Why Amazon, Facebook, Ford spend big

Top CEOs and their companies are pledging to donate millions of dollars to the President-elect Donald Trumpand the first committee, as they try to get on his good side and make progress before he takes office.

Some of the planned contributions reported including $1 million each from Jeff Bezos' AmazonOpenAI CEO Sam Altman and parent company Facebook Metadirected by Mark Zuckerberg. Others include $2 million from Robinhood Markets and $1 million each from both Uber and its CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi.

Ford Yes reported matching his own $1 million donation with a fleet of vehicles.

Hedge fund manager Kenneth Griffin he also said he plans to give the first committee $1 million tax-free, Bloomberg reported. Other contributions are reported from financial leaders in the works.

Bolstered by a decisive electoral victory, Trump has vowed to overhaul US economic policy in a way that could bring huge benefits to a few favored industries, such as fossil fuels.

At the same time, he has telegraphed the value, both personal and political, he places on face-to-face meetings and public praise from the chief executives of the world's largest companies.

“Everybody wants to be my friend!!!” Trump wrote Thursday in a post on Social realitythe stand-alone social media app a technical company.

Many of these CEOs have already made, or plan to make, trips to Mar-a-Lago, Trump's Palm Beach, Florida, resorts and de facto transit headquarters, as they seek to gain influence and access the incoming administration.

To that end, Trump's first committee provides a “unique opportunity,” Brendan Glavin, director of research for the political-fund nonprofit OpenSecrets, said in an interview.

Initiation committees, appointed by presidents-elect, plan and fund much of the chaos and confusion that traditionally surrounds the transfer of power from one administration to the next. re administration.

While the money ultimately benefits a recent political candidate, it doesn't have the same meaning as a donation to, say, a super PAC, which can fund partisan political activity at risk. dispute

And unlike a direct contribution to a candidate's campaign, there are no limits on how much an individual – or corporation or working group – can give to a campaign committee.

In addition, since Trump has already won the election, a primary donation is not a risk for a high-profile executive to support a losing candidate.

“It's a real opportunity for them to curry favor with the incoming administration,” Glavin said.

While it's nothing new for corporations and power brokers to spend big on startup committees, experts told CNBC that the Trump factor is changing the calculus.

“It's all magnified now,” Glavin said. “None of these people, they don't want to be Trump's punching bag for four years.”

Trump's first committee and his transition team did not respond to requests for comment.

Trump's first committee in 2017 came in around $107 million, the most in US history. The previous record was set in 2009 at the first inauguration of Barack Obamahis committee has raised $53 million.

Trump's second inauguration is on pace to break that record, with pledged donations already surpassing the $150 million fundraising goal, It was reported on ABC News.

President Joe Bidenthe first committee, in contrast, raised almost nothing $62 million.

“One of the oldest adages in Washington is that if you're not at the table, you're on the table, and the price of getting in for a seat at the table goes up. ,” said Michael Beckel, director of research at Issue One, a political reform advocacy group.

The increase in funding for Trump's second inaugural committee is coming in part from tech giants, many of which largely refrained from supporting his first inauguration.

Aside from GoDaddy.com founder Robert Parsons, who donated $1 million, few other leaders in Big Tech donated. 2017 Trump Committee.

Trump was once openly against some of them, including Zuckerberg and Bezoswho also owns the Washington Post, a frequent target of the president's mind.

Not so this time. As Trump vows to roll back a raft of federal regulations, but also continues to accuse Big Tech of stifling competition, business leaders may have more to do with their relationship with the White House than ever before.

“I'm very optimistic,” Bezos said of Trump's second presidency in a Dec. 4 interview at the New York Times' DealBook conference. “I'm very optimistic. He seems to have a lot of energy about reducing regulation. And I think, if I can help him do that, I'm going to help him. Because there are too many our rule in this regard. country.”

The comments came after a scandal at the Washington Post in October, when the paper reported that Bezos decided without publishing the approval of the editorial board from the Vice President Kamala Harris over Trump. Bezos in op-ed he defended the paper's decision to no longer endorse presidential candidates, but the reversal emboldened a number of subscribers and led to several staff members resigning in protest.

Nowhere is Trump's new friendship with the tech world more evident than in his warm relationship with Tesla and the CEO of SpaceX Elon Muskwho spent more than $250 million helping Trump get elected.

Musk, the world's richest man, has appeared frequently by Trump's side before and after his election victory, and has reportedly been involved in all aspects of Trump's transition planning. He and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy were tapped to lead a consultancy tasked with cutting government costs.

This could send Altman at OpenAI, which is currently embroiled in a a lawsuit for breach of contract taken by Musk, in an awkward position.

Along with his first million dollar donation, Altman praised Trump earlier this month. “President Trump will lead our country into the age of AI, and I want to support his efforts to ensure that America remains at the forefront,” he said.

Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist for the progressive nonprofit Public Citizen, told CNBC that these numbers are “deeply afraid that Donald Trump might retaliate against them.”

“So they are throwing money “at his feet” to retain favor,” said Holman.

Four days after the presidential election, Trump announced the creation of the “Trump Vance Initiative Committee, Inc.,” a 501(c)(4) nonprofit. It is co-chaired by real estate investor Steve Witkoff and former Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler from Georgia, who is also Trump's choice to lead the Small Business Administration.

Reince Priebus, who was one of Trump's White House chiefs of staff during his first term, said in X post that he was tapped to be the finance chairman of the committee.

Priebus also shared a screenshot of an invitation that listed the names of other finance chairs. Among them is Miriam Adelson, the GOP megadonor who donated $100 million this year on a pro-Trump super PAC, and a billionaire Trump donor Diane Hendricks.

Commencement committees must publicly release the names of donors who donate $200 or more, but these filings are not due​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​upon, 90 days after the commencement ceremony.

If the committee has extra money after the fair, it can be a challenge to find out what is left.

Trump's 2017 inauguration was a smaller affair than Obama's in 2009, even though Trump raised more than twice as much money as Obama. As a result, Trump's committee was expected to have tens of millions of dollars left over after paying for balls and hotels.

But years after the fact, it was not sure what happened to much of that money.

Federal filings show that about a quarter of the money raised, $26 million, was paid to a newly formed company that was run by an adviser to first lady Melania Trump.

“We look through the history of funding institutions, and clearly it comes from very large donors, wealthy special interests and corporations, almost all of whom have business pending before the federal government. ,” said Holman, of Public Citizen.

He said, “This is a real stop to buy favors.”