Amazon, Meta Are Both Donating $1 Million to Donald Trump’s Inauguration Fund

variety.com:

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Amazon and Meta, seeking to get in Donald Trump’s good graces, are each giving $1 million to the president-elect’s inauguration fund.

Trump has previously lashed out at both Meta and Amazon, among other Big Tech companies, and the donations by the two massive internet corporations are seen as efforts to curry favor with the incoming administration.

Amazon, in addition to the $1 million cash donation to the fund, will livestream Trump’s inauguration on Prime Video, which represents an “in-kind donation” valued at $1 million, as first reported by the Wall Street Journal. (Amazon also livestreamed Biden’s 2021 inauguration.) Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally directed his company to make the $1 million donation to the Trump inaugural fund, per the Journal. “Big congratulations to our 45th and now 47th President on an extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory,” Amazon founder Jeff Bezos wrote on X on Nov.

6. “No nation has bigger opportunities. Wishing @realDonaldTrump all success in leading and uniting the America we all love.” Bezos, who owns the Washington Post, two weeks before the election ordered the paper to not endorse a presidential candidate, arguing that the practice creates “a perception of bias.” Bezos, at the New York Times’ DealBook Summit last week, expressed optimism about Trump’s second occupation of the White House and said that “What I’ve seen so far is he is calmer than he was the first time and more settled.” Trump “seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation,” Bezos said.