Politics
Inside Mark Zuckerberg’s Sprint to Remake Meta for the Trump Era
Mark Zuckerberg kept the circle of people who knew his thinking small.
Last month, Mr. Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, tapped a handful of top policy and communications executives and others to discuss the company’s approach to online speech. He had decided to make sweeping changes after visiting President-elect Donald J. Trump at Mar-a-Lago over Thanksgiving. Now he needed his employees to turn those changes into policy.
Over the next few weeks, Mr. Zuckerberg and his handpicked team discussed how to do that in Zoom meetings, conference calls and late-night group chats. Some subordinates stole away from family dinners and holiday gatherings to work, while Mr. Zuckerberg weighed in between trips to his homes in the San Francisco Bay Area and the island of Kauai.
By New Year’s Day, Mr. Zuckerberg was ready to go public with the changes, according to four current and former Meta employees and advisers with knowledge of the events, who were not authorized to speak publicly about the confidential discussions.
The entire process was highly unusual. Meta typically alters policies that govern its apps — which include Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads — by inviting employees, civic leaders and others to weigh in. Any shifts generally take months. But Mr. Zuckerberg turned this latest effort into a closely held six-week sprint, blindsiding even employees on his policy and integrity teams.
On Tuesday, most of Meta’s 72,000 employees learned of Mr. Zuckerberg’s plans along with the rest of the world. The Silicon Valley giant said it was overhauling speech on its apps by loosening restrictions on how people can talk about contentious social issues such as immigration, gender and sexuality. It killed its fact-checking program that had been aimed at curbing misinformation and said it would instead rely on users to police falsehoods. And it said it would insert more political content into people’s feeds after previously de-emphasizing that very material.
In the days since, the moves — which have sweeping implications for what people will see online — have drawn applause from Mr. Trump and conservatives, derision from fact-checking groups and misinformation researchers, and concerns from L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy groups that fear the changes will lead to more people getting harassed online and offline.
Inside Meta, the reaction has been sharply divided. Some employees have celebrated the moves, while others were shocked and have openly castigated the changes on the company’s internal message boards. Several employees wrote that they were ashamed to work for Meta.
On Friday, Meta’s makeover continued when the company told employees that it would end its work on diversity, equity and inclusion. It eliminated its chief diversity officer role, ended its diversity hiring goals that called for the employment of a certain number of women and minorities, and said it would no longer prioritize minority-owned businesses when hiring vendors.
Meta planned to “focus on how to apply fair and consistent practices that mitigate bias for all, no matter your background,” Janelle Gale, vice president of human resources, said in an internal post that was relayed to The New York Times.
In interviews, more than a dozen current and former Meta employees, executives and advisers to Mr. Zuckerberg described his shift as serving a dual purpose. It positions Meta for the political landscape of the moment, with conservative power ascendant in Washington as Mr. Trump takes office on Jan. 20. More than that, the changes reflect Mr. Zuckerberg’s personal views of how his $1.5 trillion company should be run — and he no longer wants to keep those views quiet.
Mr. Zuckerberg, 40, has regularly spoken to friends and colleagues, including Marc Andreessen, the venture capitalist and Meta board member, about concerns that progressives are policing speech, the people said. He has also felt railroaded by what he views as the Biden administration’s anti-tech posturing, and stung by what he sees as progressives in the media and in Silicon Valley — including in Meta’s work force — pushing him to take a heavy hand in policing discourse, they said.
Meta declined to comment.
In an interview with the podcaster Joe Rogan on Friday, Mr. Zuckerberg said it was time to go “back to our original mission” by giving people “the power to share.” He said he had felt pressured by the Biden administration and the media to “censor” certain content, adding, “I have a much greater command now of what I think the policy should be, and this is how it’s going to be going forward.”
The latest changes were catalyzed by Mr. Trump’s victory in November. That month, Mr. Zuckerberg flew to Florida to meet with Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago. Meta later donated $1 million to the president-elect’s inaugural fund.
At Meta, Mr. Zuckerberg began preparing to change speech policies. Knowing that any moves would be contentious, he assembled a team of no more than a dozen close advisers and lieutenants, including Joel Kaplan, a longtime policy executive with strong ties to the Republican Party; Kevin Martin, the head of U.S. policy; and David Ginsberg, the head of communications. Mr. Zuckerberg insisted on no leaks, the people with knowledge of the effort said.
