When a new mafia don is crowned, all the capos must visit him to bend the knee. Some will already be in his good books; others may find the incoming political reality very sticky indeed. So it is at Mar-a-Lago, where for more than a month the President-elect has been receiving a constant string of ring-kissers, eager to shore up their own turf by making nice with the new regime. Enter Mark Zuckerberg, bearing a $1-million gift for The Don’s inaugural fund.

Like many at the top of tech, Zuckerberg has “been on a journey” lately. Like many, it’s not entirely clear whether he actually wanted to go on that journey. It’s long forgotten now, but four years ago the election cycle coughed up the neologism of “Zuckerbucks”, after the Meta founder gave $400 million to voter turnout projects that — with a focus on poor, often black constituencies — seemed engineered to tip the scales towards Joe Biden. Trump half-joked that he might like to imprison Zuckerberg and his wife for election interference. Back then, he used to call him The Zuckerschmuck.

But, like much of the smart money, it wasn’t long before Zuckerberg worked out that Kamala Harris was a dud. By September he’d already made two personal calls to Trump. After the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, Zuckerberg deemed Trump’s response “badass”. A month later he was before Congress, admitting that he regretted Facebook’s heavy-handed censorship of alternative views on Covid. Not to mention regretting his voter turnout fund, which he now admits “gave the impression of partiality”.

As he continues to undergo a personal rebrand Zuckerberg, possibly the most inscrutable of tech’s top tier, has reflected Silicon Valley’s Rightward drift in recent years. Is this cynicism on his part? How much is genuine change of heart? His present political identity is perhaps downstream of whether he is anything more than a businessman. He has often traded on that ambiguity over whether he is a player or just an ordinary guy who loves to code. And like Bill Gates before him, there are bright flashes of ruthlessness to go with the gormlessness.

Those close to him say that, at 40, Zuckerberg has become jaded by politics. Being harangued at no fewer than 10 different Congressional hearings across the past decade will do that. At the start of 2024, he underwent little short of a show trial.

For his part, Elon Musk clearly needs Trump’s benediction in order to smash through the many legislative hurdles his self-driving taxis will face. It’s not so transparent what Zuckerberg wants. But one thing he might be seeking is simply continued strategic dominance. The tech giants which emerged in the 2000s now see a coming wave of disruption from AI, and they want two things from it: more freedom to pursue their own projects in the space, and less freedom for their competitors. As near-monopolies 20 years into their lifespan, these are companies which secretly love regulation — because of who it keeps out.

Zuckerberg will want to be upwind of a rapidly shifting legislative landscape, as AI begins to break down the old giants and throw up new ones. Two weeks ago, Meta’s president of global affairs Nick Clegg told journalists that his boss hopes to play “an active role in the debates that any administration needs to have about maintaining America’s leadership in the technological sphere”.

It’s a framing that speaks to the limiting horizons of our new world. In truth, MAGA 2 is a rearguard action to save American prestige against an encroaching multipolar world. Zuckerberg has woken up to this new reality — and he doesn’t want to miss out.

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Gavin Haynes is a journalist and former editor-at-large at Vice.

@gavhaynes

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