WASHINGTON (AP) — Meta has agreed to pay $25 million to settle a lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump against the company after it suspended his accounts following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, according to three people familiar with the matter.

It’s the latest instance of a large corporation settling litigation with the president, who has threatened retribution on his critics and rivals, and comes as Meta and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, have joined other large technology companies in trying to ingratiate themselves with the new Trump administration.

The people familiar with the matter spoke on the condition of anonymity Wednesday to discuss the agreement. Two people said that terms of the agreement include $22 million going to the nonprofit that will become Trump’s future presidential library and the balance going to legal fees and other litigants.

Zuckerberg visited Trump in November at his private Florida club as part of a series of technology, business and government officials to make a pilgrimage to Palm Beach to try to mend fences with the incoming president. At the dinner, Trump brought up the litigation and suggested they try to resolve it, kickstarting two months of negotiations between the parties, the people said.

Meta also made a $1 million donation to Trump’s inaugural committee and Zuckerberg was among several billionaires granted prime seating during Trump’s swearing-in last week in the Capitol Rotunda, along with Google’s Sundar Pichai, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, who now owns the platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

Ahead of Trump’s inauguration, Meta also announced that it was dropping fact-checking on its platform — a longtime priority of Trump and his allies.

Trump filed the suit months after leaving office, calling the action by the social media companies “illegal, shameful censorship of the American people.”

Twitter, Facebook and Google are all private companies, and users must agree to their terms of service to use their products. Under Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, social media platforms are allowed to moderate their services by removing posts that, for instance, are obscene or violate the services’ own standards, so long as they are acting in “good faith.” The law also generally exempts internet companies from liability for the material that users post.

But Trump and some other politicians have long argued that X, formerly known as Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms, have abused that protection and should lose their immunity — or at least have it curtailed.

The Meta settlement comes after ABC News agreed last month to pay $15 million toward Trump’s presidential library to settle a defamation lawsuit over anchor George Stephanopoulos’ inaccurate on-air assertion that the president-elect had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll.

The network also agreed to pay $1 million in legal fees to the law firm of Trump’s attorney, Alejandro Brito.

The settlement agreement describes ABC’s presidential library payment as a “charitable contribution,” with the money earmarked for a non-profit organization that is being established in connection with the yet-to-be-built library.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the settlement.

About nine months after being expelled from the major social media platforms, Trump in October 2021 announced the launch of his own new media company with its own social media platform.

Trump says his goal in launching the Trump Media & Technology Group and its “Truth Social” app was to create a rival to the Big Tech companies that have shut him out and denied him the megaphone that was paramount to his national rise.

While he often first posts policy announcements, memes and varied insights on Truth Social, he has relied on his return to X and Facebook to amplify those messages to the platform’s far wide audiences.

___

A passenger plane caught fire before takeoff at an airport in South Korea late Tuesday, but all 176 people on board were safely evacuated, authorities said.

The Airbus plane operated by South Korean airline Air Busan was preparing to leave for Hong Kong when its rear parts caught fire at Gimhae International Airport in the southeast, the Transport Ministry said in a statement.

AIRLINER’S FINAL 4 MINUTES OF RECORDINGS ARE MISSING AFTER CRASH THAT KILLED 179: INVESTIGATORS

The plane’s 169 passengers, six crewmembers and one engineer were evacuated using an escape slide, the ministry said.

The National Fire Agency said in a release that three people suffered minor injuries during the evacuation. The fire agency said the fire was completely put out at 11:31 p.m., about one hour after it deployed firefighters and fire trucks at the scene.

The cause of the fire wasn’t immediately known. The Transport Ministry said the plane is an A321 model.

Tuesday’s incident came a month after a Jeju Air passenger plane crashed at Muan International Airport in southern South Korea, killing all but two of the 181 people on board. It was one of the deadliest disasters in South Korea’s aviation history.

CLICK TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

The Boeing 737-800 skidded off the airport’s runaway on Dec. 29 after its landing gear failed to deploy, slamming into a concrete structure and bursting into flames. The flight was returning from Bangkok and all of the victims were South Koreans except for two Thai nationals.

The first report on the crash released Monday said authorities have confirmed traces of bird strikes in the plane’s engines, though officials haven’t determined the cause of the accident.

The Budget Committee of the European Parliament approved on Wednesday a €250 million plan for a new headquarters for Frontex in Warsaw. Polish capital already hosts the agency in three different buildings at two different locations across the city. 

The decision was taken with 23 votes in favour, five against and 10 abstentions. Representatives from the European People’s Party, the European Conservatives and Reformists and Renew Europe voted in favour, the Socialists and democrats (S&D) abstained, while the Greens/EFA and The Left voted against. 

The investment will be partially financed by a loan, described as “financially more advantageous” by Frontex, though this sparked criticism from some MEPs.

“While we recognize the agency’s crucial work and do not oppose a new HQ, we have serious concerns about the funding model, especially loan financing, which could create legal uncertainty,” the S&D group posted on X following the vote.

Even the right-wing Patriots for Europe group, which broadly favours enhancing Frontex’s role to counter illegal migration and beefing up the agency’s resources, was divided on the point.

All of its MEPs voted in favour except for the Hungarian Tamás Deutsch and the Dutch Auke Zijlstra. “Today’s vote was not about border protection, but about the construction of a 6,000 square metre luxury headquarter for EU bureaucrats, which would be financed by the EU on credit, in contravention of EU budgetary rules,” a note from the Fidesz-KDNP delegation in the European Parliament read.