Trump inauguration donors include Meta, Amazon, Target, Delta, Ford

America’s richest and most powerful companies shelled out millions to fund President Donald Trump‘s inauguration festivities.

Three months later, some may be asking whether the famously transactional president has their backs. Many of those corporations have had their businesses roiled by Trump’s tariff policy and resulting consumer caution, dampening the optimism much of the business and finance community felt when he was elected again.

Some of the nation’s largest companies, including General Motors, BlackRock and Meta, donated to Trump’s inaugural committee, leading it to raise a record $239 million – more than the previous three inaugural committees took in combined, according to filings released Sunday.

Presidential inaugural committees are set up as charitable organizations, and the money they raise has traditionally funded parades and galas around the president’s formal swearing in. Unlike presidential election campaigns, there is no set limit on how much a corporation or U.S. citizen can give to an inaugural committee. (President Joe Biden did not have traditional inaugural events in 2021 due to the Covid pandemic).

This makes inaugural donations an early opportunity for companies to publicly show support for the incoming president. And in Trump’s case especially, to ensure that the company has a seat at the table as policy decisions are being made.

Inaugural committees must disclose their donors, but they are not required to disclose how they spend the money. After raising hundreds of millions of dollars more than it costs to put on three balls and an indoor parade, the Trump inaugural committee is expected to put the rest toward Trump’s eventual presidential library.

Some of this year’s donors, like Target, McDonald’s and Delta Air Lines, hadn’t contributed to an inaugural committee in more than a decade. Others including Pfizer, Walmart and Visa were regular contributors, as they donated the same amounts in 2025 that they did in 2021 and 2017. 

What just about every donor had in common was they wrote their checks at a time when the business community was still riding high on the president’s victory. Consumer confidence was surging, Trump had promised tax cuts were coming and triple-digit tariffs on critical trading partner China weren’t part of the conversation.

But in the weeks and months since, many of those same corporations have seen their businesses upended by Trump’s economic policies, which have centered on tariffs that economists from across the ideological spectrum have warned could raise costs for consumers and tip the economy into a recession.

Banks that were expecting a resurgence in IPOs and deals are instead contending with skittish capital markets. Some airlines that were excited about deregulation and a government that would be…