Meta Platform’s (META) Mark Zuckerberg is trying to develop closer ties with President Donald Trump to shape policy and may be setting up house in the capital.
Invest with Confidence:
- Follow TipRanks' Top Wall Street Analysts to uncover their success rate and average return.
- Join thousands of data-driven investors – Build your Smart Portfolio for personalized insights.
The Financial Times reports that the tech billionaire is looking to purchase a property in Washington D.C., citing sources who say the move is a sign of his desire to work closely with the new administration.
It comes after Axios revealed this week that Silicon Valley investor and White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks had bought a $10 million property in the capital.
Zuckerberg wants META, once dubbed “an enemy of the people” by Trump, to become a leader in artificial intelligence and may seek to develop closer ties to shape policy on areas like technology and AI.
META Cozying Up to Trump
In a sign of the shift already underway at the Menlo Park, California, company and across Silicon Valley, Zuckerberg sat behind the president at his inauguration, alongside the likes of fellow tech entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, the Amazon (AMZN) founder.
Furthermore, earlier this month the company moved to end its use of third-party fact checkers in the U.S., which had been a source of great angst among conservatives and president Trump, who felt they were biased against Republicans.
META said it would end the third-party fact-checking program and move to a Community Notes model favored by X, the social media platform owned by Trump’s right-hand-man, Elon Musk.
Zuckerberg has already signalled his desire to influence the president, urging him to stop the European Union from fining U.S. tech companies, which he says were forced by the EU to pay more than $30 billion for legal violations over the past two decades.
Speaking on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, he said, “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 U.S. strategy going forward to defend that.”
He added that “I think [President Trump] just wants America to win.”
Is META Stock a Buy, Sell, or Hold?
Overall, Wall Street has a Strong Buy consensus rating for META based on 40 Buys, three Holds, and one Sell. The average META price target of $693.51 implies around 3% upside after the stock rose over 68% in the last year.
