San Francisco (AFP) – Meta is considering whether to move its incorporation to Texas, a US state seen as amenable to companies run by big shareholders like Mark Zuckerberg, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday. The social media giant has been incorporated in Delaware since 2004, when the company was known as Facebook.
A shift to Texas by Meta would follow in the footsteps of Elon Musk, who switched incorporation of Tesla and some other companies he runs to the state after a Delaware judge voided his huge compensation package. In a ruling, Delaware Chancery Court Judge Kathaleen McCormick sided with a shareholder who claimed the Tesla CEO was overpaid, approving the annulment of Musk’s 2018 compensation agreement worth as much as $55.8 billion. Suits filed by shareholders are typically heard in courts where companies are incorporated, and Texas portrays itself as a friendly venue for companies run by shareholders with controlling interests.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone told AFP he could not confirm the Journal report and that the company had no plans to move its headquarters from California’s Silicon Valley. Texas has a history of supporting conservative political candidates, Trump among them. Trump has recently courted tech titans including Zuckerberg and X owner Musk, both of whom attended the president’s inauguration in Washington.
Meta has pulled back on fact-checking and diversity initiatives as Zuckerberg embraces Trump. Zuckerberg has tweaked Meta’s policies to lift restrictions on some content within the company’s apps, which include Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp. Meta would be “restoring free expression on our platforms,” Zuckerberg, who reportedly dined with Trump at his Florida estate in November, said in announcing a recent rollback of fact-checking operations.
Meta this week said it agreed to pay Trump $25 million to settle a 2021 lawsuit he filed claiming he was wrongfully censored by Facebook and Instagram after the US Capitol riot.
© 2024 AFP
