The decision by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to end Facebook's work with third-party fact-checkers and ease some of its content restrictions is a potentially "transformative" moment for the platform, experts said, but one that is unlikely to shield the company from liability in ongoing court proceedings.

The updates were announced by Zuckerberg, who said in a video that the previous content restrictions used on Facebook and Instagram — which were put into place after the 2016 elections — had "gone too far" and allowed for too much political bias from outside fact-checkers.

Meta will now replace that system with a "Community Notes"-style program, similar to the approach taken by social media platform X, he said. X is owned by Elon Musk, the co-director of the planned Department of Government Efficiency.

"We’ve reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes and too much censorship," Zuckerberg said. "The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point toward once again prioritizing speech. So we are going to get back to our roots, focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring free expression on our platforms."

META ENDS FACT-CHECKING PROGRAM AS ZUCKERBERG VOWS TO RESTORE FREE EXPRESSION ON FACEBOOK, INSTAGRAM

The news was praised by President-elect Donald Trump, who told Fox News Digital that he thought Meta's presentation "was excellent."  "They have come a long way," Trump said.

Still, it is unlikely to ease the legal liability for Meta, which in recent months has been hit with the possibility of a multibillion-dollar class action lawsuit stemming from a privacy scandal involving the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica. 

The Supreme Court in November rejected Meta's effort to block the lawsuit, leaving in place an appellate court ruling that allowed the class action suit to move forward. 

Meta has also been the target of multiple Republican-led investigations in Congress. Republicans on the House Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government probed Meta's activity and communication with the federal government and the Biden administration last year as part of a broader investigation into alleged censorship. 

The platform also came under scrutiny by the House Oversight Committee in August, as part of an investigation into claims that the platform suppressed information about the July 13 assassination attempt of Trump. 

MORE THAN 100 FORMER JUSTICE DEPT OFFICIALS URGE SENATE TO CONFIRM PAM BONDI AS AG

Combined, these factors make it unlikely that Meta will see its legal problems go away anytime soon, law professor and Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley told Fox News Digital in an interview.

"Facebook is now looking at a tough patch ahead," he said. "Not only do the Republicans carry both houses of Congress as well as the White House, but there is ongoing litigation in the social media case in Texas."

Additionally, the Supreme Court's conservative majority is also unlikely to be sympathetic to the views of Meta in any case centered on First Amendment protections and rights to free speech.

The House investigations and litigation have both forced more of Meta's actions into public view— something Turley said expects to come under further scrutiny in the discovery process in Missouri v. Biden, a case that centers on allegations of political censorship.

"That discovery is still revealing new details," Turley said. "So Meta understood that in the coming months, more details would be forthcoming on its censorship program."

Still, he said, this "could be a transformative moment," Turley said. 

"And an alliance of Zuckerberg with [Elon] Musk could turn the tide in this fight over free speech," Turley said. "And as one of Zuckerberg's most vocal critics  I welcome him to this fight."

Mark Zuckerberg, who often bends with the political winds, is getting out of the fact-checking business.

And this is part of a broader effort by the Meta CEO to ingratiate himself with Donald Trump after a long and testy relationship.

After a previous outcry, Zuck made a great show of declaring that Facebook would hire fact-checkers to combat misinformation on the globally popular site. That was a clear sign that Facebook was becoming more of a journalistic organization rather than a passive poster of users’ opinions (and dog pictures).

But it didn’t work. In fact, it led to more info-suppression and censorship. Why should anyone believe a bunch of unknown fact-checkers working for one of the increasingly unpopular tech titans?

MESSY BACKSTAGE JOCKEYING IN TRUMP TRANSITION COULD SHAPE HILL STRATEGY 4 YEARS AFTER JAN 6

Now Zuckerberg is pulling the plug, announcing his decision in a video to underscore its big-deal nature:

"The problem with complex systems is they make mistakes. Even if they accidentally censor just 1 percent of posts. That’s millions of people. And we’ve reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes and too much censorship. The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech."

Let me jump in here. Zuckerberg bluntly admits, with that line about "cultural tipping point," that he’s following the conventional wisdom–and, of course, the biggest tipping point is Trump’s election to a second term. And skeptics are portraying this as a bow to the president-elect and his team.

