Mark Zuckerberg Is a Surrender Monkey

Capitulation is contagious.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, before testifying in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on January 31, 2024. (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

1. Daggett Industries

Meta (née Facebook) is deep into a sustained campaign of capitulation to Donald Trump.

Last Thursday Mark Zuckerberg named Joel Kaplan as the company’s head of public policy. Kaplan is, of course, a Republican in good standing, stalwart friend of Brett Kavanaugh, and somewhere between friendly-toward and horny-for Trumpism.

Yesterday Zuckerberg appointed Dana White to Meta’s board of directors. What are White’s relative qualifications for such a role? He, uh, manages Ultimate Fighting Championship? LOL no, obviously White’s qualification is that he is one of Donald Trump’s closest friends and top endorsers. He was literally all over the campaign stumping for Trump.

Then this morning Kaplan went onto Donald Trump’s favorite morning show, Fox & Friends, and announced that Facebook is killing its fact-checking program and making its content moderation strategy more like Elon Musk’s Twitter/X regime. Because that has been such a success I’m Ron Burgundy?

In the course of his personal appeal to the incoming president, Kaplan said on Fox, “There is a real opportunity here, with President Trump coming into office, with his commitment to free expression, for us to get back to those values.” Believe it or not, my man Joel kept a straight face.

But wait, there’s more!

Because as Kaplan was getting his shine box, Zuckerberg himself unleashed a Thread-storm explaining his newfound commitment to free—sorry, “free”—speech:

Now hold the fucking phone because here’s the part where Zuckerberg went to war against his gag reflex:

That’s right. Zuckerberg hustling to Mar-a-Lago to pay his respects to Trump wasn’t enough.

Surrendering a million-dollar bribe tribute donation to Trump’s unaccountable “inauguration” slush fund wasn’t enough.

Zuckerberg had to move parts of his company into a Republican jurisdiction, put a Trump toady in charge of his D.C. operation, and then allow one of Trump’s courtiers/spies into the governing body of his kingdom.

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Zuckerberg famously sees himself as an alpha. He’s into MMA and went through a phase where he would only eat animals he had killed himself. He’s CEO, bitch.

But it turns out, Zuckerberg is Roland Daggett: A guy who might be an alpha in the artificial world of money, but who has no understanding of real power.

For the uninitiated: Daggett is a character in The Dark Knight Rises. He runs a large corporation and in his quest for riches he employees a man named Bane to help him take over a rival business.

Bane helps Daggett . . . until he has no further use for him.

The key part of the exchange:

Daggett: I’m in charge here.

Bane: Do you feel in charge?

Daggett: I’ve paid you a small fortune . . .

Bane: And this gives you power over me?

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2. Do you feel in charge?

Here is the difference between the authoritarian forces of MAGA and the soft burghers of modern society:

In 2021 the Biden administration snubbed Elon Musk by not inviting him to a photo op. Musk was so outraged that he spent $44 billion to purchase a social media platform, and then used that platform to wage unrelenting war against Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and the entire Democratic party.

In 2025, Mark Zuckerberg went to Donald Trump and preemptively gave portions of his company over as hostages in the hopes that Trump would let his business live in peace. Before the guy had even been sworn in.

Tell me: What’s the point of being worth $209 billion if you can’t play offense against politicians who might target you and your business? Why is Zuckerberg acting like a surrender monkey instead of a titan of industry who has an infinite bankroll and ownership of key platforms? Couldn’t Zuckerberg be the one making Trump’s life difficult if he wanted to?

Imagine if Zuckerberg oriented Meta towards Trump the way Musk oriented Twitter/X toward Biden/Harris/Democrats.

But of course, that’s unthinkable.¹

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We’re seeing this impulse to surrender across American society right now. Where the forces of authoritarianism never give up and never apologize, big chunks of liberal society are bargaining and capitulating without even trying to try to stay independent first.

You see it in the media. You see it in the business community. You even see it in parts of the Democratic party where some elected pols seem to think that they should be “working with” Trump rather than acting like the opposition party.

And the more surrender monkeys there are, the more surrender monkeys we’ll get. Because capitulation is contagious.

Say what you will about Donald Trump, but the man understands power and weakness. He looks at a guy like Zuckerberg and knows exactly what the dude is about. He knows that Zuckerberg doesn’t want trouble and will do whatever he needs to in order to appease a strongman.

Trump knew that Zuckerberg would surrender. I wonder if there will be any oligarchs who won’t.

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3. Show Trial

One more thing: Why is Zuckerberg doing all of this now?

You know that Facebook fact-checking project he’s killing off? Zuckerberg’s the one who came up with it. His company ran it. When did it become problematic? Why didn’t he move to fix it in 2022? Or 2023? Or last summer?

Had Kamala Harris won the election, would Zuckerberg be shutting down fact-checking now and moving his trust and safety division to Texas? If Dana White is such a valuable mind, why didn’t Zuck put him on the board years ago?

Over in our Bulwark Slack Bill Kristol notes how Stalinist this entire thing is:

Zuckerberg is now denouncing Facebook’s fact-checking when they implemented it, were in charge of it, arranged it, supervised it, and paid for it for years. It’s a Stalinist show trial level of self-denunciation.

Except that Stalin made the Communists at the show trials take personal responsibility for their “sins” before they were shot—Zuckerberg gets to blame some amorphous system without acknowledging that he’s the one who set it up.

The key difference, of course, is that unlike the Russian peasants, a plurality of Americans voted for this.

1. Why is it unthinkable? Beats me.