President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration committee is expected to more than double its donations compared with 2017, raking in seven-figure gifts from large companies and CEOs as he prepares his administration.
Since Election Day, Trump’s groups have raised more than $200 million for his inauguration, political operation, and presidential library, sources told the New York Times last week.
For the inaugural committee, which ABC News was told has raised $150 million as of mid-December, Fox Business was told the haul will reach $225 million. Trump’s previous inauguration committee brought in $106.8 million, while President Biden’s raised $61.9 million.
The complete list of donors to Trump’s festivities is not publicly known, and the committee is not expected to disclose certain donors before the 90-day deadline after the ceremony. In the absence of an official disclosure, the names of companies and executives making, or pledging, million-dollar-plus donations have been sprinkled out in news articles.
The companies paying tribute to Trump are jockeying for favorable treatment on a number of fronts. Cryptocurrency firms are lobbying for industry-favored legislation and light-touch financial regulation. Automakers have their eyes on potential Trump administration tariffs. Big businesses and their lobbying groups, as well as their wealthy executives, are dreaming of the planned continuation of the GOP-passed lucrative corporate tax breaks from 2017 and relaxed regulatory scrutiny of mergers.
Here are the known, deep-pocketed donors to Trump’s inauguration. Companies marked with a * also donated to the Biden 2021 inauguration.
- Ripple: $5 million donation in the form of its cryptocurrency token (Fox Business)
- Uber*: $2 million (including $1 million from CEO Dara Khosrowshahi) (WSJ)
- Robinhood (financial services company): $2 million (NYT)
- Pratt Industries (chaired by Australian billionaire Anthony Pratt, a Mar-a-Lago member): $1.1 million (WSJ)
- Amazon*: $1 million (WSJ)
- Also, a $1 million in-kind donation broadcasting the ceremony on video
- Puck’s Matthew Belloni reported that Amazon is paying a hefty $40 million to license a Melania Trump documentary.
- Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI: $1 million (AP)
- Tim Cook, CEO of Apple: $1 million (Axios)
- Meta: $1 million (Axios)
- Perplexity AI: $1 million (Bloomberg)
- MoonPay: unknown (Fox Business)
- Hims & Hers: $1 million (Axios)
- Ford*: $1 million (Axios)
- General Motors*: $1 million (ibid.)
- Toyota: $1 million (ibid.)
- Charter Communications*: $1 million (WSJ)
- Coinbase: $1 million (ibid.)
- Intuit: $1 million (ibid.)
- Kraken: $1 million (ibid.)
- Pfizer*: $1 million (ibid.)
- PhRMA: $1 million (ibid.)
- Stanley Black & Decker: $1 million (ibid.)
- AT&T*: unknown (ibid.)
- Bank of America*: unknown (ibid.)
- Goldman Sachs: unknown (ibid.)
- David Tamasi and Oswaldo Palomo: raised more than $3 million. The two are partners in the lobbying firm Chartwell Strategy Group (NYT).
- The firm’s lobbying clients last year included Hyundai, Czech armor maker CSE USA, South Korean conglomerate SK Group, and Fidelity Investments.
- Ronald Lauder: $1 million (WSJ)
- Billionaire and friend of Trump
- Ken Griffin*: pledged $1 million (Bloomberg)
- Billionaire CEO of investment firm Citadel and Republican megadonor
- Google*: $1 million (CNBC)
- Microsoft*: $1 million (CNBC)
Rick Claypool, a researcher at Public Citizen, noted on X that 16 of the known inauguration donors have ongoing federal investigations that could be dropped or undermined by the incoming Trump administration. Amazon and Pfizer together have nearly a dozen cases.
Several of the donors to Trump’s previous inaugural cashed in with eye-popping federal contracts during the first year of his administration, including prison companies CoreCivic and GEO Group, as well as Lockheed Martin.
Trump’s inaugural committee, formed as a 501(c)4 nonprofit, is being led by New York real estate billionaire Steve Witkoff, who donated a quarter of a million dollars to the largest pro-Trump super PAC, according to FEC records. One of its finance chairs is superlobbyist Jeff Miller, founder and CEO of Miller Strategies, whose clients include Apple, private equity titan Blackstone, and oil and gas company Valero Energy. Miller was a prominent Trump campaign bundler. Another is former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, president of law firm Michael Best & Friedrich LLP, whose lobbying clients include Ripple and mining company NACCO Industries. A Trump Vance Inaugural Committee that was registered with the Federal Election Commission on Nov. 15 has not yet filed donor information.
At least 11 companies and trade associations that publicly reconsidered their political giving after the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol Building are among those known to be giving to Trump this time, according to the Wall Street Journal, including AT&T and General Motors. “For Goldman Sachs, Intuit, Toyota and PhRMA, this marks the first time in at least a decade that they are supporting an inauguration fund,” the Journal wrote.
Donors who give $1 million, or raise $2 million, are in line for perks, Teddy Schleifer reported last month, like a reception with Trump cabinet selections.
Biden took part in the tradition of accepting large donations from corporations and the wealthy for his inauguration, which was held mostly online due to the coronavirus pandemic. Many million-dollar Biden donors then financed fierce lobbying against the Democrats’ budget plan, contained in the sweeping Build Back Better Act that was developed under his administration’s first year in office, through trade associations like the Business Roundtable and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Some of the companies whose lobbying groups helped sink the major Democratic social spending and climate package included Bank of America, Boeing, Dow, Pfizer, and Uber.
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