TRUMP THREATENS MORE LAWSUITS AGAINST MEDIA AS ABC TO PAY $15 MILLION TO SETTLE CASE

"So we’re gonna get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring free expression on our platforms…

"We’re going to get rid of fact checkers" and replace them with community notes, already used on X. "After Trump first got elected in 2016, the legacy media wrote nonstop about how misinformation was a threat to democracy. 

"We tried in good faith to address those concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth. But the fact checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created, especially in the U.S." 

It was Zuckerberg, along with the previous management at Twitter, that banned Trump after the Capitol riot. This led to plenty of Trumpian attacks on Facebook, and the president-elect told me he had flipped his position on banning TikTok because it would help Facebook, which he viewed as the greater danger.

Trump said last summer that Zuckerberg plotted against him in 2020 and would "spend the rest of his life in prison" if he did it again.

The president-elect boiled it down in a posting: "ZUCKERBUCKS, DON’T DO IT!"

Here’s a bit more from Z: "We’re going to simplify our content policies and get rid of a bunch of restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are just out of touch with mainstream discourse. What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas. And it’s gone too far." 

Indeed it has. And I agree with that. In 2020, social media, led by Twitter, suppressed the New York Post story on Hunter Biden’s laptop, dismissing it as Russian disinformation, though a year and a half later the establishment press suddenly declared hey, the laptop report was accurate.

DONALD TRUMP’S TOUGH TALK—BUY GREENLAND! TAKE BACK PANAMA CANAL!—SPARKS DEFIANCE FROM MANY REPUBLICAN REBELS

Let’s face it: People like Zuckerberg and Elon Musk (now embroiled in a war of words with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer over an alleged coverup of gang rapes of young girls when Starmer was chief prosecutor) have immense clout. They are the new gatekeepers. With so-called legacy media less relevant–as we see with the mass exodus of top talent from Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post and the recent rise of podcasts–they control much of the public dialogue. And yes, they are private companies that can do what they want. 

At yesterday’s marathon news conference, a reporter asked Trump about Zuckerberg: "Do you think he’s directly responding to the threats that you have made to him in the past with promises?"

"Probably. Yeah, probably," Trump said, twisting the knife a bit.

Meanwhile, having made the obligatory trek to Mar-a-Lago for dinner, the CEO has taken a number of steps to join forces with the new administration. And it doesn’t hurt that Meta is kicking in a million bucks to the Trump inaugural.

Zuck named prominent Republican lawyer Joel Kaplan as chief of global affairs, replacing a former British deputy prime minister. On "Fox & Friends" yesterday, Kaplan said: 

"We’ve got a real opportunity now. We’ve got a new administration and a new president coming in who are big defenders of free expression, and that makes a difference. One of the things we’ve experienced is that when you have a U.S. president, an administration that’s pushing for censorship, it just makes it open season for other governments around the world that don’t even have the protections of the First Amendment to really put pressure on US companies. We’re going to work with President Trump to push back on that kind of thing around the world."

We’re going to work with President Trump. Got it?

What’s more, Zuckerberg is adding Dana White, chief executive officer of United Fighting Championship, to the Meta board. White is a longtime Trump ally, so MAGA now has a voice inside the company.

In other words, get with the program.

Footnote: At his news conference, where Trump seemed angry about the latest court battles and plans to sentence him, the incoming president said–or "didn’t rule out," in journalistic parlance– "military coercion" against two of his latest targets.

"Well, we need Greenland for national security purposes," he said. And Americans lost many lives building the Panama Canal. "It might be that you’ll have to do something." 

He’s not going to use military force against either one. But his answer stirs the pot, as he knew it would.

A prominent fact-checking organization used by Facebook to moderate political content reacted to news that it will revamp its fact-checking to better avoid bias with an article outlining its disappointment and disagreement with the move. 

"Lead Stories was surprised and disappointed to first learn through media reports and a press release about the end of the Meta Third-Party Fact-Checking Partnership of which Lead Stories has been a part since 2019," Lead Stories editor Maarten Schenk wrote on Tuesday in response to an announcement from Meta that it would be significantly altering its fact-checking process to "restore free expression."

Lead Stories, a Facebook fact checker employing several former CNN alumni including Alan Duke and Ed Payne, has become one of the more prominent fact checkers used by Facebook in recent years. 

Fox News Digital first reported on Tuesday that Meta is ending its fact-checking program and lifting restrictions on speech to "restore free expression" across Facebook, Instagram and Meta platforms, admitting its current content moderation practices have "gone too far." 

