Trump hosted Zuckerberg for undisclosed dinner at WH

President Donald Trump hosted a previously undisclosed dinner with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook board member Peter Thiel at the White House in October, the company told NBC News on Wednesday.

The meeting took place during Zuckerberg’s most recent visit to Washington, where he testified before Congress about Facebook’s new cryptocurrency Libra. Zuckerberg also gave a speech at Georgetown University detailing his company’s commitment to free speech, and its resistance to calls for the company to crack down on misinformation in political ads.

Facebook confirmed the meeting to NBC News on Wednesday.

“As is normal for a CEO of a major U.S. company, Mark accepted an invitation to have dinner with the President and First Lady at the White House,” a Facebook spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

It is unclear why the meeting was not made public or what Trump, Zuckerberg and Thiel discussed.

The White House declined to comment.

The dinner was the second meeting between Zuckerberg and Trump in a month. Zuckerberg also met with the president in the Oval Office in a surprise meeting during a September visit to the capital.

Thiel, one of seven Facebook board members, is one of the few outspoken conservative figures in Silicon Valley. A major donor to Trump’s campaign, Thiel is also the chairman of Palantir, a private data technology company that has become one of the largest recipients of government defense contracts with the United States government since Trump took office.

Thiel famously bankrolled a libel lawsuit that effectively bankrupted the gossip website Gawker.Zuckerberg’s speech at Georgetown, which he delivered on the same trip in which he met with Trump, was titled “Standing for Voice and Free Expression.”