US President Donald Trump, Image credit: AP/PTI
New York: Amazon is to donate USD 1 million to President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration fund, as big tech corporations work to enhance their ties with the next president.
A corporate spokeswoman confirmed Thursday evening that Amazon will also stream Trump's inauguration on its Prime Video service, as part of a separate in-kind donation for another USD 1 million.
Earlier in the day, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said it donated USD 1 million to Trump's inauguration fund.
Amazon's plans — first reported by The Wall Street Journal — came after Trump said Thursday morning that the company's founder, Jeff Bezos, was planning to visit him in person next week.
The two men had feuded in the past. During his first term, Trump criticised Amazon and railed against the political coverage at The Washington Post, which Bezos owns.
Meanwhile, Bezos had criticised some of Trump's past rhetoric. In 2019, Amazon also argued in a court case that Trump's bias against the company harmed its chances of winning a USD 10 billion Pentagon contract. The Biden administration later pursued a contract with both Amazon and Microsoft.
More recently, Bezos has struck a more conciliatory tone. Last week, he said at The New York Times' DealBook Summit in New York that he was “optimistic” about Trump's second term while also endorsing the president-elect's plans to cut regulations.
In October, Bezos did not allow the Post to endorse a presidential candidate, a move that led to tens of thousands of people cancelling their subscriptions and to protests from journalists with a deep history at the newspaper. At the time, Bezos wrote in an op-ed in the newspaper that editorial endorsements create a perception of bias at a time when many Americans don't believe the media.
Separately, the donation from Meta, which was also first reported by the Journal, came just weeks after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg met with Trump privately at Mar-a-Lago. A Meta spokesperson confirmed the offering on Thursday.
Stephen Miller, who has been appointed deputy chief of staff for Trump's second term, has said that Zuckerberg, like other business leaders, wants to support Trump's economic plans. The tech CEO has been seeking to change his company's perception on the right following a rocky relationship with Trump.
Trump was kicked off Facebook following the Jan 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. The company restored his account in early 2023.
During the 2024 campaign, Zuckerberg did not endorse a candidate for president, but he has voiced a more positive stance toward Trump. Earlier this year, he praised Trump's response to his first assassination attempt.
Still, Trump had continued to attack Zuckerberg publicly during the campaign. In July, he posted a message on his own Truth Social platform threatening to send election fraudsters to prison in part by citing a nickname he used for the Meta CEO. “ZUCKERBUCKS, be careful!” Trump wrote.
Corporations have traditionally made up a large share of donors to presidential inaugurals, with an exception in 2009, when then-President-elect Barack Obama refused to accept corporate donations. He reversed course for his second inaugural in 2013.
Facebook did not donate to either Biden's 2021 inaugural or Trump's 2017 inaugural.
Google donated USD 285,000 each to Trump's first inaugural and Biden's inaugural, according to Federal Election Commission records. Inaugural committees are required to disclose the source of their fundraising, but not how they spend the money. Microsoft gave USD 1 million to Obama's second inaugural, but only USD 500,000 to Trump in 2017 and Biden in 2021.
Amazon had donated roughly USD 58,000 to Trump's 2017 inaugural, much lower than than USD 1 million it now plans to donate. The company also streamed Biden's inauguration on Prime Video in 2021.
With PTI inputs