From liberal darling to phone calls with Trump: Mark Zuckerberg’s political transformation

Sitting onstage with the hosts of a popular Silicon Valley podcast in front of more than 6,000 paying customers last month — and decked out in his new custom-designed wardrobe — Mark Zuckerberg looked entirely at ease.

«I was thinking to myself, we might need to book the next one of these for all the things I’m going to have to apologize for that I’m going to say tonight,» he joked.

Then, just as one of the hosts was about to launch into his first question, he added: «Nah, just kidding. I don’t apologize anymore.»

That got a big laugh, but the Facebook founder’s tone was rather different one month earlier when he wrote to a Republican committee chairman in the US Congress to reveal how the Biden administration had pushed for his company to censor more posts about Covid-19.

«I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it,» Zuckerberg said, adding that his crew had «made some choices that… we wouldn’t make today». A cynic might call that something like an apology.

This is the paradox of Mark Zuckerberg’s recent political transformation. Along with his new threads, the CEO and controlling shareholder of Meta, Inc – the $1.4bn social media behemoth that owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, as well as the Quest line of virtual reality headsets – has begun striking a new tone on matters electoral.

Having once taken a harsh line against Covid misinformation and Donald Trump’s election conspiracy theories, and used his vast personal wealth to fund left-wing causes, the 40-year-old now says he wants Meta to be «nonpartisan».

He has reportedly abolished Meta’s dedicated election integrity team, cut its once-regular election year «war room», canceled transparency tools used by