Former President Donald Trump has revealed the details of a phone call with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in which the Facebook founder apologized for censoring a photo of Trump throwing his fist in the air after being shot in the ear during an attempted assassination.
According to Trump, Zuckerberg called him immediately after the July 13 incident and praised him for his bravery, calling him a “badass” for standing up after being shot. Trump said that Zuckerberg also announced that he would not be supporting a Democratic candidate in the upcoming election, citing his respect for Trump’s actions that day.
Trump described the phone call as a surprise, saying that Zuckerberg had called him multiple times to apologize for the mistake. “He said they made a mistake, et cetera et cetera, and they corrected the mistake,” Trump said.
Meta has since acknowledged that it had incorrectly altered the iconic photo, which was meant to be fact-checked against a doctored version that had gone viral on social media. “This was an error,” said Meta’s public affairs director Dani Lever. “Our systems incorrectly applied that fact check to the real photo.”
Trump also took the opportunity to criticize Google for its handling of the situation, saying that no one from the tech giant had called him to apologize for censoring the photo. He described Google as “very bad” and “very irresponsible,” and predicted that Congress would soon shut down the search engine.
In contrast, Zuckerberg’s apology and decision not to support a Democratic candidate in the upcoming election has been seen as a significant development. While Zuckerberg has not publicly endorsed Trump, his actions have been interpreted as a sign of respect for the former president’s bravery in the face of danger.
