Mark Zuckerberg was caught off guard answering an embarrassing question from Donald Trump.
The CEO of Meta was joined by several tech titans at a White House event, including Bill Gates, Apple CEO Tim Cook and OpenAI founder Sam Altman.
But the Facebook co-founder appeared to be caught unawares by the president, who asked him how much he plans to spend in the US.
Zuckerberg was heard telling Trump: ‘Oh gosh, um, I think it’s probably gonna be, something like, I don’t know, at least $600 billion through ’28, in the US, yeah.’
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The president responded that the figure was ‘significant.’
‘That’s a lot. Thank you Mark. Great to have you’, Trump was heard saying.
After his brief exchange with Zuckerberg, the head of state turned to his wife, Melania, joking that the Meta CEO hadn’t anticipated his question.
‘He said ‘I wasn’t ready,’ the president quipped.
Zuckerberg then interjected: ‘I wasn’t sure what number you wanted to go with.’
Later on at the event, the tech titan was again taken by surprise when asked by reporters about freedom of speech in the UK, NDTV reported.
After being told by Trump ‘this is the beginning of your political career,’ the Meta founder replied ‘No, it’s not.’
Zuckerberg and Trump have had a turbulent relationship since the former banned the latter from Instagram and Facebook in 2021 in the wake of the Capitol Hill riots.
Trump wrote in a book released in September 2024 that Zuckerberg would ‘spend the rest of his life in prison’ if he intervened in that year’s election.
However, relations have since thawed, with the president taking a softer stance and Zuckerberg’s company Meta having donated $1 million to the president’s inauguration fund.
One notable absence from the big tech dinner was Tesla founder and X owner Elon Musk, in a stark contrast to Musk’s constant presence at the White House while he headed his Doge department.
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