The inauguration-fund contribution matches that of Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta
The US online giant Amazon has confirmed it will donate $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural fund and stream the ceremony as well, in what has been widely interpreted as a peace offering by CEO Jeff Bezos.
The Washington Post, owned by Bezos since 2013, has been one of Trump’s most vocal critics since his first term in the White House.
“Bezos is donating through Amazon,” a source told the Wall Street Journal on Thursday. The company has since confirmed this in a statement to CNN.
In addition to the direct donation to the inaugural fund, Amazon’s Prime Video will stream Trump’s inauguration as an in-kind contribution valued at another $1 million. Bezos is also supposed to visit Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida next week.
Bezos’ net worth has been estimated at almost $250 billion, so the amount of the donations is largely symbolic. The tech mogul began shifting away from overt support to the Democrats earlier this year, praising Trump’s “tremendous grace and courage under literal fire” after the July 13 assassination attempt in Pennsylvania. He then vetoed the Post’s endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris in October, causing no small consternation among staff and subscribers.
Earlier this week, the Journal reported that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg would also contribute $1 million to the Trump inaugural fund. Zuckerberg visited Mar-a-Lago last month and had dinner with the president-elect.
Both gestures were seen as an attempt to atone for donating over $400 million to Democrats and to various institutions in majority-Democrat areas, and later banning the sitting president from Facebook and Instagram after the January 6 riot at the US Capitol.
Donations to an inaugural committee are not subject to any contribution amount limitations, but need to be reported to the Federal Elections Commission as such. Earlier this month, at an event hosted by the New York Times, Bezos said he would try to talk Trump out of the idea that the legacy media is “the enemy of the people.”
“What I’ve seen so far is that he is calmer than he was the first time and more confident, more settled,” Bezos said, suggesting that Trump might be amenable to persuasion.
Meanwhile, SpaceX owner Elon Musk has emerged as one of Trump’s closest allies, first by buying Twitter in 2022 and ending most censorship on that platform, and later by openly endorsing Trump and donating an estimated $200 million to his re-election bid.