CONSERVATIVES REJOICE OVER 'JAW DROPPING' META CENSORSHIP ANNOUNCEMENT: 'HUGE WIN FOR FREE SPEECH'

"After Trump first got elected in 2016 the legacy media wrote nonstop about how misinformation was a threat to democracy," Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a video message on Tuesday. "We tried in good faith to address these concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth. But fact-checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they created, especially in the U.S.."

"What political bias?" the article from Lead Stories asks before explaining that it is "disappointing to hear Mark Zuckerberg accuse the organizations in Meta's U.S. third-party fact checking program of being "too politically biased.’"

"Especially since one of the requirements Meta imposed for being part of a partnership included being a verified signatory of the IFCN's Code of Principles, which explicitly requires a "commitment to non-partisanship and fairness,’" the article states. "In all the years we have been part of the partnership, we or the IFCN never received any complaints from Meta about any political bias, so we were quite surprised by this statement."

Meta said in its announcement that it will move toward a system of moderation that is more in line with Community Notes at X, which Lead Stories seemed to take issue with. 

"However, In our experience and that of others, Community Notes on X are often slow to appear, sometimes downright inaccurate and unlikely to appear on controversial posts because of an inability to reach agrement [sic] or consensus among users," Lead Stories wrote. "Ultimately, the truth doesn't care about consensus or agreement: the shape of the Earth stays the same even if social media users can't agree on it."

JONATHAN TURLEY: META'S ZUCKERBERG MAKES A FREE SPEECH MOVE THAT COULD BE TRULY TRANSFORMATIONAL

Lead Stories added that Community Notes is "entirely non-transparent about its contributors: readers are left guessing about their bias, funding, allegiance, sources or expertise and there is no way for appeals or corrections" while "fact-checkers, on the other hand, are required by the IFCN to be fully transparent about who they are, who funds them and what methodology and sources they use to come to their conclusions."

Schenk added, "Fact-checking is about adding verified and sourced information so people can make up their mind about what to believe. It is an essential part of free speech."

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Duke said that Lead Stories plans to press on.

"Lead Stories will continue, although we have to reduce our output with no support from Meta," Duke said. "We are global, with most of our business now outside the USA. We publish in eight languages other than English, which is what will be affected."

Some conservatives took to social media to blast Lead Stories over their article lamenting the change at Meta after years of conservative pushback to Facebook’s fact checkers as a whole on key news stories, including the suppression of the bombshell reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop.  

"Of all the fact-checking companies, Lead Stories is the worst," British American conservative writer Ian Haworth posted on X. "Couldn't be happier that they'll soon be circling the drain."

TRUMP SAYS META HAS ‘COME A LONG WAY’ AFTER ZUCKERBERG ENDS FACT-CHECKING ON PLATFORMS

The executive director of Politifact, a fact checker also used by Facebook, issued a strong rebuke of Zuckerberg following Tuesday's announcement. 

"If Meta is upset it created a tool to censor, it should look in the mirror," Aaron Sharockman said in a statement he posted on X following Zuckerberg’s announcement.

Sharockman fumed, "The decision to remove independent journalists from Facebook’s content moderation program in the United States has nothing to do with free speech or censorship. Mark Zuckerberg’s decision could not be less subtle."

He threw back Zuckerberg’s accusation of political bias, stating that Meta’s platforms, not the fact-checkers, were the entities that actually censored posts. 

"Let me be clear: the decision to remove or penalize a post or account is made by Meta and Facebook, not fact-checkers. They created the rules," Sharockman said.

At the conclusion of his Lead Stories post, Schenk wrote, "Even though we are obviously disappointed by this news, Lead Stories wishes to thank the many people at Meta we have worked with over the past years and we will continue our fact checking mission. To paraphrase the slogan on our main page: ‘Just because it's now trending without a fact-checking label still won't make it true.’"

Fox News Digital's Gabriel Hays and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's newly unveiled freedom of speech policies signal a major shift in the Facebook social media platform's content moderation strategy, following years of congressional clashes over alleged "censorship" and the regulation of political information.

"We’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms," Zuckerberg said in a video posted Tuesday morning. "More specifically, we’re going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with Community Notes similar to X, starting in the U.S." 

META ENDS FACT-CHECKING PROGRAM AS ZUCKERBERG VOWS TO RESTORE FREE EXPRESSION ON FACEBOOK, INSTAGRAM

Zuckerberg's shift in content moderation comes amid a history of being grilled by politicians on both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill. 

