Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has called on the incoming Trump administration to protect American tech companies from what he described as punitive antitrust actions by the European Union. Speaking on the ‘Joe Rogan Experience’ podcast on Friday, Zuckerberg criticised the EU’s fines against US firms, which he said amounted to “more than $30 billion” over the last two decades.
Highlighting Meta’s own experience, Zuckerberg noted that the company—which operates Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp—was fined €797 million ($817 million) in 2023 for allegedly imposing unfair trading conditions on ad service providers. He argued that the EU’s competition rules act as “a tariff” on American companies and called for stronger intervention from the US government.
“I think it’s a strategic advantage for the United States that we have some of the strongest companies in the world,” Zuckerberg said. “It should be part of the US strategy to defend that.”
He also expressed optimism about President-elect Donald Trump and said, “I think he just wants America to win.”
Zuckerberg took aim at the outgoing Biden administration, accusing it of failing to protect US tech interests in the face of EU scrutiny. “If some other country was screwing with another industry that we cared about, the US government would probably find some way to put pressure on them, but I think what happened here is actually the complete opposite,” he said. “The US. government led the kind of attack against the companies, which then just made it so the EU is basically in all these other places, just free to just go to town on all the American companies and do whatever you want.”
Zuckerberg’s remarks come amid significant changes at Meta. Earlier this week, the company announced it would end its third-party fact-checking programme in favour of a community-driven model. Many observers view this shift as an effort to align with the incoming Trump administration, which has frequently criticized content moderation policies as biased censorship.
In another move reflecting the changing “legal and policy landscape,” Meta revealed plans to terminate its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. The company framed these changes as part of a broader strategy to adapt to evolving political dynamics.
