WASHINGTON — Tech leaders and companies are pouring money into President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural fund as the Trump administration prepares for the next four years.
Amazon, run by billionaire Jeff Bezos, will donate $1 million to the president-elect’s inaugural fund and will stream the ceremony on Prime, according to people familiar with the donation. An additional $1 million in in-kind donations will be made. The Wall Street Journal first reported on Amazon’s plans.
mark zuckerberg’s metaThe company, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, also plans to send $1 million to President Trump’s inaugural fund.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman plans to make a $1 million personal donation to President Trump’s inaugural fund, according to an OpenAI spokesperson. Fox News Digital first reported Altman’s intention to donate.
“President Trump will lead our nation into the age of AI, and I look forward to supporting his efforts to ensure America stays ahead,” Altman said in a statement.
Elon Muskthe world’s richest man and CEO of X, Tesla, and SpaceX, is a permanent fixture at Trump’s side at Mar-a-Lago and has spent $277 million helping Trump get elected. Ta.
CBS News has also asked Reddit and major companies that have donated to the startup fund in the past, including Walmart, Home Depot and Target, for information about the plan.
Google officials said the company donated $285,000 to Biden’s inaugural fund four years ago. Google has so far not announced any plans to donate to Trump. Tech news site The Information and the Wall Street Journal reported that Google CEO Sundar Pichai plans to meet with President Trump.
Tech CEOs are coming to Mar-a-Lago to meet President Trump after years of watching his tone and demeanor change, or at least soften, after in-person meetings.
Trump told CNBC in an interview Thursday that Bezos would visit him “next week.” Bezos also owns the Washington Post. refused to support He broke the paper’s previous precedent and became a candidate in this year’s presidential election. “The president’s support does nothing to change the scale of the election,” Bezos wrote at the time.
Trump’s relationship with social media and technology companies has historically been tenuous, if not entirely hostile.
During Trump’s first term in the White House, he frequently criticized Bezos and Amazon, saying the company had caused “tremendous harm” to retailers and harmed “towns, cities and states across America.” he accused. Trump has argued that Amazon should pay the U.S. Postal Service more for deliveries.
However, President Trump has weakened the public’s hostility toward the company, and Bezos (previously) said that Trump’s treatment of Hillary Clinton in 2016 and refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election have “torn every corner of our democracy.” ”) have also softened their stance.
Mr. Bezos recently told the New York Times’ Dealbook Summit that he was “very optimistic” about Mr. Trump’s second term.
“What I’ve seen so far is that he’s calmer and more collected than he was when he first started,” Bezos said. “You’ve grown up over the last eight years. He’s grown up too.”
After hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, both X (then known as Twitter) and Facebook blocked President Trump’s posts on their platforms. Trump did nothing to stop them. musk returned Trump’s X account was deleted in November 2022 after he took over the company, but Trump primarily posted on his own social media platform, Truth Social. facebook and instagram Trump’s account was restored In early 2023.
Tech CEOs were less enthusiastic about donating to Trump’s first inaugural committee after his 2016 victory.
During Trump’s 2017 inauguration, which raised an eye-popping $107 million, his biggest donors were primarily sports teams, casinos, venture capital firms, banks and affiliates. His most generous donor, with $5 million, was the late Las Vegas Sands founder Sheldon Adelson, who passed away in 2021. But with the exception of GoDaddy.com founder Bob Parsons, no other major technology company leader has donated $1 million to Sands. This is my first time playing Trump.
The Trump Presidential Inaugural Committee, officially known as the Trump Vance Inaugural Committee, is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization responsible for planning the inaugural event and can accept unlimited donations. Former Sen. Kelly Loeffler, an ally of President Trump, and investor Steve Witkoff are co-chairs of the committee. In announcing his inaugural committee and co-chairs, President Trump said the committee would “congratulate” him and his team on the “tremendous victory” he and his team had brought to the start of his administration.
Inaugural committees add pomp and atmosphere to inauguration ceremonies, but not at the expense of taxpayers. It also provides a way for donors to curry favor with the incoming administration. Donors who donated $1 million to President Trump’s inaugural committee can expect not only tickets but also face-to-face time with the president-elect, vice president and Cabinet members.
The President-elect’s Inaugural Committee is different from the Joint Congressional Committee on Inauguration Ceremonies, which is funded by taxpayers and established by Congress. A Congressional committee made up of members of both parties plans and executes the swearing-in ceremony and inaugural luncheon for the president and vice president at the Capitol.
The Presidential Committee is responsible for all events other than those held at the Capitol.
According to the Congressional Research Service, only about $3.7 million has been allocated to the committee for the 2025 inauguration, but taxpayers will spend more than that. The conservative National Taxpayers Union Foundation estimated that the 2021 inauguration would cost at least $73 million, not including the security lockdown that followed the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
contributed to this report.
