- President Trump named Mark Zuckerberg in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek published on Tuesday.
- Trump said he supports TikTok because it competes with Zuckerberg's platform.
- Last week, President Trump threatened to jail Zuckerberg if elected in November.
Former President Donald Trump can't seem to stop taking advantage of every opportunity to criticize Mark Zuckerberg.
The latest attack on the Facebook founder and Meta CEO came in an interview with Trump in Bloomberg Businessweek published on Tuesday.
The wide-ranging interview, conducted in late June, covered the economy, foreign policy and Trump's views on several CEOs.
While Trump praised Apple CEO Tim Cook and JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, he also criticised the big tech companies as being “too big” and “too powerful”.
“I don't want to hurt these businesses, but I don't want to see our young people destroyed either,” Trump said.
President Trump emphasized that he doesn't want to destroy big tech companies because they are important to competing with other countries, but he still believes some guardrails need to be put in place.
“We can destroy them if we attack them very violently,” Trump said. “I don't want to destroy them. I want them to thrive.”
“But we don't want them to influence our elections. We don't want them to ruin our kids when kids are committing suicide all over the country,” he added, seemingly referring to Zuckerberg's appearance at a dramatic Senate hearing in January.
During the hearing, Zuckerberg offered an unprecedented apology to families who claim social media abuse contributed to their children's deaths.
“I'm sorry for everything you've been through. No one should ever have to go through the pain that your family has gone through,” Zuckerberg told the families in attendance.
While President Trump has suggested he takes a cautious approach to “complex situations,” he did not seem to convey the same nuance on Facebook.
“When you think about it, I support TikTok because we need competition,” Trump told Bloomberg. “If you don't have TikTok, you have Facebook, you have Instagram. And that's Zuckerberg.”
Representatives for Trump and Mehta did not immediately respond to Business Insider's requests for comment.
Love is not lost
Republican presidential candidates have long criticized Mehta in chief.
Last week, President Trump accused Zuckerberg of election fraud and threatened to throw him in jail.
“All I can say is that if elected president, we will go after election fraudsters like never before and give them long sentences,” Trump said in a July 9 Truth Social post.
“We already know who you are. Don't do that! Zuckerbacks, watch out!” he added.
The feud between the two appears to have stemmed from Meta's decision to ban Trump from its platform following the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The ban was lifted in early 2023.
“All of a sudden I went from number one to being unknown,” Trump said in an interview with Bloomberg, adding that he now relies on his own platform, Truth Social.
The tension between Zuckerberg and Trump stands in contrast to that at major tech companies, some of which have cooperated fully with Trump.
Zuckerberg's tense relationship with Trump stands in stark contrast to his peers who have been totally committed to Trump, including Elon Musk, PayPal mob associate David Sachs and venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz.
In fact, Musk voiced his support just minutes after the assassination attempt on President Trump on Saturday.
“I fully support President Trump and wish him a speedy recovery,” Musk said in a post on X.
Incidentally, Zuckerberg also commented on the shooting, saying, “I pray for President Trump's speedy recovery.”
“This is a very sad day for our country. Political violence undermines democracy and must always be condemned,” Zuckerberg said in a post on the thread.
Mehta announced Friday that it was lifting the remaining restrictions and penalties it had imposed on President Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts.
Mehta said the decision came in light of Trump's formal nomination as the Republican presidential candidate on Monday.
“In assessing our responsibility to permit political expression, we believe the American public should be able to hear from presidential candidates with the same standards,” Meta's president of international affairs, Nick Clegg, said in a blog post.
