Amazon and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are joining Meta in donating $1 million each to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration fund. 


What You Need To Know

  • Amazon and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are joining Meta in donating $1 million each to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration fund

  • The donations come as major tech companies seek to improve their relationship with the incoming president

  • Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said Thursdsay it donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund

The donations come as major tech companies seek to improve their relationship with the incoming president.

An Amazon spokesperson confirmed Thursday evening that the e-commerce giant will also stream Trump's inauguration on its Prime Video service, a separate in-kind donation worth another $1 million.

Earlier in the day, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said it donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund.

Amazon's plans were first reported by The Wall Street Journal. The report came after Trump said Thursday morning that the company's founder, Jeff Bezos, was planning to visit him in person next week.

The two men had feuded in the past. During his first term, Trump criticized Amazon and railed against the political coverage at The Washington Post, which Bezos owns.

Meanwhile, Bezos had criticized some of Trump's past rhetoric. In 2019, Amazon also argued in a court case that Trump’s bias against the company harmed its chances of winning a $10 billion Pentagon contract. The Biden administration later pursued a contract with both Amazon and Microsoft.

More recently, Bezos has struck a more conciliatory tone. Last week, he said at The New York Times' DealBook Summit in New York that he was “optimistic” about Trump’s second term while also endorsing president-elect's plans to cut regulations.

In October, Bezos did not allow the Post to endorse a presidential candidate, a move that led to tens of thousands of people canceling their subscriptions and to protests from journalists with a deep history at the newspaper. At the time, Bezos wrote in an op-ed in the newspaper that editorial endorsements create a perception of bias at a time when many Americans don’t believe the media.

OpenAI’s Altman is planning to make a $1 million personal donation to the inauguration fund. 

A spokesperson for OpenAI confirmed the move on Friday. 

“President Trump will lead our country into the age of AI, and I am eager to support his efforts to ensure America stays ahead," Altman said in a statement.

Altman, who is in a legal dispute with rival Elon Musk, has said he is “not that worried” about the Tesla CEO's influence in the incoming administration.

Trump is putting Musk, the world’s richest man, and Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur and former Republican presidential candidate, in charge of the new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which is an outside advisory committee that will work with people inside the government to reduce spending and regulations.

Musk, an early OpenAI investor and board member, sued the artificial intelligence company earlier this year alleging that the maker of ChatGPT betrayed its founding aims of benefiting the public good rather than pursuing profits. Musk recently escalated the lawsuit by asking a federal judge to stop OpenAI’s plans to convert itself into a for-profit business more fully.