Trump Mocked Zuckerberg and Bezos for 'Kissing My Ass' After 2024 Election Fawning

A forthcoming book by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan reveals that Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos aggressively courted Donald Trump after his 2024 election victory — and that Trump privately ridiculed both men for doing so. The book, titled Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, lands June 23 and paints a portrait of Silicon Valley's most powerful figures competing to ingratiate themselves with the incoming president, only to become the butt of his jokes behind closed doors.

Zuckerberg's overtures included texting Trump a photograph of a handwritten letter from one of his elementary-school-age children — his oldest would have been 8 or 9 — expressing excitement about the 'golden age of America,' a Trump campaign slogan. Trump responded by showing the texts to various visitors and guests, mocking the Meta CEO in the process. When Zuckerberg visited Mar-a-Lago shortly after Thanksgiving 2024, Trump reportedly had the national anthem played over speakers — performed by the so-called J6 Prison Choir, a group of detained January 6 rioters. Trump also privately described Zuckerberg and Bezos as 'kissing my ass,' telling guests, 'You would not believe the texts I got from these tech guys. I've got to show you.'

Bezos was similarly transactional. Over a December 2024 dinner at Mar-a-Lago, he reportedly trashed his own newspaper, The Washington Post, to Trump, agreeing when Trump complained about unfair coverage and adding that Post employees 'don't listen' the way his other companies do. Bezos also sent Trump a selfie featuring himself and then-fiancée Lauren Sánchez. Months later, in July 2025, Bezos visited the Oval Office seeking a concrete business favor: he asked Trump to instruct deputy defense secretary Steve Feinberg to push for 'contractor diversity' in government space contracts — a move designed to help his Blue Origin compete against Elon Musk's dominant SpaceX. Trump said he'd consider it, but never acted. He subsequently reconciled with Musk, who had resumed writing checks to Republicans, and instead expanded SpaceX's Starship operations.

Musk, who is portrayed as relishing the spectacle of his rivals debasing themselves, reportedly responded to Trump's account of the groveling with the phrase 'first-class groveling.' The dynamic underscores a broader realignment in which major tech CEOs — including Google's Sundar Pichai and Apple's Tim Cook — rushed to meet with Trump before his second inauguration. Trump himself framed the shift in terms of his 2016 antagonists: in a conversation with Musk recounted in the book, he marveled at how figures who once tried to 'knock him down' were now scrambling for access. The White House did not directly address the book's reporting, with spokesperson Kush Desai offering a generic statement about Trump's commitment to American business.