A forthcoming book titled Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump is causing a stir in tech and political circles. Written by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan and set for release on June 23, 2026, the volume reveals embarrassing details about how Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos tried to curry favor with President Donald Trump after his 2024 reelection. According to the book, Trump showed guests the fawning messages he received from the two Silicon Valley titans, mocking them openly.
Zuckerberg reportedly sent Trump a photo of a letter written by one of his grade-school-age children, expressing excitement about the "golden age of America", a slogan Trump used frequently during his campaign. Bezos, during a dinner at Mar-a-Lago in December 2024, denigrated The Washington Post, calling it one of his worst financial investments, and later sought a business favor for his space company Blue Origin. The book also describes Zuckerberg's visit in November 2024, when Trump played the national anthem as performed by the J6 Prison Choir, a group of detainees involved in the January 6 Capitol riot.
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Google's Sundar Pichai and Apple's Tim Cook also met with Trump before his second term, but it was Elon Musk who seemed to relish the situation. Musk commented that the behavior was "first-class groveling". Trump later told associates that Zuckerberg and Bezos were "kissing my ass", highlighting how they had opposed him in 2016 but now sought his approval.
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The revelations shed harsh light on the relationship between Big Tech and political power. While Silicon Valley tries to maintain influence, the president uses these dynamics to humiliate his counterparts. The book arrives amid ongoing tensions between Meta and the Trump administration, as covered in our article on Meta's employee revolt. Amazon also faces scrutiny, as seen with the engineers under investigation.
For more on Donald Trump and his interactions with the tech industry, refer to his Wikipedia page. Haberman and Swan's book promises to be essential reading for understanding contemporary power dynamics.
Source: https://www.wired.com/story/trump-mocked-mark-zuckerberg-and-jeff-bezos-by-showing-off-fawning-texts
