Amazon.com Inc. is set to donate $1 million to US President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural fund, a company’s spokesperson said in a statement. The move makes Amazon part of the group of tech companies looking to contribute to the upcoming celebrations with the goal of maintaining positive relationships with the Trump administration.
Meta Platforms Inc. also donated $1 million.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is expected to meet Trump the following week, the president-elect said on Thursday as he emphasised his close contacts with tech giants.
“Bezos is coming up next week,” Trump told CNBC in an interview after ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange.
The spokesperson from Amazon also said on Thursday that, apart from this direct donation, Amazon plans to stream the inauguration, making it an in-kind donation that is worth $1 million. The Wall Street Journal had reported the donations earlier, which are sourced from company coffers and are not a product of Bezos’ own funding, the company said.
Trump addedc that he had also met Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, along with Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX.
“I want to get ideas from them,” Trump said in regard to business leaders. “Look, we want them to do well.”
Bezos has a wide range of interests in business that are related to the federal government. His rocket company, Blue Origin, has contracts with NASA. Meanwhile, Amazon is a significant contractor for defence, intelligence and other federal agencies, mainly by virtue of its cloud computing arm. During Trump’s previous term, the Republican had lashed out at Bezos as a result of the media coverage of his administration by the Washington Post, owned by Bezos. Subsequently, the media outlet chose to avoid endorsing a candidate for the 2024 presidential election.
At The New York Times’ DealBook summit earlier this month, Bezos expressed his optimism for Trump’s second term.
“I am very optimistic this time around, I am very hopeful, he seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation, and if I can help him do that, I am going to help him,” Bezos had said.
Musk, who is a prominent federal contractor, has also repeatedly been Trump’s guest ever since the November election. He was additionally requested to help with the functioning of an initiative to reduce federal costs, which is called the Department of Government Efficiency.
The article originally appeared on CNBC TV.