In January 2024, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., confronted Zuckerberg during a heated exchange about the harmful impact of social media on users, particularly young girls. The questioning followed revelations from internal Meta studies that indicated a significant number of teenage girls were exposed to harmful content, including unwanted nudity, sexual advances, and material promoting self-harm, within just one week.

"So, you didn’t take any action, you didn’t fire anybody, you haven’t compensated a single victim. Let me ask you this. There are families of victims here today. Have you apologized to the victims? Would you like to apologize now?" Hawley said, drawing applause from the audience.

In response, Zuckerberg rose from his seat and addressed the crowd directly, saying, "I’m sorry for everything you’ve all been through. No one should have to go through the things that your families suffered."

MUSK PROVES HUNTER BIDEN CENSORSHIP CAME FROM COLLUSION AMONG BIDEN CAMPAIGN, LAW ENFORCEMENT AND TWITTER

Zuckerberg added, "This is why we’ve invested so much… and will continue through industry-leading efforts to make sure that no [one has] to go through what your families have had to suffer."

In that same hearing, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, delivered a scathing rebuke of the tech giant CEO.

"Mr. Zuckerberg, you and the companies before us. I know you don't mean it to be so, but you have blood on your hands," Graham said. "You have a product that's killing people."

Graham's remark came in light of South Carolina state Rep. Brandon Guffey suing Instagram following the suicide of his 17-year-old son, Gavin. Gavin took his own life after falling victim to an extortion scheme run by a group operating through the Meta-owned app.

In 2018, then-House lawmakers grilled Zuckerberg over the site’s failure to protect the personal information of 87 million users. Zuckerberg, who co-founded Facebook in 2004 from his Harvard dorm room, said in a Facebook post at the time, "Looking back, it’s clear we were too slow identifying election interference in 2016, and we need to do better in future elections."

In November 2020, then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Zuckerberg both faced the Senate Judiciary Committee in a hearing titled "Breaking the News: Censorship, Suppression, and the 2020 Election." The session put the spotlight on the tech giants' controversial content moderation decisions, including the suppression of the New York Post story about Hunter Biden just weeks before the presidential election.

HOUSE WEAPONIZATION PANEL RELEASES 17,000-PAGE REPORT EXPOSING 'TWO-TIERED SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT'

Testifying remotely, both CEOs acknowledged missteps and outlined how they'd handle similar challenges in the future. Zuckerberg highlighted Facebook's expansive voting initiatives, which he called "the largest voting information campaign in American history." According to his testimony, over 140 million users visited the Voting Information Center on Facebook and Instagram, with 33 million accessing it on Election Day alone. The campaign reportedly helped 4.5 million people register to vote.

To combat misinformation and voter suppression, Zuckerberg detailed measures like partnerships with election officials, the removal of false claims, and warnings applied to over 150 million pieces of content reviewed by independent fact-checkers. Facebook also implemented "policies prohibiting explicit or implicit misrepresentations about how or when to vote as well as attempts to use threats related to COVID-19 to scare people into not voting," according to Zuckerberg’s testimony.

Meta’s third-party fact-checking program was put in place after the 2016 election and had been used to "manage content" and misinformation on its platforms, largely due to "political pressure," executives said, but admitted the system has "gone too far." 

Last year, Zuckerberg sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee, in which he admitted that he felt pressure from the Biden administration, particularly with regard to COVID-19 content, and even subjects like satire and humor. 

"The thing is, as American companies, when other governments around the world that don’t have our tradition or our First Amendment, when they see the United States government pressuring U.S. companies to take down content, it is just open season then for those governments to put more pressure [on their companies]," explained Meta’s chief global affairs officer, Joel Kaplan. "We do think it is a real opportunity to work with the Trump administration and to work on free expression at home."

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Liz Huston, Trump-Vance transition spokesperson said, "President Trump has always been a champion of free speech, and his landslide victory put an end to the Biden era of oppressive censorship."

'President Trump's return to the White House is a signal to Americans that their fundamental right to free speech is once again safe," she added.

Fox News Digital's Brooke Singman and Adonis Hoffman contributed to this report.

EXCLUSIVE: President-elect Donald Trump reacted to Meta's move to end its fact-checking program on Facebook, Instagram and its other platforms, telling Fox News Digital that the company has "come a long way." 

Fox News first reported that Meta is ending its fact-checking program and lifting restrictions on speech to "restore free expression" across its platforms, admitting its current content moderation practices have "gone too far." 

