Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly called President Donald Trump in 2016 to congratulate him on his victory over Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
Many CEOs and heads of large companies publicly congratulated Trump, but Zuckerberg privately called Trump to congratulate him, according to three anonymous sources who spoke to BuzzFeed News.
Facebook considered the Trump campaign an “innovator” for its online marketing campaign, according to internal documents obtained by BuzzFeed News.
Trump’s campaign spent millions for advertisements on Facebook during the 2016 election and the report details how his campaign strategy online was far more complex than Clinton’s.
“While we offer insights into how our products work and provide technical support, campaigns make their own decisions about how to use our tools,” Facebook’s global politics and government outreach director, Katie Harbath, told BuzzFeed News in a statement.
“Facebook loved us during the campaign,” Gary Coby, the 2016 Trump campaign director of digital advertising and fundraising and Republican National Committee director of advertising, told BuzzFeed News. “Their team was heavily involved because it was a great learning experience and Hillary’s team was not doing much.”
“I believe Facebook was a great platform for the president,” Trump’s 2016 campaign digital director, Brad Parscale, told BuzzFeed News. “I’m completely disappointed that Facebook won’t step up and announce to the world how well we used the platform and that we changed the way Facebook advertising will work in the future.”
The BuzzFeed report shows that Trump’s campaign used a far more advanced strategy online. In one case, the Trump campaign tested 5.9 million different versions of ads on Facebook, while the Clinton campaign tested only 66,000.
In that test, Trump’s campaign spent $44 million while Clinton’s campaign spent $28 million. So, Trump’s campaign spent less than double what Clinton’s spent, but got nearly 90 times more out of it.
Trump’s plan was “more complex than Clinton’s and better leveraged Facebook’s ability to optimize for outcomes,” the author of an internal Facebook white paper wrote. (RELATED: Facebook Reveals Which Companies It Had A Special Data Access Relationship With)
Big names in business working both sides of the political aisle is something widely recognized by politicians and others. In a hearing on Tuesday with representatives from Facebook, Google and Twitter, Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington mentioned a bill she has that would make it illegal to donate “to members of a committee where there’s an interest at stake.”
“I understand that you donate to Democrats and Republicans,” Jayapal told the representatives from Facebook, Twitter and Google.
Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk recently received a flood of criticism from liberals once the media revealed he donated about $39,000 to a Republican super PAC, forgetting the fact that he donates to Democrats too.
“Nice to know the person responsible for making electric cars is able to divorce himself from climate change by donating to the very people who deny its existence,” outspoken liberal actress Chelsea Handler tweeted on July 14.
Musk donated almost $35,000 to Democratic organizations in 2011, The Daily Caller News Foundation reported. “A nominal annual amount goes out automatically to both parties to maintain dialogue,” he tweeted on July 14.
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