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Amazon (AMZN-0.94%) reportedly plans to donate $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration fund, matching Meta (META+0.60%) as tech companies attempt to get some goodwill with the incoming administration.
The tech giant will give $1 million in cash to the inaugural fund and make a $1 million in-kind donation by streaming the January 20, 2025, event on Amazon Video, CNN reports.
That’s a major premium on the $58,000 the company gave to Trump’s 2017 inauguration, which was far less than what was donated by other firms. AT&T (T+0.66%) donated $2 million at the time, while Google (GOOGL-1.01%) gave $285,000 and Samsung contributed $100,000, according to OpenSecrets. President Joe Biden’s administration declined to receive tech donations for the 2021 inauguration, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Meta donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund after declining to do so for the 2017 fund. It’s Mark Zuckerberg’s latest effort to get on Trump’s good side, which included a visit to his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, last month. Following the meeting, Meta said in a statement that Zuckerberg was “grateful” for the invitation and that “[i]t’s an important time for the future of American innovation.”
Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s executive chairman and founder, is also set to visit Trump next week at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, according to the president-elect.
Bezos has had his fair share of conflicts with Trump, who has called Amazon a monopoly and nicknamed Bezos “Jeff Bozo” in the past. While speaking at The New York Times (NYT+1.13%)’ DealBook Summit earlier this month, Bezos said he’s “optimistic this time around” about Trump’s second term, and that “he has a good chance of succeeding” with his agenda to reduce regulations around business, an effort relies heavily on Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai planned to visit Mar-a-Lago on Thursday night, telling Semafor that he was excited to work on a “Manhattan Project” for artificial intelligence with Trump.
“I think there is a chance for us to work as a country together,” he told Semafor ahead of the visit. “These big, physical infrastructure projects to accelerate progress is something we would be very excited by.”
The Information, citing people familiar with the plans, reported ahead of the meeting that Pichai was not expected to make “direct overtures” to Trump about Google’s antitrust problems or other regulatory topics. During his own interview at the DealBook Summit, Pichai said his recent calls to Trump had “nothing to do” with the federal government’s antitrust lawsuits.