META ENDS FACT-CHECKING PROGRAM AS ZUCKERBERG VOWS TO RESTORE FREE EXPRESSION ON FACEBOOK, INSTAGRAM

In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, Trump said he thinks Meta's "presentation was excellent." 

"They have come a long way," Trump said.

Trump's comments come after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement in a video Tuesday morning, saying his company is "going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms." 

Meta plans to replace fact-checking with a "Community Notes" model similar to the one used on X, formerly Twitter.

Meta’s third-party fact-checking program was put in place after the 2016 election and had been used to "manage content" and misinformation on its platforms, largely due to "political pressure," executives said, but admitted the system has "gone too far." 

UFC HEAD DANA WHITE, STRONG TRUMP SUPPORTER, JOINS META'S BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Meta's chief global policy director, Joel Kaplan, told Fox News Digital that Meta is also changing some of its own content moderation rules, especially those that they feel are "too restrictive and not allowing enough discourse around sensitive topics like immigration, trans issues and gender.

"We want to make sure that discourse can happen freely on the platform without fear of censorship," Kaplan told Fox News Digital. "We have the power to change the rules and make them more supportive of free expression. And we’re not just changing the rules, we are actually changing how we enforce the rules."

Kaplan said Meta currently uses automated systems, which he said make "too many mistakes" and removes content "that doesn’t even violate our standards."

He also said there are certain things Meta will continue to moderate, like posts relating to terrorism, illegal drugs and child sexual exploitation.

But as for the timing of the changes, Kaplan told Fox News Digital the company has "a real opportunity now."

ZUCKERBERG, EXPRESSING REGRETS, ADMITS BOWING TO BIDEN ADMINISTRATION PRESSURE TO REMOVE CONTENT

"We have a new administration coming in that is far from pressuring companies to censor and [is more] a huge supporter of free expression," Kaplan said, referring to the incoming Trump administration. "It gets us back to the values that Mark founded the company on."

Last year, Zuckerberg sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee in which he admitted that he felt pressure from the Biden administration, particularly with regard to COVID-19 content, and even subjects like satire and humor. 

"The thing is, as American companies, when other governments around the world that don’t have our tradition or our First Amendment, when they see the United States government pressuring U.S. companies to take down content, it is just open season then for those governments to put more pressure [on their companies]," Kaplan explained. "We do think it is a real opportunity to work with the Trump administration and to work on free expression at home."

MUSK PROVES HUNTER BIDEN CENSORSHIP CAME FROM COLLUSION AMONG BIDEN CAMPAIGN, LAW ENFORCEMENT AND TWITTER

Kaplan also said Meta sees "opportunities for partnership" with the Trump administration, not only on issues of free expression but also in "promoting American business and America’s technological edge." 

"Those are issues of great importance to Meta and our sector," Kaplan said. "And we’re excited to work with the Trump administration to advance those goals."

Meanwhile, Meta also said it plans to take a more personalized approach to political content, so that users who want to see more posts of that kind can do so.

Meta said it will refocus its enforcement efforts to "illegal and high-severity violations."

Meanwhile, this week, Trump ally UFC CEO Dana White joined Meta’s board. 

"I love social media," White wrote. "And I’m excited to be a small part of the future of AI and emerging technologies."

Also joining the Meta board is former Microsoft Corp. executive Charlie Songhurst, who has been working with the company already on artificial intelligence products, and Exov NV CEO John Elkann. Elkann’s company has stakes in many European businesses, including Ferrari NV and Italy’s popular soccer team, Juventus Football Club. 

Conservatives on social media took a victory lap on Tuesday in response to the news that Meta had ended its controversial fact-checking practices and promised to move toward a system more focused on free speech.

"Meta finally admits to censoring speech…what a great birthday present to wake up to and a huge win for free speech," GOP Sen. Rand Paul posted on X on Tuesday in response to news, first reported by Fox News Digital, that Meta is ending its fact-checking program and lifting restrictions on speech to "restore free expression" across Facebook, Instagram and Meta platforms, admitting its current content moderation practices have "gone too far."

"Jaw dropping—he explicitly says Meta will ‘adopt a system like X has of community notes’ because of the bias/abuse of 3rd party fact checkers," Independent Women's Forum visiting fellow Lyndsey Fifield posted on X in response to Meta’s chief global affairs officer, Joel Kaplan, speaking to Fox News Channel’s "Fox & Friends" Tuesday morning for an exclusive interview to discuss the changes. 

