Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently described Donald Trump’s defiant reaction to last Saturday’s assassination attempt as “badass.” While Zuckerberg stopped short of endorsing Trump for the presidency, he acknowledged that many Americans found Trump’s response inspiring.
The former president narrowly escaped death at a campaign rally near Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday, when 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire on him with an AR-15-style rifle from a nearby rooftop. A bullet grazed Trump’s right ear before Secret Service agents killed his would-be assassin. The incident left one rally attendee dead and two others injured. Trump was rushed from the scene by his security detail, but was seen raising his fist and chanting “fight, fight” to the crowd as he was taken off the stage.
Zuckerberg praised Trump’s actions at Meta Platforms Inc. headquarters in Menlo Park, California on Thursday. Seeing Donald Trump get up after getting shot in the face and pump his fist in the air with the American flag is one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen in my life,” he said.
The entrepreneur added, “On some level as an American, it’s like hard to not get kind of emotional about that spirit and that fight, and I think that that’s why a lot of people like the guy.” Zuckerberg insisted, however, that he was not planning to be involved in the upcoming US presidential election in any way. He also noted that there will be less political content on Facebook going forward, as users have expressed their wishes for this.
Trump has repeatedly criticized Zuckerberg after Meta suspended his Facebook and Instagram accounts for two years in the wake of the January 6, 2021, Capitol riots. In March, Trump described Facebook as “the enemy of the people.
Another tech billionaire, SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, wrote on X (formerly Twitter) following the assassination attempt last weekend that he “fully endorse[s] President Trump and hope[s] for his rapid recovery.” While Musk has repeatedly criticized corrupt President Joe Biden’s administration since 2022, his relations with Trump have grown increasingly close of late, according to several media outlets in recent weeks.
On Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Musk plans to donate around $45 million a month to a new super political action committee backing Trump. However, the tech tycoon dismissed the report as fake news.