Meta Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been on a monthslong charm offensive with the Trump administration

Meta is courting national security and former Pentagon officials to help sell its virtual reality and AI services to the federal government, Forbes has learned. Multiple former government officials said they were aware of the recruiting efforts.

Meta, which recently opened up its Llama AI model for military use, has long maintained lobbyists in D.C., but almost half a dozen current open roles indicate it is bolstering its efforts to secure lucrative government contracts. The company is seeking two public policy managers, including one to focus on the White House — preferably with a security clearance and previous Pentagon work — to “lead our outreach to national security and foreign policy agencies within the Executive Branch of the U.S. government on both policy issues and adoption of our technologies.”

In January, Meta hired Francis Brennan, a former Trump advisor, to lead strategic communications out of D.C. Another recent hire, who according to their Linkedin worked for an undisclosed federal government agency for more than a decade, posted about joining Meta to focus on its “intelligence sharing” with the government. “Whether it’s protecting national security or strengthening the platforms that billions rely on, I’m grateful for the opportunities that allow me to give back,” the employee posted on LinkedIn in December.

Meta declined to comment.

The move comes amid CEO Mark Zuckerberg's ongoing charm offensive to win over the Trump administration, looking for leniency as Meta fights a federal antitrust lawsuit aiming to break it up. After donating $1 million to Trump’s inauguration committee, Zuckerberg announced Facebook was ending its third-party fact checking program — a longtime target of conservatives who claimed Facebook’s moderators unfairly penalized them. He abolished the company’s diversity team, appointed UFC chief and Trump ally Dana White to Meta’s board, and elevated longtime Republican lobbyist Joel Kaplan to chief of global affairs.

President Donald Trump once said Zuckerberg “should be........

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