His neatly coiffed hair has grown, his student's hoodie is now a gold chain, and his politics have veered sharply to the right.
Mark Zuckerberg, the boss of Facebook and Instagram, on Tuesday accused governments and so-called traditional media of encouraging censorship and vowed to return his world-dominating platforms to their roots.
“We are restoring free speech on our platforms,” he claimed on Tuesday in a video posted on his social networks, announcing the end of fact-checking in the US.
The unexpected turn to Trumpian talking points has stunned many of Zuckerberg's closest watchers, but the tech pioneer's sudden alignment with the right wing isn't the first time he's taken steps to maintain his social media dominance.
And it could also reflect a position closer to his political instincts. Since Facebook's early days, Zuckerberg has always been keen to move unfettered when it comes to advancing the interests of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and now Threads.
From the beginning, Zuckerberg has surrounded himself with Silicon Valley's libertarian voices, including longtime advisers Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen, the latter is Meta's longest-serving board member.
But the success of Facebook, which grew from a university networking site to the world's leading communications platform, quickly created scandals and forced Zuckerberg to take action to fend off government intervention.
Fact-checking and stricter content controls, which Zuckerberg said on Tuesday he would “get rid of,” have followed such scandals.
Following the 2016 US presidential election, widespread criticism of misinformation on the platform, particularly about foreign interference and viral false narratives, led Facebook to implement a fact-checking program.
“The bottom line is: we take disinformation seriously,” Zuckerberg wrote at the time.
This initiative marked a significant shift in Facebook's approach to content moderation, which had always been an afterthought or even a source of disdain for Silicon Valley's disruptors.
The subsequent Cambridge Analytica scandal in the late 2010s, which exposed the unauthorized collection of the personal data of millions of Facebook users, further intensified scrutiny and led to Zuckerberg being dragged before Congress and Facebook's content policies was tightened.
'Kissing the Ring'
Since then, Zuckerberg has demonstrated increasing political acumen, managing to avoid significant U.S. government regulation while appearing cooperative with politicians and contrite in the face of an angry public.
And despite the bad headlines, use of the site's platforms has only increased over the years.
To some extent, Tuesday's shocking announcement is still an attempt to keep the government at bay, except this time the political tide has turned toward Trump, who has repeatedly made threats against Zuckerberg, accusing him of targeting liberal causes too much to support.
“This is a case of kissing the ring,” said technical analyst Carolina Milanesi.
“He does whatever it takes to make sure Trump leaves him alone.”
In a more surprising twist, his turn to the right aligns Zuckerberg with Elon Musk, who has become a close associate of Trump but is a rival to Zuckerberg.
Quite recently, the two men vowed to fight each other in a mixed martial arts cage fight, when their heartbreaking rivalry turned ridiculous.
“There's a kind of huge, technocratic billionaire meeting between the minds of Trump and the right, and this idea of censorship,” Kate Klonick, an associate professor of law at St. John's University Law School, told a Lawfare panel.
Others suggest Zuckerberg is afraid Musk will get Trump all to himself.
“There may be some billionaire jealousy,” said Andrew Selepak, a media professor at the University of Florida.
The stakes are huge, especially as Zuckerberg competes with Musk and other tech giants in advancing artificial intelligence.
But to Selepak, Zuckerberg seems “more sincere” when it comes to Tuesday's U-turn.
“It seems like he's going through a political change, a bit like Musk,” who had previously supported Democrats mainly out of concern about climate change.
(This story has not been edited by Our staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)