Meta Agrees to Settle Trump Lawsuit Over Account Suspension

Mark Zuckerberg talks about the Orion AR glasses during the Meta Connect conference in Menlo Park, Calif., on Sept. 25, 2024. Godofredo A. Vásquez/AP Photo

Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta has agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump after it suspended his accounts following the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol breach.

The settlement was filed in federal court in San Francisco on Jan. 29.

According to the filing, Meta and Trump will file a “joint stipulation of dismissal with prejudice” in the coming days.

The social media giant agreed to pay $25 million to settle the lawsuit, of which $22 million will go toward a fund for Trump’s presidential library and the rest to legal fees and other plaintiffs in the case.

The Epoch Times has contacted Meta and the White House for further comment.

Trump filed class-action lawsuits against Meta, Twitter (now X), and Google-owned YouTube, along with the companies’ respective CEOs, in 2021, after they shut down his accounts in the wake of the events of Jan. 6, 2021.

Facebook first suspended Trump’s account before announcing in June 2021 that it would ban him from its platform for at least two years, after saying that he had violated its terms of service with his “praise for people engaged in violence” during the Capitol breach.

Twitter, under the leadership of then-CEO Jack Dorsey, barred Trump from its social media site for the same reasons.

In his lawsuits against Facebook and Twitter, Trump accused the platforms of violating his First Amendment right to free speech and engaged in “illegal, unconstitutional censorship” of conservatives and the American people.

Trump’s Social Media Accounts Reinstated

The lawsuits asked for Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act—a law shielding companies from liability for content posted on their platforms—to be overturned, with lawyers for Trump arguing that the law granted large social media platforms too much legal protection.

Trump also asked that his social media accounts and YouTube channel be restored.

A federal judge dismissed the suit against Twitter while the lawsuit against Google was closed.

Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts were reinstated in early 2023, although Meta warned that he faced much higher penalties, including the risk of suspension for between one month and two years, if he violated the company’s rules.

Those final restrictions were lifted in July 2024, in the lead-up to the U.S. presidential elections, to allow for “political expression” and to ensure Americans could hear from the nominees “on the same basis.”

(L–R) Priscilla Chan and her husband, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg; Lauren Sanchez and her husband, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos; Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai; and Tesla CEO Elon Musk attend President Donald Trump's inauguration ceremony in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on Jan. 20, 2025. Chip Somodevilla/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Trump’s Twitter account was also restored by its new owner, Elon Musk, in 2022, and his YouTube channel was reinstated in 2023. Trump predominantly posts on his own platform, Truth Social.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago in November 2024, just months after publicly praising him for how he handled a July 2024 assassination attempt against him at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Meta also donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee, and Zuckerberg was among several billionaires, including Musk, Google’s Sundar Pichai, and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, who attended his inauguration.

Shortly before Trump’s inauguration, Meta announced it was dropping its controversial fact-checking program on its platform.

This month, the social media giant announced it was also ending its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and elected Dana White, CEO of UFC and a close friend of Trump’s, to serve on its board of directors.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.