Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s admission he has paused his “Zuckerbucks” scheme ignores that the Biden-Harris administration has adopted and expanded the concept — potentially unlawfully — on a scale that renders Zuckerberg’s involvement unnecessary.
The billionaire repeated his 2022 pledge to discontinue the controversial program in a Monday letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) that appeared written to continue his efforts to placate conservatives — efforts that have included recent overtures to former President Donald Trump.
Yet, the program has been rendered moot after a 2021 Biden-Harris administration executive order requiring the head of every federal agency to develop programs to register voters and to increase voter participation — programs subject to White House approval.
Zuckerberg initially revealed he would pause his efforts “to support electoral infrastructure” after overwhelming public scrutiny concerning if his efforts heavily targeted potential Democrat voters.
That pledge came after the Biden-Harris White House’s executive order.
During the 2020 election cycle, Zuckerberg enlisted David Plouffe, who managed former President Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign and is now advising Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign, to advise him on his controversial initiative. As Breitbart reported:
Plouffe advised Zuckerberg’s nonprofit organization, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, when it gave “$350 million to the “Safe Elections” Project of the Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL) and another $69.5 million to the Center for Election Innovation and Research.” That amount rivaled total federal government spending to make elections safer during the coronavirus pandemic. Analyses suggested funds were concentrated in Democratic counties in swing states.
Zuckerberg had been pressured to contribute to the effort after Democrats blamed him for Donald Trump’s victory in 2016, arguing that Facebook had allowed misinformation and memes by Russian troll farms to circulate on its site.
In his Monday letter, Zuckerberg continued his insistence that the efforts were public-spirited and not motivated by partisan politics.
“The idea here was to make sure local election jurisdictions across the country had the resources they needed to help people vote safely during a global pandemic,” Zuckerberg told the committee.
Letter to House Judiciary Committee (08.26.2024 – E-Signature) by Breitbart News on Scribd
He continued:
They were designed to be non-partisan — spread across urban, rural, and suburban communities. Still, despite the analyses I’ve seen showing otherwise, I know that some people believe this work benefited one party over the other. My goal is to be neutral and not play a role one way or another — or to even appear to be playing a role. So I don’t plan on making a similar contribution this cycle.
Zuckerberg’s letter to Jordan “to share what I‘ve taken away from this [oversight] process” also acknowledged that the Biden-Harris administration successfully pressured Facebook to censor COVID-19 content and that FBI warnings of now-debunked “Russian disinformation” triggered the company to “demote” information about the Hunter Biden laptop during the 2020 election.
Those admissions from the powerful CEO are a victory for Jordan, who has led dogged oversight of Facebook since attaining the Judiciary Committee chairmanship in 2023.
Yet, Zuckerberg’s acknowledgment of long ago, well-established events packaged alongside a repeat of his 2022 intent to pause “Zuckerbucks” appears a shrewd tactical move to shift blame from the alleged partisan activities of Facebook in the face of escalating oversight as the Republican ticket appears ascendant.
While he seems to seek credit for discontinuing Zuckerbucks, in reality, the initiative essentially served as a pilot program that was so successful that the federal government coopted its function, rendering Zuckerbucks no longer needed.
The scope of the Biden-Harris program exceeds Zuckerberg’s prior efforts despite the hundreds of millions of dollars spent in the lead-up to the 2020 election.
The House Administration Committee has subpoenaed Biden-Harris administration officials on the scheme but has been stonewalled. “We know these agencies have developed and begun implementing get out the vote efforts, yet they continue to defy our subpoena request,” Chairman Bryan Steil said in July.
Yet, with a divided Congress, the program is slated to continue.
The scheme’s ramifications might not be clear until after the 2024 election. And for conservatives still stinging from 2020, that might be too late.
Bradley Jaye is a Capitol Hill Correspondent for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter at @BradleyAJaye.