Zuckerberg is now “Maga Mark”. The story of a transformation

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He loosens the moderation of content on his social networks, shakes hands with Donald Trump, practices jiu-jitsu, is a guest on podcasts of muscle bros like Joe Rogan or Theo Von, talks less and less about the charitable foundation he has been running with his wife for years, preferring to remember how much the world needs “masculine energy”. Mark Zuckerberg has changed a lot in recent months. An aesthetic transformation – the new look with curly hair and a gold chain around his neck – but also mental, philosophical. And political, judging by the nickname by which this version of our man is known, “Maga Mark” (from Make America Great Again), a nickname that also seems to be used a lot within Meta, the group that includes Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp and that Zuckerberg has dominated since the dawn of social media. “The last founder,” we might call him, in the sense of founder, in a technology sector in which all his colleagues have passed away (Steve Jobs) or have left the helm of the company to focus on personal projects (Jeff Bezos with his rockets). Even Twitter's Jack Dorsey has long been concerned only with cryptocurrencies, while Elon Musk is known for taking control of companies started by others (PayPal, Tesla, Twitter/X). Zuck is alone, and yet it seems he has never felt better, free as he is from the bonds of the old liberal world, legacies of the era in which Silicon Valley still leaned to the left and relations with the Democrats had to be carefully cultivated . For Zuckerberg, the old world order had brought above all accusations, controversies and criticisms of all kinds, especially since 2016, annus horribilis of fake news and scandals like that of Cambridge Analytica.

The Financial Times recently collected dozens of testimonies from Zuckerberg's colleagues, confidants and subordinates, trying to understand when the mutation into Maga Mark occurred . Many have long been claiming that the pandemic was to blame: after all, Zuckerberg himself admitted it in his time before the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Jim Jordan when he attacked the Biden Administration for the excessive pressure they exerted on social networks during the pandemic. Another interesting turning point, at least from a purely narrative point of view, is the jiu-jitsu match Zuckerberg attended the day after a summit on artificial intelligence organized by the Biden Administration, from which Meta was blatantly excluded . OpenAI, Microsoft, Google went – ​​Meta did not. That day, the Financial Times reports, Zuckerberg "was eager to fight". Then there are those who argue that the "Maga Mark" of the last year is not exactly new: behind the scenes, Mark Zuckerberg has always been like this. After all, we are talking about the same person who, for years, ended meetings with executives by shouting “Domination!”

Mark Zuckerberg is 41, which would make him eligible for a precocious midlife crisis, the outlines of which can actually be glimpsed for a few years, since he began to obsess over hunting (in particular the idea of ​​personally killing the animals he then eats) and martial arts, ending up establishing a bromance with Dana White, head of the Ultimate Fighting Championship and a great friend of Donald Trump, a guest at many of the organization's events. And then there's envy. In particular, the hatred - apparently reciprocated - towards Elon Musk , perceived as "cool" in Silicon Valley, especially before his recent conversion to politics, while Zuck got the crumbs of fame. Or rather, the mockery, jokes and memes that have portrayed him for decades now as a cold and alien robot trying to adapt to the bizarre customs of us humans.

After years of trying and talking to politicians, activists, journalists, mainstream culture, Zuck must have understood that continuing to act good would have served no purpose: neither to defend himself from criticism and trouble with politics, nor to appear cool in the eyes of the tech bros who surround him. So he changed, the old nerd embraced the figure of the bully, in the hope of being more “popular”, like in films set in American high schools. As one of Meta’s sources tells the Financial Times, “the heart of the film The Social Network is true: he just wants to please people” .

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