The group worked on revising Meta’s “Hate Speech” policy, with Mr. Zuckerberg leading the charge, they said. They changed the name of the policy, which lays out what to do with slurs, threats against protected groups and other harmful content on its apps, to “Hateful Conduct.”
That effectively shifted the emphasis of the rules away from speech, minimizing Meta’s role in policing online conversation. Mr. Kaplan and Mr. Martin were cheerleaders of the changes, these people said.
Mr. Zuckerberg decided to promote Mr. Kaplan to Meta’s head of global public policy to carry out the changes and deepen Meta’s ties to the incoming Trump administration, replacing Nick Clegg, a former deputy prime minister of Britain who had handled policy and regulatory issues globally for Meta since 2018. The night before Meta’s announcement, Mr. Kaplan held individual calls with top conservative social media influencers, two people said.
On Tuesday, Mr. Zuckerberg made the new speech policies public in his Instagram video. Mr. Kaplan appeared on “Fox & Friends,” a mainstay of Mr. Trump’s media diet, saying Meta’s fact-checking partners “had too much political bias.”
(Fact-checking groups that worked with Meta have said they had no role in deciding what the company did with the content that was fact-checked.)
Among its changes, Meta loosened rules so people could post statements saying they hated people of certain races, religions or sexual orientations, including permitting “allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation.” The company cited political discourse about transgender rights for the change. It also removed a rule that forbade users to say people of certain races were responsible for spreading the coronavirus.
Some training materials that Meta created for the new policies were confusing and contradictory, two employees who reviewed the documents said. Some of the text said saying that “white people have mental illness” would be prohibited on Facebook, but saying that “gay people have mental illness” was allowed, they said.
Meta locked access to the policies and training materials internally late on Thursday, they said, hours after The Intercept published excerpts.
The company also removed the transgender and nonbinary “themes” on its Messenger chat app, which allows users to customize the app’s colors and wallpaper, two employees said. The change was reported earlier by 404 Media.
That same day at Meta’s offices in Silicon Valley, Texas and New York, facilities managers were instructed to remove tampons from men’s bathrooms, which the company had provided for nonbinary and transgender employees who use the men’s room and who may have required sanitary pads, two employees said.
Some employees were livid at what they saw as efforts by executives to hide changes to the “Hateful Conduct” policy before it was announced, two people said. While people across the policy division typically view and comment on significant revisions, most did not have the opportunity this time.
On Workplace, Meta’s Slack-like internal communications software, employees began arguing over the changes. In the @Pride employee resource group, where workers who support L.G.B.T.Q. issues convene, at least one person announced their resignation as others privately relayed to one another that they planned to look for jobs elsewhere, two people said.
In a post this week to the @Pride group, Alex Schultz, Meta’s chief marketing officer, defended Mr. Zuckerberg and said topics like transgender issues had become politicized. He said Meta’s policies should not get in the way of allowing societal debate and pointed to Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion case, as an example of “courts getting ahead of society” in the 1970s. Mr. Schultz said the courts had “politicized” the issue instead of allowing it to be debated civically.
“You find topics become politicized and stay in the political conversation for far longer than they would’ve if society just debated them out,” Mr. Schultz wrote. He said looser restrictions on speech in Meta’s apps would allow for this kind of debate.
Mr. Zuckerberg traveled to Palm Beach, Fla., this week, four people with knowledge of his activities said, and on Friday was said to have been at Mar-a-Lago.
In his interview with Mr. Rogan, Mr. Zuckerberg denied making sweeping changes to appease the incoming Trump administration, but said the election did influence his thinking.
“The good thing about doing it after the election is you get to take this cultural pulse,” he said. “We got to this point where there were these things that you couldn’t say that were just mainstream discourse.”
Theodore Schleifer, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan contributed reporting.
Politics
Double endorsement drama: Trump backs second candidate in red state’s GOP gubernatorial runoff
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President Donald Trump is making an 11th-hour endorsement in the final stretch ahead of Tuesday’s high-profile Republican gubernatorial runoff in solidly red South Carolina, saying he “can’t hurt one of them by only Endorsing the other.”
Trump on Friday took to Truth Social to say that he was supporting longtime South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson and Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette in the battle for the GOP nomination in the race to succeed term-limited Republican Gov. Henry McMaster.
