Zuckerberg asks Trump to prevent US companies from paying EU fines
- Mark Zuckerberg has asked President-elect Trump to stop imposing fines by the EU
- Meta CEO compared GDPR and antitrust fines to tariffs on US companies
- The request comes after Facebook and Instagram replaced fact-checking services with community notes
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has called on newly elected President Donald Trump to prevent the European Union from imposing fines on US companies for violating the bloc’s antitrust, data protection and other rules.
Speaking about the Joe Rogan Experience podcastZuckerberg said: “I think it’s a strategic advantage for the United States that we have many of the strongest companies in the world, and I think it should be part of the American strategy to defend that.”
Meta has faced fines of €2.619 billion ($2.67 billion) from the European Union since 2022, due to violations of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) alone. Meta was also fined €797.72 million ($813.71 million) in late 2024 for violating EU antitrust rules.
Zuckerberg makes fun with Trump
Zuckerberg suggested that EU competition and data protection regulations act “like a tariff” on US companies in response to Trump’s recent threats to impose high tariffs on imported goods from around the world.
If Trump were to follow Zuckerberg’s suggestion, which is unlikely, US companies would not have to comply with the data and competition rules that companies operating in the EU must adhere to. As a result, US companies would likely face sanctions and restrictions on their activities in the EU, closing off a significant part of the West as a potential market for US companies.
Following Trump’s successful election victory, numerous companies offered huge donations to the president-elect’s inauguration fund, likely in an effort to get into his good graces, with Meta donating $1 million.
Zuckerberg, whose first foray into social media began with a site used to rate the physical attractiveness of female Harvard students, told Rogan that he “started building social media to give people a voice,” and that Facebook and Instagram would soon put an end to fact checking. services because they have become “too politically biased”.
The recent election also acted as a “cultural tipping point to reprioritize speech,” he said a video later shared on Facebook.
Instead, Meta’s social media platforms would begin moving to a community notes system, similar to the one used on X (formerly Twitter). Meta also announced the discontinuation of its diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
The UK’s Technology Secretary, Peter Kyle, has already stated that the recently introduced Online Safety Act is “not up for negotiation”.
“The threshold for these laws enables responsible freedom of expression to a very, very high degree. But I’m just making this basic point: access to British society and our economy is a privilege – it is not a right. And none of our basic protections for children and vulnerable people are negotiable,” Kyle said in an interview with the BBC Observer.