Why Amazon, Facebook and Ford are spending big

Top CEOs and their companies pledge millions of dollars to president-elect donald trumpof the inaugural committee, as they seek to be on his side and make progress before he takes office.

Some of the planned giving reportedly include $1 million each jeff bezos‘ AmazonSam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, and Facebook’s parent company Goalled by Mark Zuckerberg. Others include $2 million Robinhood Markets and $1 million each Uber and its general director, Dara Khosrowshahi.

Ford is reportedly couple his own $1 million donation with a fleet of vehicles.

Hedge fund manager Ken Griffin He also said he plans to donate $1 million to the tax-exempt inaugural committee. Bloomberg reported. Other donations from financial leaders are reported in the works.

Empowered by a decisive election victory, Trump has promised to revamp American economic policy in a way that could have generated enormous benefits for a few favored industries, such as fossil fuels.

At the same time, he has demonstrated the value, both personal and political, he places on face-to-face meetings and public praise from the CEOs of the world’s largest companies.

“EVERYONE WANTS TO BE MY FRIEND!!!” Trump wrote Thursday in a post about Social Truththe social media application managed by himself technology company.

Many of those CEOs have already made, or plan to make, trips to Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s resort in Palm Beach, Florida, and de facto transition headquarters, as they seek to gain influence and access to the incoming administration.

To that end, Trump’s inaugural committee presents a “unique opportunity,” Brendan Glavin, research director at OpenSecrets, a money-in-politics nonprofit, said in an interview.

Inaugural committees, which are appointed by presidents-elect, plan and finance much of the pomp and circumstance that traditionally surrounds the transition of power from one administration to the next.

While the money ultimately benefits a recent political candidate, it does not have the same connotation as a donation to, say, a super PAC, which can fund partisan political activities that risk stoking controversy.

And unlike a direct contribution to a candidate’s campaign, there are no limits on how much an individual (or a corporation, or a labor group) can donate to an inaugural committee.

Furthermore, since Trump already won the election, an inaugural contribution carries no risk for a high-profile executive to endorse a losing candidate.

“It’s really a great opportunity for them to curry favor with the incoming administration,” Glavin said.

While it’s nothing new for corporations and power brokers to pour large amounts of money into inaugural committees, experts told CNBC that the Trump factor changes the calculus.

“Everything has escalated now,” Glavin said. “None of these people want to be Trump’s punching bag for four years.”

Trump’s inaugural committee and his transition team did not respond to requests for comment.

Trump’s inaugural committee in 2017 raised about $107 million, by far the most in U.S. history. The previous record had been set in 2009 during the first inauguration of barack obamawhose committee raised 53 million dollars.

Trump’s second inauguration is on track to break that record, with pledged contributions already surpassing the $150 million fundraising goal. ABC News reported.

President joe bidenIn comparison, the inaugural committee raised almost $62 million.

“One of the oldest adages in Washington is that if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu, and the price of admission to the table just keeps going up,” said Michael Beckel, research director at Issue One, a political reform advocacy group.

The surge in funding for Trump’s second inaugural committee comes in part from tech giants, many of which largely avoided supporting his first inauguration.

Aside from GoDaddy.com founder Robert Parsons, who donated $1 million, few big tech leaders donated. The Trump 2017 Committee.

Trump once openly clashed with some of them, including Zuckerberg and Bezoswho also owns The Washington Post, a frequent target of the president-elect’s ire.

Not so this time. As Trump vows to tear up scores of federal regulations but also continues to accuse Big Tech of stifling competition, industry leaders may have their relationship with the White House more at stake than ever.

“I’m actually very optimistic.” Bezos said of a second Trump presidency in a December 4 interview at the New York Times DealBook conference. “I’m very hopeful. You seem to have a lot of energy to reduce regulation. And from my point of view, if I can help you do that, I will help you. Because we have too much regulation in this country.”

The comments came in the wake of a scandal at The Washington Post in October, when the paper reported that Bezos decided not publishing the endorsement of its editorial board for the vice president Kamala Harris about Trump. Bezos in a opinion article defended the newspaper’s decision to no longer endorse presidential candidates, but the decision sparked an exodus of subscribers and caused numerous employees to resign in protest.

Nowhere is Trump’s newfound friendship with the tech world more pronounced than in his burgeoning relationship with Tesla and the SpaceX CEO. Elon Muskwho spent more than $250 million to help elect Trump.

Musk, the world’s richest person, has frequently appeared at Trump’s side before and after his election victory and has reportedly been involved in all aspects of Trump’s transition planning. He and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy have been chosen to lead an advisory group tasked with reducing government costs.

This could put OpenAI’s Altman, who is currently embroiled in a lawsuit for breach of contract brought by Musk, in an awkward position.

In addition to his $1 million inaugural donation, Altman praised Trump earlier this month. “President Trump will lead our country into the age of AI, and I look forward to supporting his efforts to ensure America remains ahead of the curve,” he said.

Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist for the progressive nonprofit Public Citizen, told CNBC that these figures “very fear that Donald Trump might retaliate against them.”

“So they’re throwing money “at his feet” to curry favor,” Holman said.

Four days after the presidential election, Trump announced the formation of the “Trump Vance Inaugural Committee, Inc.,” a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization. It is co-chaired by real estate investor Steve Witkoff and former Republican senator. Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, who is also Trump’s pick 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 a x publication who has been elected to serve as chairman of the finance committee.

Priebus also shared a screenshot of an invitation that listed the names of other finance chairs. They include Miriam Adelson, the Republican mega-donor who spent 100 million dollars this year about a pro-Trump super PAC and a billionaire Trump donor Diana Hendricks.

Inaugural committees must publicly disclose the names of donors who give $200 or more, but those submissions must not be made until 90 days after the inaugural ceremony.

If the committee has a surplus after all the festivities, figuring out how much is left can be a challenge.

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

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

Federal documents show that about a quarter of all funds raised, $26 million, were paid to a start-up company which was run by an advisor to First Lady Melania Trump.

“We took a look at the history of inauguration funding and it clearly comes from big donors, wealthy special interests and corporations, almost all of whom have unfinished business with the federal government,” Public Citizen’s Holman said.

And he added: “This is a real cesspool of buying favors.”