Facebook CEO defends a Trump supporting board member

“We can’t create a culture that says it cares about diversity and then excludes almost half the country because they back a political candidate.”

Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook CEO (pictured), posted an internal Facebook memo to defend Peter Thiel, a board member of the tech giant, who has been under growing criticism for backing Donald Trump, the Republican candidate for the U.S. presidential election. Zuckerberg argued that Trump supporters accounting for almost half the voters in America should not be excluded altogether for any reason.

“That's easy to do when it means standing up for ideas you agree with. It's a lot harder when it means standing up for the rights of people with different viewpoints to say what they care about. That's even more important,” said the CEO of Facebook according to CNN on Thursday. “There are many reasons a person might support Trump that do not involve racism, sexism, xenophobia, or accepting sexual assault.”

“I don’t agree with all policies of the Republican party, but he (Trump) is running to lead us back to that bright future,” said Thiel, a billionaire venture investor, recently announcing his plan to donate 1.25 million dollars to the Trump campaign. This made him “the public enemy” in Silicon Valley known for its strong anti-Trump sentiment. Some even suggested that the companies should stop working with Thiel, which prompted Zuckerberg to break silence about one of the board members of Facebook. Thiel, the first outside investor in Facebook, is also a partner of an up-and coming start-up called Y Combinator.

“On Facebook, not only Americans, but people in the entire world are debating over the U.S. presidential election every day,” said Zuckerberg. “Our community will be stronger for all of our difference—not only in areas like race and gender, but also in area like political ideology and religion.”

조은아 기자achim@donga.com