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.

  • HellsBelle@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
    86·
    14 days ago

    “EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE MY FRIEND!!!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on Thursday.

    lmfao

    What a fucking idjit.

    • futatorius@lemm.ee
      1·
      11 days ago

      Nothing will meaningfully improve until there’s a cap on how rich someone can become.

    • tired_n_bored@lemmy.world
      5·
      12 days ago

      Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Sam Altman (OpenAi), Mark Zuckerberg (Meta), Dara Khosrowshahi (Uber), Jim Loree (Black and Decker), Toyota, Ford, General Motors, Intuit, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and many other undisclosed in the article.

      The part particularly concerning to me is

      Trump aides have indicated that the fundraising isn’t about the money but a symbolic means to exact an apology for any previous perceived lapse of loyalty.

      a very fascist wording. You don’t have to be “loyal” to the President, unless he’s a dictator.

  • jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de
    22·
    13 days ago

    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.

  • hightrix@lemmy.world
    18·
    13 days ago

    All these rich guys are donating the same amount? Yeah, that doesn’t feel like a donation but more like a purchase/fee/protection money.

    • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
      34·
      14 days 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@lemmy.world
        7·
        13 days 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@lemmy.ca
          3·
          13 days 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.

          • Snapz@lemmy.world
            1·
            12 days ago

            Again, you’re seeking to normalize trump, and you’re wrong to do so. “He’s not that out of the ordinary”… maybe among other ghoulish republican pieces of shit that had historically negative impacts on the stability of our democracy and again, trump is an order of magnitude beyond anything before him. Regan was a cancer, but he didn’t allow for and encourage a Jan 6th insurrection as trump did and does, for example.

            This isn’t regan, as insidiously horrible as he was - if you’d like, regan was a surgeon with a scalpel, a patient list provided and clear instructions of how to execute select victims. trump is an unhinged serial killer that uses a bowling ball covered in rusted nails to kill, and his victim choice depends a lot on who looks at him on the bus that day. And he’s also sundowning in parallel, so sometimes you didn’t even look at him on the bus and you’re still getting the ball to the back of the head because he shit his pants and the sound startled him into a blind rage.

        • Snapz@lemmy.world
          1·
          12 days ago

          I don’t see Facebook/meta, Google or Amazon on that list?

          Indeed. Fascinating if true…

          • DrunkEngineer@lemmy.world
            1·
            12 days ago

            I don’t know about Obama inauguration, but for the Biden inauguration both Google and Amazon donated a lot. Jeff Bezos also gave $100 million to the Obama Presidential Library.