In a podcast, Mark Zuckerberg recounted telling his daughter she couldn’t be like Taylor Swift, promoting originality instead.

Mark Zuckerberg may have just shaken off his daughter’s dream of becoming the next Taylor Swift. The Meta founder recently revealed that his seven-year-old daughter once aspired to be like pop star Taylor Swift. However, he recalled quickly saying ‘No’ to her dreams, suggesting that such a path was unattainable for her. Surprisingly, Zuckerberg himself is a big Swiftie and even took his family to a Swift concert, splurging quite a bit.

Mark Zuckerberg says ‘No’ to daughter’s Taylor Swift dream

Earlier this month, tech mogul Mark Zuckerberg appeared on the “Acquired” podcast, where he shared a moment that squashed his middle child’s dream of becoming a global pop star like the Cruel Summer singer forever.

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“We took her to a Taylor Swift concert, and she was like, ‘You know Dad, I kind of want to be like Taylor Swift when I grow up,’” the tech mogul shared during a September 10 interview, released on Wednesday. The 40-year-old was asked about the importance of being original and he answered by recounting the sweet exchange with his middle daughter, August, who interestingly shares the same name as Swift’s track “August” from her Grammy-nominated album Folklore.

“I was like, ‘But you can’t. That’s not available to you,” Zuckerberg recalled what he told his daughter. “And she thought about it and she’s like, ‘Alright when I grow up I want people to want to be like August Chan Zuckerberg,’” he told hosts Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal. “And I was like, ‘Hell yeah. Hell yeah.’”

Is Mark Zuckerberg a fan of Taylor Swift?

For a while now, yes. Even though Zuckerberg didn’t give a straight answer to the podcast hosts about why his daughter can’t pursue professional singing at that level, he didn’t hide his love for Swift and her music.

He attended The Eras Tour in Santa Clara with his wife, Priscilla, and their daughters in July 2023, even posting a photo wearing friendship bracelets and gemstones on his face with the caption, “Life of a girl dad.” The couple are proud parents of three daughters: Maxima, 8, August, 6, and Aurelia, 13 months. While the tech mogul and the pop star may come from different worlds—tech and music—they ultimately share one thing in common: billionaire status.

Who are Taylor Swift and Mark Zuckerberg endorsing in the elections?

While Zuckerberg has yet to clarify his stance on the upcoming elections, Taylor Swift has already thrown her support behind Kamala Harris for the presidency. In contrast, the Meta CEO recently sent a scathing letter to a US House committee, criticising the Biden-Harris administration.

Zuckerberg expressed regret for bowing to what he described as government pressure to “censor” content on Facebook and Instagram during the Coronavirus pandemic. Though he acknowledged that the decisions were ultimately made by his company, he emphasised that the “government pressure was wrong.”