Donations, not restricted by campaign finance laws, come as industries seek favor with incoming administration

US business leaders are spending big on Donald Trump’s second inaugural fund, which is predicted to exceed even the record-setting $107m raised in 2017.

The donations, which are not restricted by campaign finance laws, come as industries and business leaders seek to curry favor with the incoming administration after the president-elect decisively won a second, non-consecutive term in November.

Some of the planned donations reportedly include $1m each from Jeff Bezos’s Amazon, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Facebook parent company Meta, led by Mark Zuckerberg.

Hedge-fund manager Ken Griffin has said he plans to donate $1m, Bloomberg reported; Uber and its CEO Dara Khosrowshahi are reported to be chipping in $1m each; and Toyota, Ford and General Motors are each peeling off $1m. Ford is also reportedly coupling its donation with a fleet of vehicles.

    • Avid Amoeba
      0•1 day ago

      They donate to every inauguration. Apparently that’s traditional. Expecting billionaires to show spine here is to expect them to go against their financial interests. They wouldn’t be billionaires of they were willing to do that.

      • @Snapz
        5•20 hours ago

        Yes. But your statement seeks to normalize trump as any other president. He is not.

        The point isn’t that they’ve given before, it’s that they are giving to him, now, with all of his clearly stated intent to harm people and American democracy.

        Meta is least surprising, they hired one of the actual authors of Project 2025 and he still works there today AFAIK.

        • Avid Amoeba
          2•12 hours ago

          I think it’s useful for people to consider that he’s not that out of the ordinary. Instead he’s just blatantly transparent, whereas others have been more covert. E.g. Reagan did receive a handbook from the Heritage Foundation. He implemented 60% of it within a year. That’s the same Heritage Foundation that produced Project 2025. I think understanding that could help people look for solutions that stop perpetuating the ordinary that’s gotten us to where we are today. And yes, of course there are differences between any two candidates or presidents, some significant in the way they affect the majority. Placed on a timeline however, they seem more like slight changes on the trend line towards a strong oligarchy.