FACEBOOK ADMITS 'MISTAKE' IN CENSORING ICONIC TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT PHOTO: 'THIS WAS AN ERROR'

"Nature is healing," Fifield said. 

"There is absolutely 0 chance this would have happened if Trump didn’t win," Abigail Jackson, communications director for GOP Sen. Josh Hawley, posted on X. 

"Here is the full video from Mark Zuckerberg announcing the end of censorship and misinformation policies," Breaking Points co-host Sagaar Enjeti posted on X. "I highly recommend you watch all of it as tonally it is one of the biggest indications of ‘elections have consequences’ I have ever seen."

"Zuck is committed to cleaning house," journalist Jordan Schachtel posted on X. "Question the motives or not, this is a very real commitment and it's good news for speech on the internet. Of course, probably not possible to pull off without Trump winning."

Meta’s third-party fact-checking program was put in place after the 2016 election and had been used to "manage content" and misinformation on its platforms, largely due to "political pressure," executives said, but admitted the system has "gone too far." 

Since then, the process has drawn the ire of conservatives who have accused the platform of politically driven censoring while pointing to several examples of content being silenced, including the bombshell New York Post reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop, which Zuckerberg admitted the Biden White House pressured him to do and later called the move a mistake. 

FACEBOOK HAS ‘INTERFERED’ WITH US ELECTIONS 39 TIMES SINCE 2008: STUDY

Kaplan said Meta currently uses automated systems, which he said make "too many mistakes" and removes content "that doesn’t even violate our standards." He also said there are certain things Meta will continue to moderate, like posts relating to terrorism, illegal drugs and child sexual exploitation.

Zuckerberg also pointed out in his video message on Tuesday that moderation teams will be moving from California to Texas, where he suggested there will be "less concern about the bias of our teams."

"We’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms," Zuckerberg said. "More specifically, we’re going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with Community Notes similar to X, starting in the U.S." 

Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

Companies that previously feuded with President-elect Trump are now making seven-figure donations to his 2025 inauguration.

Trump has butted heads with several Fortune 500 company executives over the years, but following his presidential election victory in November, some of those same big-business leaders are dropping major cash on the incoming president's exclusive inaugural festivities. 

"In the first term, everyone was fighting me. This time, everyone wants to be my friend," Trump recently said at Mar-a-Lago, according to The Washington Post.

Meta, the world's largest social media network headed by Mark Zuckerberg, suspended Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts in 2021 after the events of Jan. 6 — which Trump called an "insult" to his voters. In his new book, titled "Save America," Trump accused Zuckerberg of "plotting" against him in 2020. 

DOJ SEEKS TO BLOCK JAN. 6 DEFENDANTS FROM ATTENDING TRUMP INAUGURATION

"He told me there was nobody like Trump on Facebook. But at the same time, and for whatever reason, steered it against me," Trump wrote. "We are watching him closely, and if he does anything illegal this time he will spend the rest of his life in prison — as will others who cheat in the 2024 Presidential Election."

Trump, in his book, also accused Zuckerberg of "always plotting to install shameful Lock Boxes in a true PLOT AGAINST THE PRESIDENT."

However, the relationship appeared to change course as the election drew nearer. After Trump's Butler, Pennsylvania, assassination attempt in July, Zuckerberg said Trump's fist pump in the air after suffering a bullet wound to the ear was "one of the most bada-- things I've ever seen in my life."

Shortly after Trump won the election in November, Zuckerberg met with the incoming president at Mar-a-Lago. Just weeks later, Meta donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund. 

JOHNSON ALLIES URGE TRUMP TO INTERVENE AS MESSY SPEAKER BATTLE THREATENS TO DELAY 2024 CERTIFICATION

"Mark Zuckerberg has been very clear about his desire to be a supporter of and a participant in this change that we're seeing all around America, all around the world with this reform movement that Donald Trump is leading," Trump adviser Stephen Miller said during an appearance on "The Ingraham Angle."

Despite a yearlong clash between Amazon's billionaire founder, Jeff Bezos — who also owns The Washington Post — and the incoming president, the e-commerce company recently pledged to donate $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund.

After Trump told Fox News' Sean Hannity in 2016 that Amazon was "getting away with murder, tax-wise," Bezos fired back at the then-presidential candidate.

Bezos, appearing at a technology conference, said that Trump's comments were "not an appropriate way for a presidential candidate to behave."

