Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (L) and US President-elect Donald Trump (R).
Credit: Reuters File Photos
Amazon said Thursday that it was planning to donate $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural fund, part of a pattern in which tech companies and their leaders are taking steps to repair their relationships with Trump.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, said Wednesday that it was putting $1 million into the inaugural fund, just weeks after Zuckerberg met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, the president-elect’s resort in Palm Beach, Florida.
Amazon and its founder, Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post, have had a rocky history with Trump. Trump had long harbored frustration with Bezos over reporting in the Post. During his first administration, Trump had also questioned whether the US Postal Service gave Amazon a sweetheart deal, and Amazon accused Trump of improperly pressuring the Pentagon to deny the company a major cloud computing contract.
But over the summer, Bezos spoke with Trump after the former president was shot at a campaign event, and on social media he praised Trump’s “grace and courage under literal fire.” More recently, Bezos has said he is “very optimistic” about the incoming Trump administration.
At the DealBook Summit in New York on Dec. 4, Bezos said Trump “seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation. And my point of view is, if I can help him do that, I’m going to help him, because we do have too much regulation in this country.”
Amazon also said it would livestream the inauguration next month, as it has done with previous inaugurations. The donation was previously reported by The Wall Street Journal.
Trump said Thursday that Bezos, who chairs Amazon’s board, was meeting him next week. Trump said he wanted to get ideas from Bezos and other tech leaders.
Gifts to inaugural committees, which do not have contribution limits, are popular among businesses and individuals eager to curry favor with an incoming administration. Trump’s inaugural committee is offering top-tier benefits to donors who contribute $1 million.
Amazon gave $57,746 to Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee, according to OpenSecrets, which tracks political donations. The company said the Biden campaign did not accept donations from tech companies in 2020.