Last week, Mark Zuckerberg clearly appeared to side with Donald Trump and his collaborator Elon Musk, defending the same conception of freedom of expression on social media and announcing major changes to Meta's platforms. A few days later, speaking to fervent Trump supporter Joe Rogan, the creator of Facebook reiterated his ideological closeness to the US president-elect, arguing, "Masculine energy is good, and obviously society has plenty of that, but I think corporate culture was really trying to get away from it." This turnaround may come as no surprise to observers of his Instagram account. For the past year and a half, the early-forties "Zuck" has been showing off a new Zuckerberg through his posts: longer, curlier hair; a massive chain around his neck; a $900,000 Swiss watch; a high-end, loose-fitting T-shirt; and, what's more, a lot of self-confidence.
Mark Zuckerberg nurtures this "masculine energy" in his passion for Brazilian jiu-jitsu; in his meetings with mixed martial arts stars (by the way, he has invited Dana White, the CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, to join Meta's board of directors); in the statue he had erected in praise of his wife; in his cattle farm at Koolau, his Hawaiian ranch; and also in his musical jams with rappers. He has as many hobbies as posts on his account, which has 15.4 million followers.
The Meta CEO also makes no secret of his obsession with ancient Rome and Julius Caesar. His daughters are imperially named Maxima, August and Aurelia. On his structured black T-shirts, he makes his own punchlines like "Carthago delenda est" ("Carthage must be destroyed"), a quote from Cato the Elder that, in the mouth of the Silicon Valley magnate, seems to refer to an old rivalry with Google, or the ambitious "Aut Caesar aut nihil" ("Emperor or nothing"), the motto of Cesare Borgia (1475-1507). In 2023, Mark Zuckerberg responded positively to the provocations of Elon Musk, who called on him to come down and face him in the arena – the fight didn't take place, but the image is there. As if holding a social media platform like Facebook, used by the equivalent of a quarter of the world's population, in the palm of your hand wasn't enough to establish his power.
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