“I can’t hurt one of them by only Endorsing the other, so, therefore, I am going to Endorse, for Governor of South Carolina, both Pam Evette and Alan Wilson!” Trump wrote, adding: “With either one you can’t go wrong.”
The endorsement of Wilson appears to be a move by Trump to hedge his bets, because Trump is already backing Evette, who is also supported by McMaster, a longtime top ally of the president.
The South Carolina runoff had been viewed as the latest test of Trump’s immense grip over the GOP and the power of his endorsements in Republican nominating contests.
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South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson announced his candidacy for governor on Monday, June 23, 2025, accompanied by his family. (Tracy Glantz/The State/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
And his decision to back both Evette and Wilson isn’t the first time he’s made dual endorsements in the same Republican race. He was backing both Gina Swoboda and Jay Feely in next month’s Republican primary in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District before Swoboda dropped out of the congressional race to run for secretary of state.
Most famously, Trump endorsed “ERIC” in the 2022 GOP Senate primary in Missouri, where the two major candidates were Eric Schmitt and Eric Greitens. Both candidates claimed the endorsement, with Schmitt ultimately winning the nomination.
In South Carolina, Trump endorsed Evette late last month, a week and a half before the gubernatorial primary.
Evette finished on top of a crowded field of contenders in the primary election, with Wilson second. The field also included Reps. Nancy Mace and Ralph Norman, and multimillionaire businessman Rom Reddy. Since no candidate won a majority of the vote, as the top two finishers, Evette and Wilson advanced to the June 23 runoff.
Mace and Norman endorsed Wilson after failing to advance to the runoff. And Wilson was also backed a week ago by Sen. Ted Cruz, the conservative firebrand from Texas.
The runoff between Evette and Wilson has become combustible, and in Tuesday’s final debate both candidates launched personal attacks and accused each other of lying and misrepresenting their records.
Wilson has worked to contrast his tenure as attorney general with what he’s argued is Evette’s largely ceremonial role as lieutenant governor. And he has spotlighted his experience as a combat veteran, prosecutor, and the state’s top law enforcement official.
Evette has showcased herself as an outsider and a Trump-endorsed businesswoman, while casting Wilson as a career politician.
Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, who is supporting Wilson and has helped with fundraising, made calls on behalf of Wilson and encouraged the president’s endorsement of the state attorney general, a source familiar told Fox News Digital.
It’s been 28 years since a Democrat won a gubernatorial election in South Carolina, and the winner of the GOP runoff will be considered the clear favorite in the general election against Democratic nominee Jermaine Johnson, a state representative.
South Carolina Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette announces her bid for the Republican nomination for governor at The Smokestack at Judson Mill in South Carolina on July 14, 2025. (Joshua Boucher/The State/Tribune News Service/Getty Images)
The brute force of the president’s endorsement power has been on display in GOP primaries over the past two months, with his candidates ousting incumbents he targeted in showdowns in Indiana, Louisiana, Kentucky and Texas that grabbed plenty of national attention.
But Trump’s endorsement streak in statewide and congressional Republican primaries was snapped three weeks ago when his last minute endorsement of Republican Rep. Randy Feenstra of Iowa in the race to succeed retiring GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds wasn’t enough to propel the three-term congressman to victory.
Feenstra was narrowly edged by Zach Lahn, a businessman, farmer and former political strategist who was backed by the political wings of MAHA — the acronym for the Make America Healthy Again movement aligned with Trump Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — and Turning Point USA, the powerful conservative organization co-founded by the late Charlie Kirk.
Zach Lahn raises his fist in celebration after defeating his primary opponent in Iowa’s GOP gubernatorial race on Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (Zach Lahn for Governor via Facebook)
Trump rebounded a week later, as Evette finished first in the GOP gubernatorial primary and longtime Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina won a majority of the vote in the Republican Senate primary, and avoided a runoff.
Graham, who was endorsed by Trump, was facing primary challenges from five candidates, including conservative businessman Mark Lynch, who took aim at the senator over his support for the war in Iran. Lynch was backed by some MAGA leaders who have been critical of the president.
And a couple of days ago, Trump-backed candidates won two of the three top races in Georgia and Alabama, with the one setback coming against a billionaire businessman who shelled out over $100 million of his own money to boost his campaign.
