Mark Zuckerberg Isn’t Done With Politics. His Politics Have Just Changed.; Mother Jones, September 24, 2024

 Tim Murphy, Mother Jones; Mark Zuckerberg Isn’t Done With Politics. His Politics Have Just Changed.

"On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that one of the world’s richest men had recently experienced a major epiphany. After bankrolling a political organization that supported immigration reform, espousing his support for social justice, and donating hundreds of millions of dollars to support local election workers during the 2020 election, “Mark Zuckerberg is done with politics.”

The Facebook founder and part-time Hawaiian feudal lord, according to the piece, “believed that both parties loathed technology and that trying to continue engaging with political causes would only draw further scrutiny to their company,” and felt burned by the criticism he has faced in recent years, on everything from the proliferation of disinformation on Facebook to his investment in election administration (which conservatives dismissively referred to as “Zuckerbucks”). He is mad, in other words, that people are mad at him, and it has made him rethink his entire theory of how the world works.

It’s an interesting piece, which identifies a real switch in how Zuckerberg—who along with his wife, Priscilla Chan, has made a non-binding pledge to give away a majority of his wealth by the end of his lifetime—thinks about his influence and his own ideology. But there’s a fallacy underpinning that headline: Zuckerberg isn’t done with politics. His politics have simply changed."