Yes, really. Here are the receipts.
In Jan. 2025, Meta agreed to a $25M settlement with Trump over his platform suspension, including $22M for his presidential library. The deal followed a private meeting with Mark Zuckerberg and was followed by a $1M Meta donation to Trump's inauguration.
$22 million to the presidential library, the rest to lawyers and co-plaintiffs — for a suit courts had repeatedly signaled was a First Amendment non-starter. What Zuckerberg did at Mar-a-Lago and the inauguration while the deal came together...
Legal experts had ridiculed the underlying suit, since the First Amendment binds governments, not private platforms — and Meta paid anyway. The Oversight Board finding both sides cited...
Original reporting: The Wall Street Journal broke the settlement terms; the coverage above credits and links it.