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Big Tech companies and CEOs are already lining up six-figure donations to Donald Trump‘s inauguration.
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Amazon, Sam Altman, and Meta are each prepared to donate $1 million.
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There are virtually no limits on inaugural donations, meaning Big Tech companies can cut massive checks.
Big Tech companies and the moguls behind them are preparing to make six-figure donations to President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural committee.
Jeff Bezos’ Amazon, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta have all been reported to have made or will make $1 million to the outfit tasked with planning and organizing Trump’s triumphant return to power.
“The financing of inaugurations is really a cesspool when it comes to campaign financing,” Craig Holman, a lobbyist for government watchdog Public Citizen, told Business Insider.
Holman said there are few, if any, limits to inaugural donations, and what makes them particularly appealing is that megadonors and CEOs don’t have to worry about picking the loser.
“Unlike financing a campaign, when you don’t know for sure who is going to win, here in the inauguration, you’ve got the winner,” he said. “So corporations and other special interests just throw money at them at the feet of the president with the hope of currying favor.”
Jeff Hauser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project, a public interest group, said donations to the inaugural committee are less likely to irk the opposition.
“They are frequently a mechanism for entities that sit out elections to get good with the incoming administration,” he said.
Trump’s 2017 inaugural set a record, raking in roughly $107 million. Las Vegas Sands CEO Sheldon Adelson donated $5 million, the largest single donation. AT&T gave just over $2 million. For many in Washington, it was a time to make nice with an incoming president that few thought would win the 2016 race.
This time, Trump’s inaugural offers one final major opportunity for CEOs to curry influence with the president-elect at his peak.
Since he’ll be term-limited, the next major fundraising opportunity likely won’t come until Trump begins preparations for a presidential library (should that even occur). At that point, companies will have missed their window to make a final impression before mergers and acquisitions.
Playing ball can have major benefits. OpenSecrets found in 2018 that “of the 63 federal contractors that donated to the inauguration, more than half won multimillion-dollar bids” from the federal government later on.
