'Bezos Is Donating Through Amazon': Tech Giant Makes $1 Million Donation to Donald Trump's Inaugural Fund Amazon follows Meta's lead with the donation.

By Sherin Shibu Edited by Jessica Thomas Dec 13, 2024

Amazon donated $1 million to president-elect Donald Trump's inaugural fund.
A source told the ‘Wall Street Journal’ that the contribution is actually Amazon founder Jeff Bezos donating through Amazon.
Bezos will visit Trump next week at Mar-a-Lago.

Amazon is following Meta's lead by making a $1 million donation to president-elect Donald Trump's inaugural fund just one day after Meta made an identical donation.

Amazon confirmed the contribution to multiple outlets on Thursday. Sources told the Wall Street Journal that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos helped Amazon decide on the amount.

"Bezos is donating through Amazon," a source claimed to the WSJ.

The inaugural fund covers early expenses that come up when a new president takes office. Federal Election Commission records show that Microsoft donated $500,000 to both Trump's first inauguration in 2017 and President Joe Biden's in 2021. Amazon didn't donate in 2021 but gave about $58,000 in 2017.

Amazon is also making a separate donation in addition to the $1 million in cash: It will stream the inauguration through Prime Video, a contribution valued at an additional $1 million, per the WSJ.

^{Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images}

Trump confirmed on Thursday that he will meet with Bezos at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida next week. Bezos joins other tech CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, who have recently met with Trump there.

"Mark Zuckerberg has been over to see me and I can tell you Elon is another and Jeff Bezos is coming up next week and I want to get ideas from them," Trump told CNBC's Jim Cramer on Thursday. "Look, we want them to do well, we want everybody, we want great jobs, fantastic salaries... We want people working and we want them working for a lot of money."

Bezos spoke highly of Trump recently and said that he was "very optimistic" about Trump's second term in office.

Trump is "calmer than he was the first time and more confident, more settled," Bezos said at the New York Times DealBook Summit last week.

Sherin Shibu

Entrepreneur Staff

News Reporter

Sherin Shibu is a business news reporter at Entrepreneur.com. She previously worked for PCMag, Business Insider, The Messenger, and ZDNET as a reporter and copyeditor. Her areas of coverage encompass tech, business, strategy, finance, and even space. She is a Columbia University graduate.

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