"Washington Post employees want to go on strike because Bezos isn’t paying them enough. I think a really long strike would be a great idea," Trump wrote in another hit at the billionaire on X, then Twitter, in June 2018. "Employees would get more money and we would get rid of Fake News for an extended period of time! Is @WaPo a registered lobbyist?"

The mood appeared to have shifted following the 2024 election, when Bezos said he was "very optimistic" about Trump's regulatory agenda.

"I’m very hopeful — he seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation," Bezos said at the New York Times DealBook Summit. "My point of view is, if I can help him do that, I’m going to help him."

When Ford agreed to make a deal to meet California's efficiency standards, the company defied then-President Trump's plans to push back on the state setting its own green energy standards for automakers. 

Trump voiced his opposition to the auto giant's decision, saying that Henry Ford, the company's founder, would be "very disappointed if he saw his modern-day descendants wanting to build a much more expensive car that is far less safe and doesn’t work as well, because execs don’t want to fight California regulators."  

Ford, one of the world's largest automakers, recently announced it will be making a seven-figure donation to Trump's inauguration in January. 

Other major automakers, such as GM and Toyota, will also make individual donations of $1 million to Trump.

Trump will also receive a $1 million inauguration donation from Intuit, whose stock recently dropped in November after it was reported that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was considering creating a free tax-filing app.

President-elect Trump says he had a "very productive meeting" with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at his Mar-a-Lago club in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Friday. 

Trudeau jetted into Mar-a-Lago unannounced on Friday just days after Trump threatened to impose sweeping tariffs on Canadian products. Trump is threatening to impose 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico over failures by both nations to curb the flow of illegal immigrants and illicit drugs from those countries into the U.S. 

"We discussed many important topics that will require both countries to work together to address, like the fentanyl and drug crisis that has decimated so many lives as a result of illegal immigration, fair trade deals that do not jeopardize American workers and the massive trade deficit the U.S. has with Canada," Trump wrote on Truth Social Saturday.

MUSK, STALLONE AMONG STAR-STUDDED NAMES PARTYING AT TRUMP'S MAR-A-LAGO CLUB FOR THANKSGIVING

"I made it very clear that the United States will no longer sit idly by as our citizens become victims to the scourge of this drug epidemic, caused mainly by the drug cartels, and fentanyl pouring in from China. Too much death and hardship!"

Trump wrote that Trudeau, who has been serving as prime minister of Canada since 2015, made a commitment to work with the U.S. to "end this terrible devastation of U.S. families."

U.S. customs agents seized 43 pounds of fentanyl at the Canadian border last fiscal year, compared with 21,100 pounds at the Mexican border. On immigration, Border Patrol made 56,530 arrests at the Mexican border in October alone and 23,721 arrests at the Canadian border between October 2023 and September 2024 — and Canadian officials say they are ready to make new investments in border security.

MEXICAN PRESIDENT MIGHT BE CHANGING VIEW ON US AS TRUMP WIN SENDS WARNING TO RULING SOCIALISTS 

Trump said the pair also spoke about many other important topics, including energy, trade and the Arctic, although he did not go into further detail. 

"All are vital issues that I will be addressing on my first days back in office, and before," Trump concluded, without saying whether tariffs were still on or off the table. 

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, after speaking with Trump on the telephone, said Thursday she was confident a tariff war with Washington would be averted.

Sen.-elect Dave McCormick, R-Pa., posted a picture to X late Friday showing him at a Mar-a-Lago dinner table along with President-elect Trump, Trudeau, and Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick, among others. The ritzy club has been a hive of activity since President-elect Trump’s historic election win over Vice President Harris earlier this month as the 45th president co-ordinates his transition back to the Oval Office. 

Tech billionaires Elon Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg have also met Trump at the famous location, along with many of those nominated for top roles in the incoming administration. Trump selected Musk to lead an outside advisory panel known as the "Department of Government Efficiency" to slash waste in the federal government.

As he was leaving his West Palm Beach hotel, Trudeau stopped briefly to answer a reporter’s question about the dinner meeting, saying it had been "an excellent conversation."

An official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said it had been a "positive, wide-ranging dinner that lasted three hours." 

The official said other topics included defense, Ukraine, NATO, China, the Middle East and pipelines, as well as the Group of Seven meeting in Canada next year.

Fox News’ Louis Casiano and The Associated Press contributed to this report.