Main tech firms are searching for to enhance their relationship with the incoming president.
Amazon is planning to donate $1 million (€950,000) to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration fund, an organization spokesperson confirmed on Thursday night.
The e-commerce large may also stream Trump’s inauguration on its Prime Video service, which is seen as a separate in-kind donation – price one other $1 million.
Amazon’s announcement got here after Meta, the dad or mum firm of Fb and Instagram, mentioned earlier within the day that it had donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund.
It additionally adopted a affirmation from Trump on Thursday morning that Jess Bezos, Amazon’s founder, was planning to go to him subsequent week.
Feuds forgotten?
The assembly marks a change in relations, as the 2 males haven’t all the time seen eye to eye.
Bezos has criticised Trump’s rhetoric – whereas Trump criticised political protection at The Washington Publish throughout his first time period. Bezos has owned the paper since 2013.
In 2019, Amazon additionally argued in a court docket case that Trump’s bias in opposition to the corporate harmed its probabilities of successful a $10 billion Pentagon contract.
The Biden administration later pursued a contract with each Amazon and Microsoft.
Bezos has just lately struck a extra conciliatory tone.
Final week, he mentioned at The New York Instances’ DealBook Summit in New York that he was “optimistic” about Trump’s second time period, whereas additionally endorsing the president-elect’s plans to chop rules.
In October, Bezos didn’t permit the Publish to endorse a presidential candidate.
The transfer led to tens of 1000’s of individuals cancelling their subscriptions and sparked protests from journalists on the newspaper.
On the time, Bezos wrote in an op-ed within the newspaper that editorial endorsements create a notion of bias at a time when many People don’t imagine the media.
Meta’s donation
The donation from Meta, in the meantime, got here simply weeks after CEO Mark Zuckerberg met with Trump privately at Mar-a-Lago.
The tech CEO has been searching for to fix a rocky relationship with Trump.
Trump was kicked off Fb following the assault on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. The corporate restored his account in early 2023.
In the course of the 2024 marketing campaign, Zuckerberg didn’t endorse a candidate for president, however he has voiced a extra constructive opinion of Trump.
Earlier this yr, for example, he praised the president-elect’s response to his first assassination try.
Nonetheless, Trump continued to assault Zuckerberg publicly throughout his election marketing campaign. In July, he posted a message on his personal Reality Social platform threatening to ship election fraudsters to jail partly by citing a nickname he used for the Meta CEO. “ZUCKERBUCKS, watch out!” Trump wrote.
Previous inaugurations
Companies have historically made up a big share of donors to presidential inaugurals, with an exception in 2009, when then-President-elect Barack Obama refused to simply accept company donations.
He modified his stance for his second inaugural in 2013.
Fb didn’t donate to both Biden’s 2021 inaugural or Trump’s 2017 inaugural.
Google donated $285,000 (€271,000) every to Trump’s first inaugural and Biden’s inaugural, in keeping with Federal Election Fee data. Inaugural committees are required to reveal the supply of their fundraising, however not how they spend the cash.
Microsoft gave $1 million to Obama’s second inaugural, however solely $500,000 (€475,000) to Trump in 2017 and Biden in 2021.
Amazon had donated roughly $58,000 (€55,000) to Trump’s 2017 inaugural, a lot decrease than the $1 million it now plans to donate.
The corporate additionally streamed Biden’s inauguration on Prime Video in 2021.