Rep. Barry Moore, a House Freedom Caucus member and longtime Trump supporter who was endorsed by the president, comfortably defeated rival Jared Hudson, a former Navy SEAL sniper who was supported by some top names on the right, in solidly red Alabama’s GOP Senate runoff.
In battleground Georgia’s Republican Senate runoff, an 11th hour endorsement by Trump this past weekend helped boost Rep. Mike Collins, a MAGA champion, to victory over former college football coach Derek Dooley, who was backed by popular conservative Gov. Brian Kemp.
Collins will face Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in the general election in a race that’s among a handful that will likely decide if the GOP holds its slim majority in the chamber in the midterms.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Jackson speaks to supporters at a campaign stop in Alpharetta, Ga., on June 14, 2026. (Paul Steinhauser/Fox News)
Jones regularly showcased his Trump endorsement, but Jackson, who launched his bid in February long after the president had endorsed Jones, repeatedly said that Trump had inspired him to run.
But in Georgia’s GOP gubernatorial runoff, the candidate Trump backed, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who was also endorsed by Kemp this past weekend, was defeated by Rick Jackson, who ran as an outsider.
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A Trump political operative, pointing to Tuesday’s loss by Trump-backed Jones, noted that “Rick Jackson set a record for spending in a statewide Republican primary. He spent Tom Steyer level money in a state a fraction of the size of California. That’s going to have an impact.”
And the operative, who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely, also emphasized that “Rick bearhugged Trump. All of his ads and material was about how he’s going to be Trump’s favorite governor. So the race was not really a referendum on Trump.”
Fox News’ Luke Trevisan contributed to this report
A contentious proposal to tax California billionaires to alleviate federal healthcare cuts moved closer to landing on the November ballot this week, but efforts to defeat the measure before it reaches voters have already escalated.
The California secretary of state’s office said Wednesday that the proposal had enough valid signatures to be eligible for the Nov. 3 ballot. But discussions that have included the governor’s administration and lawmakers are underway about a potential deal that could prevent the initiative from being put in front of voters, according to people familiar with the negotiations.
Supporters have until June 25 to withdraw the initiative or go forward with placing it on the ballot. The negotiations highlight the escalating debate surrounding the billionaire tax, an idea that has divided the Democratic Party and drawn fresh opposition from healthcare and education groups. The negotiations are in flux, and the outcome remains uncertain.
The initiative would impose a one-time tax of up to 5% on taxpayers and trusts with assets valued at more than $1 billion, with some exceptions, such as property. The levy could be paid over five years. Ninety percent of the revenue would fund healthcare programs, and the remaining funds would be spent on food assistance and education programs. The proposal would cost the state’s richest residents about $100 billion if a majority of voters support it.
Backers of the proposed tax say it’s crucial to compensate for federal healthcare funding cuts, approved by President Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress, that will harm millions of the state’s most vulnerable residents. In April, supporters of the billionaire tax submitted nearly 1.6 million signatures, roughly double the number needed to qualify.
A poll released in March showed 52% of registered voters supported the billionaire tax, while 33% said they opposed it. Fifteen percent were undecided. The survey was conducted by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times.
Opponents of the measure say the proposal is an ineffective attempt to address the long-term effects of the healthcare cuts and would harm California’s economy and budget.
The state budget in California is already largely dependent on income taxes paid by its highest earners. Because of that, revenues are prone to volatility, hinging on capital gains from investments, bonuses to executives and windfalls from new stock offerings, and are notoriously difficult for the state to predict.
The proposal already triggered a fierce debate, accentuating the divide between the rich and poor in a state that’s expensive to live in.
The Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West and other supporters of the billionaire tax say that it would raise $100 billion, offsetting federal funding cuts to healthcare as well as funding education and state food assistance. The SEIU-UHWW has spent more than $31 million qualifying the proposal for the ballot.
“David won the second round against Goliath, but healthcare workers and our allies won’t quit until we protect patients from the looming California healthcare collapse manufactured by Trump and Congress,” said Debru Carthan, a spokeswoman for the Billionaire Tax Now Coalition in a statement. The SEIU-UHWW funds the group.
But supporters face strong opposition from billionaires and influential groups with deep pockets. Tech executives and other business leaders oppose the idea and some have moved to other states. Opponents say taxing billionaires would harm California’s economy while not addressing underlying financial issues.
