Amazon and Meta, seeking to get in Donald Trump’s good graces, are each giving $1 million to the president-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 massive internet corporations are seen as efforts to curry favor with the incoming administration.
Amazon, in addition to the $1 million cash donation to the fund, will livestream Trump’s inauguration on Prime Video, which represents an “in-kind donation” valued at $1 million, as first reported by the Wall Street Journal. (Amazon also livestreamed Biden’s 2021 inauguration.) Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally directed his company to make the $1 million donation to the Trump inaugural fund, per the Journal.
“Big congratulations to our 45th and now 47th President on an extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory,” Amazon founder Jeff Bezos wrote on X on Nov. 6. “No nation has bigger opportunities. Wishing @realDonaldTrump all success in leading and uniting the America we all love.” Bezos, who owns the Washington Post, two weeks before the election ordered the paper to not endorse a presidential candidate, arguing that the practice creates “a perception of bias.”
Bezos, at the New York Times’ DealBook Summit last week, expressed optimism about Trump’s second occupation of the White House and said that “What I’ve seen so far is he is calmer than he was the first time and more settled.”
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 true Enemy of the People!” Earlier this year, Trump voiced opposition to a U.S. ban on TikTok because, he argued, such a move would benefit 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,” published in early September, Trump repeated allegations that Facebook somehow interfered with the 2020 election and wrote, “We are watching [Zuckerberg] closely, and if he does anything illegal this time he will spend the rest of his life in prison — as will others who cheat in the 2024 Presidential Election.”
On Nov. 27, Zuckerberg traveled to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to dine with the president-elect. A Meta spokesperson said in a statement, “It’s an important time for the future of American innovation. Mark was grateful for the invitation to join President Trump for dinner and the opportunity to meet with members of his team about the incoming administration.”
Amazon gave $57,746 to Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee, according to OpenSecrets, while Meta (then known as Facebook) did not donate anything. According to the Journal, the Biden administration told tech companies it wasn’t accepting donations for his 2021 inauguration.
During his first term as president, Trump had baselessly accused Amazon of not paying its fair share 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 Microsoft a $10 billion cloud computing contract, alleging that Trump had “launched repeated public and behind-the-scenes attacks” to block a bid by Amazon Web Services. The Defense Department denied the allegation that the award of the contract was politically influenced. In 2021, a judge dismissed Amazon’s complaint after the Pentagon, under the Biden administration, issued cloud contracts to both Amazon and Microsoft.
For the 2025 inauguration, donors who give at least $1 million are being promised high-level access to the president-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 President Donald J. Trump and Mrs. Melania Trump” on Jan. 19, the New York Times reported.