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Mark Zuckerberg ‘genuinely scared’ Donald Trump will jail him in White House return

A former Tory MP has claimed he was told that Facebook founder and tech billionaire Mark Zuckerberg is ‘genuinely scared’ that US President Donald Trump is going to try and jail him

Mark Zuckerberg (C), CEO of Meta, attends the inauguration ceremony where Donald Trump will sworn in as the 47th US President in the US Capitol Rotunda in Washington, DC, on January 20, 2025
Mark Zuckerberg is ‘scared’, Rory Stewart has claimed(Image: POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Politics expert Rory Stewart reckons Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg is “genuinely scared” of being jailed by US Presdient Donald Trump.

The claim was made on The Rest Is Politics podcast, the vastly popular show hosted by former Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell and his former Tory-leader candidate mate Stewart.

It was Stewart who cited a source close to Zuckerberg, claiming that tech titans like the Meta owner are “scared”. Zuckerberg was seen alongside the ever-controversial world’s richest man and X loudmouth Elon Musk at Trump’s inauguration.

Stewart had just returned from the World Economic Forum in Davos, where some of the world’s richest and most influential people rub shoulders every year.

Trump speaks to the press before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, on January 24, 2025
Trump speaks to the press before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, on January 24, 2025(Image: AFP via Getty Images)

He was asked by Rest Is Politics US star Anthony Scaramucci, a former aide to Trump, why there was “no dissent” from the billionaire owners of some of the world’s biggest companies.

“Why are we, why is (sic) our media companies now – Jeff Bezos, etc – no dissent? And why do people in the business community come up to me at Davos and say, ‘I mean, I appreciate you speaking up, but you know, I can’t speak out. I can’t speak out’.”

Referencing Musk and Zuckerberg, Scaramucci then asked: “Who the f*** do these people think they are?”

Stewart replied: “The answer is they’re scared. I mean, some of them are genuinely scared. I mean, I was talking to somebody who knows Mark Zuckerberg, and he says Zuckerberg believes he’s going to go to jail.”

The Daily Star has approached Facebook’s parent company Meta for comment.

President Donald Trump speaks at a Hurricane Helene recovery briefing in a hangar at the Asheville Regional Airport in Fletcher, North Carolina, on January 24, 2025
‘They’re scared’ of Trump, Stewart claimed(Image: AFP via Getty Images)

Stewart, who was an MP from 2010 to 2019, then put forward his theory of why Zuckerberg might be thinking this way, after Meta announced it would ditch fact-checkers and “dramatically reduce the amount of censorship”, which also includes Instagram.

“The story will be that ‘Zuckerberg conspired with the Biden crime family to steal the 2020 election’… He’s going through all this amazing bullying and humiliation partly out of fear.”

There is no evidence the 2020 election was stolen, despite Trump’s repeated claims that it was.

Stewart argued that his theory meant a “troubling” sign that “people are beginning to lose faith in the American justice system” and argued that Biden’s pardons issued to members of his own family “exacerbated” that mistrust.

Stewart said: “He’s pardoning his own family, but also because he’s giving the impression that he needs to pardon everybody because he doesn’t trust the American justice system to defend them.”

A number of Trump’s supporters believe the justice system was weaponised by the Biden administration and Trump has since pardoned rioters who stormed the Capitol building on January 6, 2021. Trump has previously said he will appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” Biden.

Trump’s sweeping clemency order on Monday upended the largest prosecution in Justice Department history, freeing from prison people seen on camera viciously attacking police as well as leaders of far-right extremist groups convicted of orchestrating violent plots to stop the peaceful transfer of power after his election loss.

Trump has defended the pardons, saying the defendants had “already served years in prison” in conditions he described as “disgusting” and “inhumane”.

US District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who presided over Mr Trump’s election interference case before its dismissal, said the pardons can’t change the “tragic truth” about the attack.

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