Why Jeff Bezos is Donating $1 Million to Trump's Inaugural Fund

Amazon’s CEO and founder, Jeff Bezos, is likely to join the group of tech industry leaders trying to strengthen ties with US President-elect Donald Trump ahead of him officially taking charge in January 2025. The billionaire is mulling donating $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. 

“Bezos is donating through Amazon,” the Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources. 

Bezos isn’t the first tech leader who is stepping up to fix once-rough relationship with Donald Trump ahead of his second term. Earlier this week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a donation worth $1 million to the inaugural fund. 

Bezos Ironing Out Differences with Trump 

Bezos has shared bitter relations with Trump during his first term. Billionaire’s consumer giant Amazon and newspaper Washington Post have been on Trump’s radar. Trump accused Amazon of having paid little or no taxes to the government. 

Also Read: Donald Trump-Elon Musk Friendship: A Tale of Critique Turning Campaigner

“...Use our postal system as their delivery boy and are putting many thousands of retailers out of business,” Trump had said in a post on X. 

Moreover, Amazon Web Services reportedly lost a cloud computing contract worth $10 billion with the department of defense due to Trump’s influence. 

“If @amazon ever had to pay fair taxes, its stock would crash and it would crumble like a paper bag. The @washingtonpost scam is saving it,” said Trump in a post on X in 2015. 

But the billionaire has not left a single chance to iron out his differences since the time Trump won the 2024 US presidential elections. He congratulated the President-elect for his “extraordinary political comeback”. 

Recently, speaking at the New York Times DealBook Summit, Bezos said he is optimistic regarding Trump’s second term. Additionally, he also appreciated him for starting up a department of efficiency under Elon Musk. 

“I’m very hopeful- he seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation...and my point of view is, if I can help him do that, I’m going to help him, because we do have too much regulation in this country,” said Bezos.