Tech Giants Donate $1M Each to Trump’s Inaugural Fund

This week, some of the biggest names in tech, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, visited President-elect Trump to connect, socialize, and bury old grievances. Both parties donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, signaling a strategic effort to rebuild relationships with the incoming administration. For those who don’t know, an inaugural fund is a financial resource established by the President-elect to plan and finance various events surrounding the inauguration ceremony.

This realignment—apparent given Zuckerberg’s ban of Trump from Facebook following January 6 and Trump’s retaliatory threats of literal imprisonment—is a not-so-surprising shift in Big Tech’s political calculus. Bezos’s praise of Trump’s “extraordinary political comeback” and optimism about deregulation represents more than mere diplomatic overtures; it acknowledges that Silicon Valley’s regulatory future now runs through Mar-a-Lago. Why is he doing this now? We’ll get into it next.

Then, there is Zuckerberg, who praised Trump’s response to an assassination attempt and likely got ahead of the competition regarding tech regulations, particularly artificial intelligence. However, where Bezos and Zuckerberg probably come together is antitrust threats and privacy scrutiny that, if handled right, could be negotiated through direct engagement with Trump’s administration, despite their previous public tensions. As always, both are there to protect Amazon’s and Meta’s interests and gain potential insider access to policy discussions because if their companies falter, so does their wealth and, hence, their power.

But the biggest reason they may be there is one thing - corporate taxes. But the biggest reason they may be there is one thing - corporate taxes. Trump’s proposed tax overhaul will supercharge Silicon Valley’s bottom lines, with a planned reduction from the current 21% rate to an aggressive 15% for domestic manufacturers that would completely restructure tech giants’ financial calculus and likely not benefit consumers but the profits of shareholders, the board, etc. According to multiple analyses, including the Penn Wharton Budget Model and Tax Foundation projections, this move could reduce federal revenue by $460-673 billion—but for companies like Meta and Amazon, which could qualify for the enhanced 15% rate through domestic production activities, the savings would be transformative.

The strategy here, leveraging a modified version of previous domestic production deductions and potentially affecting 37% of corporate taxable income, likely explains why Bezos and Zuckerberg are making diplomatic overtures now.