company policies he has either reversed or rolled back. Let me explain.