In the hours after Donald Trump was elected for the second time, the biggest names in the tech world bent the knee to the president-elect, with Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman, and Tim Cook congratulating him on his dominant win. This week, many of those same executives are putting their money where their mouths are, donating millions to his inaugural fund.
On Wednesday, Zuckerberg announced a $1 million donation through Meta on Friday, a gift that came after he spent two days at Mar-a-Lago trying to win some influence in the incoming administration. The next day, Amazon announced a $1 million donation to Trump’s inauguration — which a person close to Bezos described to The Wall Street Journal as really just a gift from Bezos routed through his company. Not to be outdone, OpenAI announced Friday that Altman, its CEO, would also donate $1 million.
The reasons for their generosity are not very complicated. Trump, who has proven to be quite vindictive over the years, rewards people who reward him. A measly $1 million for the inauguration could pay itself back many times over if their companies are in the president-elect’s favor. Meta and OpenAI fall within the administration’s push to promote economic growth by loosening restrictions around artificial intelligence. Bezos has a lot more at stake, fighting Trump megadonor Elon Musk for lucrative government contracts in space. A million-dollar donation is the price of admission for donors to attend the inaugural ball, so at least they’ll all have a chance to pull out their tuxes in January.
If Trump’s first inauguration is any indicator, House Democrats will be paying attention to who is donating and where the money is going. His first inaugural committee raised a staggering $107 million for just a handful of parties and galas; many donations reportedly came via proxies for foreign businesses unable to legally donate to his campaign. One donor even went to prison for 12 years for an illegal $900,000 donation. The committee never really provided an answer as to where the money went, though the Trump Organization handed back nearly a million to settle a lawsuit filed by the D.C. attorney general, who alleged that the firm had benefited off the inauguration party.
