Mark Zuckerberg and his college roommates founded Facebook while they were students at Harvard University. Initially, the platform was called “TheFacebook” and was designed as a social networking site for their fellow Harvard students. It launched in February 2004, and by 2005, the platform dropped “The” and became simply Facebook, expanding beyond universities to anyone over 13 with a valid email address. The user base quickly grew, generating massive profits for Zuckerberg and Facebook’s shareholders. The company’s valuation reached $104 billion by the time of its IPO in 2012, enabling Facebook Inc. to purchase Instagram that same year, followed by WhatsApp in 2014.
After developing and acquiring additional platforms and services, the company rebranded as Meta in 2021. At the time of publishing this article, its stock market value is reported to be $1.810 trillion, while the CEO—Mark Zuckerberg—has an estimated net worth of $247.5 billion, making him the third-richest person in the world thanks to his social media empire.
Elon Musk—the richest man in the world—also happens to be the owner of another major social media platform. His net worth is, at the time of posting this article, estimated at around $397.4 billion. The Tesla CEO purchased Twitter – a social media platform known for its political discourses. He quickly renamed it to “X”, referencing his past projects, such as “SpaceX” and “X Money”.
The two social media moguls happen to have yet another thing in common: their wealth has been significantly expanded with the return of Donald Trump to office.
After the announcement of the election results, Musk—who actively supported the victorious Republican candidate—saw his net worth surge by 84%, rising from $264 billion to a peak of $486 billion. Musk donated to Trump’s campaign, performed at rallies, and spread misinformation to tip the scales in Trump’s favour.
Although Zuckerberg did not support the current U.S. president’s efforts to win the 2024 election, he still experienced an $8.7 billion increase in wealth following Trump’s inauguration on January 20. Zuckerberg personally attended the event and sat in the front row, a space typically reserved for presidential cabinet nominees, alongside fellow billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Sergey Brin, and, of course, Elon Musk. His wealth increase and honoured seat may have been linked to an announcement by the Meta CEO, in which he declared that his platforms would no longer enforce their fact-checking policy, arguing that it restricts users’ freedom of speech. Such sentiments have been also repeatedly expressed by both Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Three days post-inauguration American media started reporting that Meta disabled searches for opposition-related terms, further fueling accusations the public was spinning against him.
That was far from the end of the controversies surrounding the billionaires’ involvement in the inauguration. The X CEO was given an opportunity to speak directly to the crowd and express gratitude to his supporters. When he finished, he saluted the audience, saying, “My heart goes out to you.” Due to the undeniable resemblance of his gesture to the salute associated with Nazi sympathisers, the incident was met with global condemnation, including strong criticism from representatives of the European Parliament. Musk never acknowledged or apologised for his actions. His only response was a series of posts on X, where he mocked the backlash and complained about the criticism.
That was only the first domino in the Musk effect. In the wake of his salute, the media began discussing his biased algorithms favouring conservative views of the far-right populists, along with his ongoing attempts to expand his influence over European politics. Representatives from the European Union took note of these concerns and began calling on executive bodies to prepare formal protections against the influence of foreign, multi-billion-dollar entities from across the ocean. Elon Musk took note of these sentiments and responded by posting on X, “From MAGA to MEGA: Make Europe Great Again”—a play on Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again”.
The European Union has already been working to address the problem of Russian trolls on social media and has developed an extensive policy designed to protect citizens from harmful content online. Social media providers are legally required to be transparent about how their algorithms work, block illegal content, implement user reporting tools, allow independent audits of efforts against illegal content, and conduct risk assessments on harmful information. Noncompliance with those rules results in a fine, or fines, if the situation doesn’t change with time.
However, we must acknowledge the correlation between these events. Musk and Zuckerberg have seen their wealth expand during the same period that anti-democratic changes were introduced on their platforms. If these two factors are indeed connected, the financial trade-off would amount to a few billion dollars in gains versus, at best, a few million euros in losses—a ratio that the two businessmen might see as a worthwhile investment. The EU would need to take more radical measures to ensure that social media is free from the personal biases of their CEOs. But what can be realistically done?
In contemporary times, all forms of online content control are met with accusations of infringing upon the right to freedom of speech. Many people believe that everyone has the right to their own opinion, regardless of what that opinion may be. From the perspective of online ethnographies, such a liberal policy can certainly enrich social research while decreasing the dangers associated with in-person ethnographies. Conducting in-person research on radical-right groups is often correlated with more aggressive attitudes and behaviours towards researchers. Even if a liberal online policy can benefit social research, it comes with its own drawbacks. Studies show that the presence of misinformation and radical views undermines political trust and leads people to prioritise personal values over scientific facts. This dynamic influenced Trump to announce his plans to help the US leave the WHO.
The EU has the power to ban American social media platforms and provide funding for those able to establish new alternatives. However, this approach has already been tested in the American market, with an incomplete effort to ban TikTok. The public was largely unsatisfied with this solution, and it only targeted one platform. To distance itself from American tech giants, the EU would likely need to ban at least four of the most popular platforms, a move that would probably lead to a rise in the use of VPNs rather than a significant reduction in foreign influence.
Additionally, such a move would deal a significant blow to the American economy, as X has 67 million active users in 2024, Instagram has 269.1 million, and Facebook has 260.6 million monthly active users in the EU. Moreover, Europe had 334.43 million users registered on WhatsApp. Banning these apps would likely be seen as an act of trade war by Donald Trump, who has already been lamenting the unfair trade exchange and threatened the EU with tariffs.
It seems that the issue of free speech is one the EU must address with even greater urgency, especially in light of recent developments across the ocean. Unfortunately, the concept itself is inherently philosophical, as the lines between where one person’s freedom ends and where another person’s freedom begins remain blurred. According to the Austrian philosopher Karl Popper, this dilemma is part of the “tolerance paradox.” He argued that intolerant people should not be met with tolerance, as their beliefs will eventually undermine tolerance itself, and along with it the tolerant individuals.
Is formalising these boundaries the next step? Should we hope that it will help confront the rising popularity of far-right populist rhetoric, or should we fear that it will only fuel it? As for now, institutional trust in Europe continues to drop, without any signs of improvement on the horizon.
By Zuzanna Tabakiernik
February 11, 2025
