Facebook Insiders are Donating Massively to Dems. Is the Zuck-Trump Bromance to Blame?
Facebook employees and other insiders seem not to like Mark Zuckerberg’s growing coziness to Donald Trump. Their donations say it all.
Mark Zuckerberg's coziness with President Trump doesn't resonate with the folks over at Menlo Park. | Image: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images/AFP
- Mayor Pete is all the rage over at Facebook.
- Insiders gave Elizabeth Warren thousands of dollars despite plans to break up Big Tech.
- Among political ad buyers, Donald Trump is a client Facebook needs to keep close.
A warm relationship seems to be brewing between President Donald Trump and the Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. After holding a formal meeting in the Oval Office in September, the two took it to the next level and had dinner in October, as NBC reported.
Not everyone seems to be for this budding bromance, though, especially over at Menlo Park. If the amounts Facebook insiders have donated to the various 2020 U.S. presidential candidates are anything to go by, they would much prefer if Zuckerberg were seeing someone else.
Dems outraise Donald Trump
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Trump is nearly at the bottom as a recipient of Facebook insider’s political donations. For the 2020 cycle, Trump had received $2,850 as of Oct. 16. This was an even lower amount than what the relatively lesser-known candidates such as Steve Bullock and Julian Castro received – $3,490 and $3,857, respectively.
Contrasted with leading Democratic presidential candidates, Trump has performed dismally. The social media giant’s insiders, for instance, donated $51,158 to Pete Buttigieg. This was more than 17 times what they gave Trump.
Kamala Harris came in second as Facebook insiders’ next favorite candidate based on donations. The presidential candidate who represents the social media giant’s home state in the Senate received $34,396 as of mid-October.
Facebook insiders don’t mind Elizabeth Warren’s plans for Big Tech?
Despite proposing to break up big technology companies, Facebook insiders still donated generously to Elizabeth Warren, relatively speaking. As of mid-October, she had received $28,880. This was a little over half of what the largest recipient of Facebook insider’s donations got.
Interestingly, this generosity on Facebook’s insiders’ part to Warren did not shield the social media behemoth from her attacks immediately after Zuckerberg’s October dinner date with Trump was revealed.
The Massachusetts Senator derided the ‘secret dinner’ as an effort by Zuckerberg to prevent antitrust concerns being raised and subsequent action being taken against Facebook. She dubbed Zuckerberg’s meetings with Republicans as “corruption, plain and simple.”
Other Democratic presidential candidates who received substantial amounts from Facebook insiders include Andrew Yang, Cory Booker and Joe Biden. As of Oct. 16, Yang had received $21,142 from the social media giant’s insiders, Booker received $13,560 while Biden got $11,618.
Who is Facebook’s biggest political ads client?
Some presidential candidates who have since dropped out of the race also outraised Trump among Facebook insiders. Beto O’Rourke, for instance, received $8,838 while Jay Inslee got $14,410.
The measly donations that Donald Trump has received from Facebook insiders may, however, be of little concern to the president. If the amount he has spent on Facebook ads is any indicator, what he values most is the platform, not the employee dollars.
Currently, he is the biggest political ads spender on the social media platform. Since May 2018, Trump has spent more than $21 million buying nearly 300,000 political ads. Trump beat even Facebook, which spent $18 million on political ads. Now that’s something tweet-worthy!