Mark Zuckerberg says that unlike some other tech founders, he has no interest in getting involved in politics in 2024.
In a letter sent Monday to Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and a vocal critic of Zuckerberg, the Meta CEO said his goal was to remain “neutral.”
“My goal is to remain neutral and not play or appear to play any role,” Zuckerberg said in the letter, which was obtained by Business Insider and first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
Zuckerberg said that unlike the last presidential election, he has no plans to donate to support election infrastructure in 2024. In 2020, he and his wife donated $400 million to nonpartisan organizations helping run elections during the pandemic. Republicans labeled them “Zuckerbucks” and claimed they benefited Democrats in the election.
“These are designed to be nonpartisan and span urban, rural and suburban communities, but I know there are some who believe this effort has favored one political party, when the analysis I have seen indicates otherwise,” he wrote.
Such donations have long been a topic of debate, but a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in May found that individual donations like those from Zuckerberg don’t benefit Democrats.
In his letter, Zuckerberg also addressed Meta’s content moderation, which Jordan and other Republican lawmakers have strongly criticized, accusing the social media platform of censoring conservative views.
Zuckerberg said the Biden administration repeatedly pressured Meta in 2021 to remove COVID-19-related content and “expressed significant frustration” when the company did not comply.
Internal Mehta emails obtained by The Wall Street Journal last year said the company had removed COVID-19-related content under pressure from the White House.
“Ultimately, our decision whether to remove content is ours and we take responsibility for our decisions, including the COVID-19-related modifications we made to our enforcement approach in response to this pressure,” Zuckerberg wrote, adding, “I believe the government pressure was misguided, and I regret that we were not more vocal about it.”
The White House did not respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.
In 2023, Jordan threatened to sue Zuckerberg for contempt of Congress for failing to provide documentation about censoring conservative views.
Zuckerberg also acknowledged that in 2020, Mehta suppressed a New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop while it pending a fact-checking investigation, adding that “in retrospect, we should not have downgraded that story.”
He said the company has changed its processes to prevent this from happening again, including ensuring that it doesn’t downgrade articles while they await fact-checks.
Zuckerberg previously said that Meta made a mistake by suppressing the laptop story.
When contacted by BI, Mehta declined to comment.
