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.
To be fair, they didn't start the tradition of having ridiculous expensive coronation ceremonies paid with legalized bribes every four years. And even that is just a symptom of the monarchical nature of the US presidency.
Yup, look at them, people. Look at the big-named people all lining up to kiss the biggest corrupted ass that this country has ever seen. It's like they're paying a million just to suck Trump's flaccid old cock. Look at them!
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.
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.