The New York Times and Mark Zuckerberg would like us to think that Zuckerberg is "done with politics." But is he, though?

The Times published a piece Tuesday about Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg which seems like it was placed in the paper by Zuckerberg himself. After spending late 2016 and much of 2017 defending his company from attacks on all sides — relating to selling our personal data, but also to allowing Russians to game our elections partly using Facebook — and then spending much of the ensuing few years defending against Republican attacks on Facebook's liberal bias, one could see why Zuckerberg would want the world to think he's agnostic, politically.

"His preference, according to more than a dozen friends, advisers and executives familiar with his thinking, has been to wash his hands of it all," the Times writes.

Looking back on his former self of the last decade, Zuckerberg recently said, "The political environment, I think I didn’t have much sophistication around, and I think I just fundamentally misdiagnosed the problem."

But hasn't Zuckerberg, who in his younger years advocated for things like a path to citizenship for undocumented people, just made the predictable slide toward the center, or to the right, with his politics as he's gotten older and richer? That's basically what Mother Jones suggests in a counter piece headlined "Mark Zuckerberg Isn't Done With Politics. His Politics Have Just Changed."

The Times reports that Zuckerberg has had two phone calls with Donald Trump this summer, and as Mother Jones notes, "It does not really get more political than a pleasant phone call with a man who tried a coup."

Zuckerberg has also backed off an earlier effort to invest in election integrity efforts — a clear concession to Trump and the Republicans who would prefer that the country remain distrustful of all elections so that they can continue winning them. And he's been calling himself a "libertarian" lately, apparently, which aligns him closer to the more sinister Elon Musk, who has himself decided to be all in for Trump this year, for better or worse.

Zuckerberg would prefer to stay out of the conversation, clearly, and for Meta to stop being the target of antitrust probes and the like.

"Mark and his peers are probably looking at the risks of political engagement and deciding neutrality is the safer choice until this election is over,” says former Facebook employee Nu Wexler, who is now a principal at a political consulting firm, speaking to the Times.

But what the fuck is neutral about chatting with Donald Trump and gushing in an interview about how "badass" it was for Trump to raise up his fist and show strength to the crowd in Pennsylvania after he was almost shot in July.

"Obviously it's a very important and will be a very historic election," Zuckerberg said in that same interview with Bloomberg, when asked about the upcoming election. But, he soon pivots to Meta's role in the election.

"The main thing that I hear from people is that they actually want to see less political content on our services... So I think you're going to see our services play less of a role in this election than they have in the past," Zuckerberg says. "I'm also planning on... not playing a significant role in this election... And that includes not endorsing either of the candidates," he added.

Right, so, Trump attempted a coup, got banned from Facebook for two years, and now you're too worried about backlash to endorse his rival in an election so that he might not end up president again? And you think he's pretty badass now? Please.

Previously: Mark Zuckerberg Has Very Strange Statue Commissioned of His Wife

Top image: Mark Zuckerberg testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on January 31, 2024 in Washington, DC. The committee heard testimony from the heads of the largest tech firms on the dangers of child sexual exploitation on social media. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)