Meta said Wednesday that he had agreed to pay President Trump $ 25 million to settle a 2021 lawsuit filed for suspending his Facebook accounts and Instagram after the January 6th turmoil in the Capitol.
The move was an important concession from an important technology company and a victory for Mr Trump, who had previously criticized the social media platforms to censor him, but recently broke technological titles, such as Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg , CEO of META.
Mr Zuckerberg threw his support behind Mr Trump and has remodeled his company for the new administration. This month, Mr Zuckerberg has made changes in sweeping policy to allow more speech types in META applications – including Facebook, Instagram, Threads and Whatsapp – and elimination of diversity and integration initiatives throughout the company. In some cases, the changes have proven to be disputed in his workforce.
In a call with investors on Wednesday for Meta’s quarterly financial results, Mr Zuckerberg praised the Trump administration to support US technology companies and “defending our values”.
He added, “this will be a great year for redefining our relations with governments.”
Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp and other applications, posted a 21 % leap in revenue and increased profit by 49 % for the fourth quarter, but gave an expected revenue provision for the current quarter.
In December, ABC News agreed to pay $ 15 million to settle a defamation trial by Mr Trump. ABC News agreed to donate money to the future Presidential Foundation and the Museum of Trump. The Network and Ankara of his star, George Stefanopoulos, also published a statement saying that “sadness” observes that they were made for Mr Trump during a television interview in March.
Meta’s settlement with Mr Trump follows similar terms. About $ 22 million will proceed with the funding of Mr Trump’s presidential library, with the remaining $ 3 million intended for Mr Trump’s legal remuneration and other plaintiffs who joined the lawsuit. Meta does not admit that the offense as part of the agreement, which was mentioned earlier than the Wall Street Journal.
On Wednesday, Meta said its increased revenue and profits for the fourth quarter were largely led by developments in its advertising targeting systems and indicating relevant positions and videos to users. These improvements came from its ongoing investment in artificial intelligence, the company said.
Revenue for the fourth quarter amounted to $ 48.4 billion, from $ 40.1 billion in the previous and more Wall Street estimates of $ 47 billion, according to figures compiled by Factset, a market analysis company. The profit was $ 20.8 billion, from $ 14 billion in the previous year.
However, Silicon Valley also said it is expected that revenue in the current quarter will come to $ 39.5 billion in $ 41.8 billion. The low end of the forecast was below the expectations of analysts of $ 41.7 billion.
This revenue promoted questions among investors, especially as Meta plans to increase spending. Last week, Meta said its capital costs this year would total more than $ 60 billion in $ 65 billion in data centers and other infrastructure, from about $ 38 billion to $ 40 billion , Amazon, Microsoft and smaller companies such as Openai, also launch billions to lead to AI
In recent days, the Chinese AI Deepseek start has asked questions about how technology developed after creating a new AI model for a fraction of many American businesses. Deepseek has created its technology using freely available AI tools shared by technology companies such as META and then published its results for everyone to use, a common technological practice called Open Source.
In the call of investors, Mr Zuckerberg called Deepseek as a “new competitor” and said there would be a “open source model worldwide”. But he added a touch of nationalism, saying that “for our national advantage, it is important that it is an American model”.
Meta’s push to the so -called Metaverse, an impressive digital world, continued to lose money. The company’s Labs section, which develops augmented reality glasses and virtual reality products for Metaverse, lost $ 5 billion in the fourth quarter.
However, the company continued to add users to its applications. Meta said the number of “daily active people” in all its applications amounted to 3.35 billion in December, increased by 5 % compared to the previous year.
