Why Amazon, Facebook, Ford are spending big

Top CEOs and their companies are pledging to donate millions of dollars to President-elect Donald Trump‘s inaugural committee, as they seek to get on his good side and make inroads before he takes office.

Some of the planned donations reportedly include $1 million each from Jeff Bezos‘ Amazon, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Facebook parent company Meta, led by Mark Zuckerberg. Others include $2 million from Robinhood Markets and $1 million each from both Uber and its CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi.

Ford is reportedly coupling its own $1 million donation with a fleet of vehicles.

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

Empowered by a decisive electoral victory, Trump has vowed to revamp U.S. economic policy in a way that could have outsized benefits for a few favored industries, like fossil fuels.

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

“EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE MY FRIEND!!!” Trump wrote Thursday in a post on Truth Social, the social media app run by his own tech company.

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

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

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

While the money is ultimately benefiting a recent political candidate, it doesn’t carry 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 labor group — can give to an inaugural committee.

Moreover, since Trump already won the election, an inaugural contribution carries no risk for a high-profile executive of backing a losing candidate.

“It really is 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 shower big money on inaugural…