On Wednesday, Meta announced that it will pay $25 million to resolve a lawsuit that President Donald Trump had filed four years prior against the social media firm for suspending Trump’s accounts following the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The complaint was still proceeding when Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, filed a notice of the settlement in federal court in San Francisco. The terms, which included a $25 million payment from the corporation, $22 million going toward a fund for Trump’s presidential library, and the remaining amount going toward legal fees and other plaintiffs in the lawsuit, were independently confirmed by Meta spokesperson Andy Stone.
According to Stone, Meta is not required to acknowledge fault as part of the settlement.
Regarding the deal, the White House chose not to comment.
The Wall Street Journal first reported on the settlement.
Since Trump was elected to a second term in November, Meta is at least the second big company to pay him to settle a lawsuit. In order to resolve a dispute in which Trump claimed that anchor George Stephanopoulos had defamed him, ABC announced in December that it would pay $15 million.
Following the Capitol riot by Trump’s followers, Meta and almost all other big tech companies terminated Trump’s accounts, so restricting his online presence for the last two weeks of his first term.
In a Facebook post on January 7, 2021, CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that Trump’s failure to denounce his followers who rushed and took over the Capitol demonstrated his intention to utilize his remaining time in office to thwart the orderly and legal handover of power to Joe Biden, his elected successor.
Up until February 2023, Trump’s Instagram and Facebook accounts were still closed.