Trump says Zuckerberg called him to apologize for Meta AI mistake

Former President Donald Trump has expressed new affection for Mark Zuckerberg after years of criticism of him.

In an interview with Fox which aired on Friday, Trump said Mark Zuckerberg recently called him “to apologize” after Meta’s AI assistant falsely said the assassination attempt on Trump didn’t happen. (A company blog post written by Joel Kaplan, Meta’s global head of policy, attributed the erroneous responses to “hallucinations” in the system.) In a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump claimed that both Meta and Google were “MANIPULATING THE ELECTION!!!” suppressing information about the shooting.

Zuckerberg’s apology could help thaw his contentious relationship with Trump, who has long held a public grudge against Meta and its chief executive.

“I believe Mark Zuckerberg, he called me a lot. They are working and I think they fixed it. He’s not doing what he did five years ago with the $500 million dollars, I don’t believe it.”

Trump’s $500 million comment may have referred to incorrect claims that Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, spent $400 million in 2020 to elect President Joe Biden. Zuckerberg and his wife did not donate these funds to Biden, but to two nonprofits that provided grants to state and local governments to help them pay for election administration.

Trump also said Zuckerberg praised his reaction to being shot, adding that Zuckerberg said he would not support a Democrat in this year’s presidential election because of his respect for Trump.

“Mark Zuckerberg called me — first of all, he called me a couple of times,” Trump said. “He called me after the event and said, ‘That was really amazing, that was really brave.’ And he actually announced that he wouldn’t support a Democrat, because he couldn’t, because he respected me for what I did that day.”

When contacted for comment, Meta spokesperson Dani Lever directed On the edge for one post on X by Meta communications chief Andy Stone, who notes that Zuckerberg has not supported candidates in previous elections.

Trump’s grudge against Google, however, persists.

“Google, nobody called from Google,” Trump said during Fox interview. Google has been accused of “censoring” search terms related to the Trump rally shooting in Pennsylvania. Google Communications posted a topic on X refuting these claims, but Trump and conservative media continued to accuse him of suppressing information.

“Google has been really bad. They have been very irresponsible,” Trump said. He said Google may be “close to being shut down” by Congress. “Google needs to be careful,” he said.