Campaign efforts against the proposal intensified this week with the launch of a new bipartisan coalition that’s fighting the wealth tax proposal. The group, called the Californians to Protect Funding for Schools, Healthcare and Public Safety, posted a long list of opponents that include healthcare groups, labor unions, business organizations, politicians and more.
An ad released by the group calls the wealth tax “a dangerous experiment” that could cost Californians tax revenue, send jobs out of state and cut funding. Planned Parenthood, the California School Boards Assn. and labor unions are cited in the ad as opponents.
“California can’t afford the reckless wealth tax experiment,” the ad says. The California Primary Care Assn. and California Medical Assn. are funding the coalition.
Jodi Hicks, chief executive and president of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, said that while the group believes that the wealthy should pay their fair share of taxes, the proposal fails to get at the root of the problem.
“We believe that this particular measure is shortsighted, doesn’t have specificity and accountability. It’s volatile,” she said.
The group wants to focus on holding Congress accountable and restoring critical funding rather than finding a “temporary solution that may do more harm,” Hicks said.
The proposal also has divided progressive politicians, including influential members of the Democratic Party. California Gov. Gavin Newsom spoke out against the billionaire tax, expressing fears that those wealthy residents would move out of the state. But U.S. lawmakers such as Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have backed a billionaire tax, saying the rich should pay their fair share to fund essential services.
Newsom tried to stop the proposal’s supporters from placing it on the ballot because he feared it would affect the state’s finances regardless of whether voters approved it, according to a person connected to the governor who was involved in the negotiations. After these efforts failed, the governor’s advisors sought to create a broad coalition opposing the proposal in order to weaken the union’s bargaining powers.
The union proposing the billionaire tax urged Newsom on Thursday to support a bill enacting a 2% tax on the state’s billionaires and said that if he got it approved by the state Legislature, it would withdraw its proposed ballot measure by the June 25 deadline.
Saying that Newsom has vocalized how devastating the federal healthcare funding cuts will be to California’s most vulnerable residents, a coalition funded by the union argued in an open letter that their proposed stopgap measure could prevent needless patient deaths.
“Governor Newsom, you have taken bold action when California needed it in the past,” the letter read. “This is one of those moments. The ask is clear. The timeline is tight but achievable. And the payoff — preventing widespread hospital and community clinic closures and saving patient lives — is real and immediate.”
A Newsom representative bluntly opposed the proposal.
“The Governor has been clear that he is strongly opposed to a California-only wealth tax,” said spokesperson Tara Gallegos in a written statement. “The Governor supports making the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share, but this poorly designed state-only measure will defund teachers, schools, clinics, and public safety. Changing the tax rate doesn’t change this measure’s fundamental flaws that harm working Californians.”
Business executives have already poured millions of dollars into groups that oppose the billionaire tax or are promoting alternative solutions to wealth inequality.
Tech executives, venture capitalists and business leaders have donated roughly $118 million to a nonprofit called Building a Better California, according to data on the secretary of state’s website. Most of the funding comes from Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who has given more than $82 million to the group. Executives from DoorDash, Ripple, Stripe and other companies also have contributed.
The group says it supports policies such as expanding access to affordable housing, protecting innovation, requiring government transparency and securing more stable education funding.
PayPal and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel has contributed $3 million to the California Business Roundtable, which opposes the tax. Former Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt donated $1 million to that group as well.
California would probably collect tens of billions of dollars from the wealth tax if it passed, but it could also lose other tax revenue, a December letter from the state legislative analyst’s office said. The office also mentioned that it’s tough to predict the exact amount the state would collect due to factors that can affect a billionaire’s wealth, such as fluctuating stock prices.
California billionaires who were residents of the state as of Jan. 1 would be affected by the ballot measure if it passes. Some wealthy residents announced plans to move out of state. On Dec. 31, venture capitalist David Sacks announced he was opening an office in Austin, Texas, the same day Thiel publicized his firm had opened a new office in Miami.
Measures that could nullify the billionaire tax are another hurdle facing the initiative’s supporters. One initiative known as the Improving Transparency, Effectiveness & Efficiency in California Government Act could cancel out the billionaire tax.
It appears likely that the transparency act will also qualify for the ballot, as its supporters have said they’ve gathered enough signatures. If voters approve conflicting ballot measures, the one with more “yes” votes would take effect.
By John Ismay, Gilad Thaler, Nikolay Nikolov, Rafaela Balster, Stephanie Swart and Whitney Shefte
June 19, 2026
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