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(CNN) — President Trump signed a settlement agreement at the White House Wednesday to end the lawsuit he brought against Meta after the company suspended his account in the aftermath of the January 6 attack on the Capitol, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Trump signed the agreement that, according to a preliminary draft, requires Meta to pay out roughly $25 million, $22 million of which will go to a fund for Trump’s forthcoming presidential library. The remaining amount goes to attorneys’ fees and the other plaintiffs, a person familiar with the matter said.
The settlement comes after Zuckerberg has worked to ingratiate himself with Trump since he won the 2024 election, donating $1 million to his inauguration and then attending as he sat alongside Cabinet members. He also relaxed new content moderation rules on Facebook, Instagram and Threads, scrapping partnerships with third-party fact-checking groups and moving toward an X-style “community notes” system instead.
Trump and Zuckerberg specifically discussed the lawsuit when he visited Trump’s club in November following the election, the source said.
The WSJ first reported on the agreement. Meta and the White House declined to comment.
The relationship has come a long way from when Trump threatened to send Zuckerberg to prison in a book over the summer, one in a string of claims by Trump that the CEO and his platform had previously sought to undermine him.
In recent weeks Meta has made several moves that have brought it closer to Trump’s vision for American businesses in general and social media specifically.
Earlier this month Meta said it was ending its diversity, equity and inclusion programs, joining a number of other companies pulling back from such practices in the wake of pressure from conservative critics and customers. Trump has long railed against such programs.
Meta also named Trump ally and UFC boss Dana White to its board of directors this year, days after elevating Joel Kaplan, the most prominent Republican leader at the company, to be its top policy executive.
Meta adjusted its content review policies on Facebook and Instagram, ending partnerships with third-party fact checkers in the United States and replacing them with user-generated “community notes” and scaling back its automated moderation systems. Conservative critics, including Trump, have long complained about what they call censorship by social media platforms.
This story has been updated with additional context.
CNN’s Clare Duffy, Allison Morrow and Hadas Gold contributed reporting.
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