Amazon is planning to donate $1 million to President-elect Trump's inauguration fund, a move that comes as major tech companies seek to improve their relationship with the incoming president. A company 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, the AP reports. Amazon donated around $58,000 to Trump's 2017 inauguration. It also streamed President Biden's inauguration, though insiders tell the Wall Street Journal that the president declined to accept cash donations from tech companies for the inauguration.
Earlier Thursday, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said it donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund. News of Amazon's plans 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 have 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. 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.
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