Amazon is the latest tech giant to donate to Donald Trump’s inaugural fund.
The company plans to donate $1 million to the fund, it was first reported the wall street newspaper. Amazon follows Meta, Facebook’s parent company, which also gave more than $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said Friday that he would also make a personal donation of $1 million, as first reported fox news.
As Trump prepares to take office for a second time, several tech titans are hunkering down in hopes of a favorable deal for their businesses. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is scheduled to meet with Trump next week. And Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had dinner with him at his Mar-a-Lago estate last month. Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google supposedly had plans meet with the president-elect also this week at his club. And Time magazine, owned by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, has named Trump its “person of the year.”
OpenAI’s Altman says Trump will be a leader in technological progress. “President Trump will lead our country into the age of AI and I look forward to supporting his efforts to ensure the United States remains ahead of the curve,” he said in a written statement to The Guardian.
Donations to inaugural committees are pretty standard for large companies looking to make peace with incoming administrations. Amazon donated $57,746 to Trump’s first inaugural fund in 2017, according to Open secrets. Google and Microsoft also donated. Meta confirmed to The Guardian that he did not donate that year.
For Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021, Amazon said the administration did not accept donations from technology companies, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Trump is offering bonuses to donors who give at least $1 million to his inaugural committee, according to the new york times. These include several tickets to activities planned around the event, such as dinners with Trump, his Cabinet picks and JD Vance.
Bezos, owner of the Washington Post, had long been the focus of Trump’s ire. The president-elect had criticized the newspaper for its coverage, often pointing fingers at Bezos for being to blame. At one point in 2018, Trump called the newspaper “the Amazon Washington Post” and said it had “gone crazy on me.” He also alleged that the newspaper lobbied on Amazon’s behalf.
Those days of conflict may be over. Before the election, the Washington Post broke with long tradition and announced that it would not endorse any candidate in the presidential race, a move widely seen as Bezos not wanting to irritate Trump. Bezos defended the decisionsaying it was to avoid “a perception of bias.”
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When Trump won the election, Bezos praised him for X. “Many congratulations to our 45th and now 47th president on his extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory. No nation has greater opportunities,” Bezos. wrote. “I wish @realDonaldTrump every success in leading and uniting the America we all love.”
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy also praised the victory at X, saying it was a “hard-fought victory” and that “we look forward to working with you.” Amazon shares are up 14% since the election. Amazon did not respond to a request for comment.