Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg praised the Trump administration for backing Silicon Valley on a call with investors, adding that 2025 will be big for “redefining” the company’s relationships with governments.

“We now have a U.S. administration that is proud of our leading companies, prioritizes American technology winning and that will defend our values and interests abroad,” Zuckerberg said Wednesday. “I am optimistic about the progress and innovation that this can unlock, so this is going to be a big year.”

Meta on Wednesday also agreed to pay $25 million to settle a lawsuit with President Donald Trump, according to NBC News. Trump sued Meta after the company suspended his Facebook and Instagram accounts following the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Zuckerberg and Meta have made several public efforts to smooth over relations with President Donald Trump since his victory in November. The company donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund late last year, weeks after Zuckerberg dined with him privately at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

Earlier this month, Zuckerberg announced that Meta would eliminate third-party fact-checking to “restore free expression” to the company’s platforms. He said the fact-checkers had been “too politically biased” and “destroyed more trust than they’ve created, especially in the U.S.”

The move was widely recognized as a nod to Trump, as he and other Republicans have long claimed that Meta’s platforms like Facebook and Instagram censor conservative views. Zuckerberg and Trump have had an especially rocky relationship in the past, as Trump has previously threatened the tech executive with life in prison.

The company also elevated Joel Kaplan, former White House deputy chief of staff under President George W. Bush with longstanding ties to the Republican Party, to its chief policy role earlier this month.

Zuckerberg’s public concessions appear to be earning him some good will, as he attended Trump’s inauguration alongside other tech moguls like Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos this month.

Shares of Meta were up slightly in extended trading Wednesday after the company reported fourth-quarter earnings that beat Wall Street’s expectations on top and bottom lines.

–CNBC’s Jonathan Vanian contributed to this report

WATCH: Meta beats on top and bottom lines, stock slips on Q1 revenue guidance

Meta continues to lose billions of dollars developing the virtual reality and augmented reality technologies needed to underpin the nascent metaverse.

The social media giant reported fourth-quarter earnings Wednesday and said its Reality Labs unit recorded an operating loss of $4.97 billion while generating $1.1 billion in sales. Analysts were projecting that unit to log a fourth-quarter operating loss of $5.4 billion on $1.1 billion in sales.

Reality Labs is Meta’s unit that makes the Quest family of virtual-reality headsets and Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg kick-started his company’s VR endeavors in 2014 when it acquired the startup Oculus for $2 billion. Since then, Zuckerberg has characterized VR and AR as central to his plans to develop the futuristic digital world known as the metaverse, which he has said represent the next major computing platform.

Wall Street has questioned Zuckerberg’s metaverse investment. Reality Labs has tallied an operating loss of more than $60 billion since 2020, as of Meta’s fourth-quarter earnings report.

Meta last week said it would invest between $60 billion and $65 billion in 2025 capital expenditures to expand its computing infrastructure related to artificial intelligence. Zuckerberg has previously said AI is core to the company’s metaverse efforts, including its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. Meta develops that device with France-based EssilorLuxottica.

The social media company last year also unveiled its Orion prototype AR headset that is capable of overlaying digital objects on top of a person’s real field of view.

Meta released its latest VR headset, the $299 Quest 3S, during its September Connect event and pitched the device as a way for people to watch movies, play games and workout in VR.

Other tech companies are also investing in VR and AR.

Apple’s Vision Pro headset went on sale in the U.S. in February 2024 with a starting price of $3,499, and in December, Google and Samsung said they were working on a VR and AR device dubbed Project Moohan that will be available to buy in 2025 for an undisclosed price.

IBM reported fourth-quarter earnings on Wednesday that topped Wall Street expectations for earnings and revenue.

The shares rose as much as 10% in extended trading before giving up gains and settling at 9%.

Here is how the company did versus LSEG consensus expectations:

• Earnings per share: $3.92 adjusted vs. $3.75 expected
• Revenue: $17.55 billion vs. $17.54 billion expected

IBM reported $2.92 billion in net income, or $3.09 per diluted share, versus $3.29 billion, or $3.55 per share, in the year-ago period.

IBM said it expected full-year growth, adjusted for currency, of about 5%, and $13.5 billion in free cash flow in 2025.

IBM’s overall revenue rose 1% during the quarter. For the entire year, IBM’s revenue rose 1% to $62.8 billion, with software growing 8% while infrastructure revenue declined 4%.

IBM said its software segment grew 10% year over year to $7.9 billion, partially due to demand for artificial intelligence technology and strong performance from its Red Hat Linux operating system.

Revenue in IBM’s consulting division dropped 2% to $5.2 billion in the quarter.

In a statement, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said the company has recorded $5 billion in bookings for its generative AI business, which includes sales and future sales in the company’s software and consulting division.

“We closed the year with double-digit revenue growth in Software for the quarter, led by further acceleration in Red Hat,” Krishna said in a statement. “Clients globally continue to turn to IBM to transform with AI.”