Former President Donald Trump attacked Meta again Monday in an interview with the CNBC program "Squawk Box." Asked for his opinion on the bipartisan bill that seeks to prohibit the use of the Chinese social network TikTok in the United States, Trump maintained that during his term he could have vetoed it, but that he preferred to leave the decision up to Congress. TikTok survived these ban attempts under Trump's government, which included a divestment order to the app's parent company, ByteDance.
Trump spoke out against the new attempt to block the application, although he did not say that the company had improved its privacy or data protection policies. He did note, however, that "there are a lot of people on TikTok who love it. ... There are a lot of users, that is, you know a lot of good, and there’s a lot of bad." His problem with the proposal is another: "Without TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger — and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people, along with a lot of the media."
He also stated that Facebook has been "very bad for our country," especially in regard to elections. He pointed to Mark Zuckerberg's alleged spending in the 2020 election, similar to a post he made three days ago on Truth Social:
The former president also maintained during the interview that TikTok is not the only company that puts the security of Americans at risk, once again naming Facebook as an example. There are companies, he assured, that are not as American as they say they are, because they do business in China, and if the Chinese Communist Party asks them for "anything," they will give it to them.
On the other hand, he denied that he had been bought to change his mind about the foreign social network, as suggested by Steve Bannon in words reported by Newsweek.
“Without TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people,” Trump told @SquawkCNBC on Monday.https://t.co/xR6QQcMJcr pic.twitter.com/36Dh5Fk2Ux
— CNBC (@CNBC) March 11, 2024
Trump met with Musk
The former president also confirmed during his conversation with CNBC that he had met with Elon Musk, a meeting revealed by the press that sparked rumors of a possible campaign donation.
Trump claimed that he had been "friendly with him over the years" and had even helped him during his presidency. "We obviously have opposing views on a minor subject called electric cars," he also said in reference to Tesla, the electric car company founded by the South African businessman. "I’m all for electric cars, but you have to have all the alternatives."
