Mark Zuckerberg met on Wednesday with President-elect Donald J. Trump in a rare face-to-face encounter, the latest attempt by the Meta chief executive to establish a positive rapport with Mr. Trump.
The meeting, confirmed by three people with knowledge of the matter, was initiated by Mr. Zuckerberg, who has had a strained relationship with Mr. Trump over the past decade. Mr. Trump, who has long maintained that Meta has unfairly restrained him and other conservatives across its social media apps, has lobbed broadsides against Mr. Zuckerberg on social media and during stump speeches.
Mr. Zuckerberg flew into West Palm Beach, Fla., on Tuesday evening before joining Mr. Trump at his hotel and club, Mar-a-Lago, on Wednesday, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the meeting. The two men largely exchanged pleasantries, with Mr. Zuckerberg congratulating Mr. Trump on winning the presidency.
After the early afternoon meeting, Mr. Trump and Mr. Zuckerberg planned to have dinner at Mr. Trump’s hotel later that evening, the people said.
“It’s an important time for the future of American innovation,” a Meta representative said in a statement. “Mark was grateful for the invitation to join President Trump for dinner and the opportunity to meet with members of his team about the incoming administration.”
But Mr. Zuckerberg’s overtures come as the chief executive seeks to insulate Meta — which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — from any potential blowback from the incoming administration. Meta has long been a target of conservatives in Washington; some in Congress have called for reining in what they see as censorship of conservative viewpoints. And Mr. Trump has personally called for Mr. Zuckerberg to be jailed in retaliation for “plotting against” him during the 2020 election.
As executives at Meta recognized Mr. Trump’s potential for victory in the 2024 election, Mr. Zuckerberg has spent the past 18 months trying to repair the relationship.
Mr. Zuckerberg had at least two private phone calls with Mr. Trump over the course of the summer, according to two people with knowledge of the talks, one of which saw the tech executive wishing Mr. Trump well and “praying” for him after the assassination attempt on his life. And in an interview over the summer, Mr. Zuckerberg said Mr. Trump looked like a “badass” after pumping his fist to the crowd when he was shot at by a would-be assassin during a rally in Pennsylvania.
Other tech executives, like Elon Musk, who has stumped for the conservative movement and gave hundreds of millions of dollars to the Trump campaign, have forged a closer relationship with Mr. Trump. (Mr. Musk and Mr. Zuckerberg have developed such a tense relationship that the two spent 2023 challenging one another to a physical fight.) But executives at Meta hope that Mr. Zuckerberg can launch a new relationship with Mr. Trump by taking a softer touch with the incoming administration.
Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump’s incoming deputy chief of staff for policy, characterized the meeting a bit differently than did Meta. Mr. Miller told Fox News on Wednesday that Mr. Zuckerberg “has been very clear about his desire to be a supporter of, and a participant in, this change we’re seeing all around America and the world, with this reform movement that Donald Trump is leading.”
