Jeff Bezos also donates $1m to Trump inauguration fund

WASHINGTON : One day after Mark Zuckerberg pledged $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, fellow tech billionaire Jeff Bezos also planned to donate the same amount through his company Amazon, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

Bezos, Amazon’s founder and executive chairman, has notably clashed with Trump in the past, but is now planning to visit Trump’s Mar-a-Lago next week, according to the WSJ.

Sources also told the outlet that Amazon will also stream stream the inauguration through its Prime Video platform, a separate donation that is also said to be worth $1 million.

Amazon also streamed President Biden’s 2021 inauguration, although the administration did not accept tech donations for the ceremony.

In 2017, Amazon gave an estimate $58,000 in cash and in-kind donations to Trump’s first inauguration, but were outspent by other tech companies.

That came after years of butting heads: Bezos sarcastically offered to send Trump into space via one of his Blue Origin rockets in 2015 .

For his part, Trump has complained about the Washington Post’s coverage of his first term. The media company has been owned by Bezos since 2013.

In 2024, Bezos nixed the usual presidential endorsement, which staffers had intended to go to Trump rival Kamala Harris. After Trump’s win, Bezos congratulated him for “an extraordinary political comeback,” and later reiterated that pulling the Post’s planned thumbs-up of Harris was “the right decision.”

courtesy : WSJ news