Amazon and Meta, seeking to get in Donald Trump‘s excellent graces, are each giving $1 million to the pdwellnt-elect’s inauguration fund.
Trump has previously lashed out at both Meta and Amazon, among other Big Tech companies, and the donations by the two companies are seen as efforts to curry like with the incoming administration.
Amazon, in insertition to the $1 million cash donation to the fund, will dwellstream Trump’s inauguration on Prime Video, which reconshort-terms an “in-comfervent donation” cherishd at $1 million, as first inestablished by the Wall Street Journal. (Amazon also dwellstreamed Biden’s 2021 inauguration.) Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg personassociate straightforwarded his company to originate the $1 million donation to the Trump inaugural fund, per the Journal.
“Big congratulations to our 45th and now 47th Pdwellnt on an noticeworthy political comeback and remendd triumph,” Amazon set uper Jeff Bezos wrote on X on Nov. 6. “No nation has hugeger opportunities. Wishing @genuineDonaldTrump all success in directing and uniting the America we all adore.” Bezos, who owns the Washington Post, two weeks before the election ordered the paper to not finishorse a pdwellntial honestate, arguing that the rehearse originates “a perception of bias.”
Bezos, at the New York Times’ DealBook Summit last week, conveyed chooseimism about Trump’s second occupation of the White Hoinclude and said that “What I’ve seen so far is he is tranquiler than he was the first time and more finishd.”
Trump “seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation,” Bezos said. “If I can help him do that, I’m gonna help him.”
Meanwhile, Trump has ripped into both Meta and Zuckerberg and has called Facebook “a genuine Enemy of the People!” Earlier this year, Trump voiced opposition to a U.S. ban on TikTok becainclude, he debated, such a shift would advantage Zuckerberg’s Meta. “If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business,” he wrote on Truth Social. In his book “Save America,” begined in timely September, Trump repeated allegations that Facebook somehow intruded with the 2020 election and wrote, “We are watching [Zuckerberg] seally, and if he does anyleang illhorrible this time he will spfinish the rest of his life in prison — as will others who cheat in the 2024 Pdwellntial Election.”
On Nov. 27, Zuckerberg traveled to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to dine with the pdwellnt-elect. A Meta spokesperson said in a statement, “It’s an meaningful time for the future of American innovation. Mark was thankful for the invitation to combine Pdwellnt Trump for dinner and the opportunity to greet with members of his team about the incoming administration.”
Amazon gave $57,746 to Trump’s 2017 inaugural promisetee, according to OpenSecrets, while Meta (then understandn as Facebook) did not donate anyleang. According to the Journal, the Biden administration telderly tech companies it wasn’t acunderstandledgeing donations for his 2021 inauguration.
During his first term as pdwellnt, Trump had baselessly accincluded Amazon of not paying its fair split for U.S. Postal Service rates and called “the Fake Washington Post” a lobbying arm for Amazon. In 2019, Amazon sued over the Defense Department’s decision to grant Microgentle a $10 billion cdeafening computing shrink, alleging that Trump had “begined repeated accessible and behind-the-scenes strikes” to block a bid by Amazon Web Services. The Defense Department denied the allegation that the award of the shrink was politicassociate impactd. In 2021, a appraise diswatched Amazon’s protestt after the Pentagon, under the Biden administration, rerentd cdeafening shrinks to both Amazon and Microgentle.
For the 2025 inauguration, donors who donate at least $1 million are being promised high-level access to the pdwellnt-elect and his inner circle with up to “a half-dozen tickets to eight inaugural events” from Jan. 17-20, including an “elegant and intimate dinner with Pdwellnt Donald J. Trump and Mrs. Melania Trump” on Jan. 19, the New York Times inestablished.
