Amazon is planning a $1 million donation to president-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural fund, as founder Jeff Bezos and other tech leaders shore up ties with the incoming administration.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the donation is being prepared as Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s executive chairman, is slated to visit Donald Trump next week at his private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, according to people familiar with the matter. Bezos and the company decided on the contribution earlier this week and communicated it to Trump’s team. “Bezos is donating through Amazon,” according to a person close to Bezos.
In addition to the cash donation, Amazon will also stream the inauguration through its Prime Video business, a separate, in-kind donation valued at $1 million, another person said. This marks a significant increase from the roughly $58,000 in cash and in-kind donations Amazon gave to Trump’s inauguration in 2017, when other tech companies donated larger amounts.
Tech companies have been the target of intense criticism by Trump and his allies, and other tech leaders have hastened to smooth ties with him. Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta is also making a $1 million contribution to Trump’s inaugural fund.
Bezos and Trump have long feuded, in part because of Bezos’ ownership of the Washington Post. Trump accused the Post of being a “lobbyist” for Amazon and complained about the paper’s coverage of his presidency. When Amazon Web Services lost a $10 billion cloud computing contract with the Pentagon, the company alleged it was due to improper pressure and attacks from Trump to harm Bezos and steer the deal away from AWS. The Pentagon denied any such influence at the time.
However, Bezos has struck a more conciliatory tone toward Trump recently. He congratulated Trump on his “extraordinary political comeback” and expressed optimism about his second term, noting he seems “calmer” and “more confident” this time around. In October, Bezos’ Washington Post also decided not to endorse Trump’s opponent Kamala Harris, sparking leftist outrage.
For Amazon, the stakes are high when it comes to the federal government. In addition to Bezos’ space company Blue Origin vying for government contracts, Amazon was sued by the FTC in an antitrust case last year. Meanwhile, Elon Musk, whose SpaceX competes with Blue Origin, has become a close adviser to Trump, contributing over $200 million to his re-election campaign.
Other tech leaders are also seeking to mend fences with Trump. Google CEO Sundar Pichai, whose company has been a top target of claims of anti-conservative bias and is facing antitrust lawsuits, met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago this week as well.
Read more at the Wall Street Journal here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.