In This Story
Shortly after the 2016 election, the tech world’s biggest names largely didn’t care for Donald Trump. This time around, they can’t get enough of him.
“In the first term, everybody was fighting me. In this term, everybody wants to be my friend,” the president-elect said Monday after announcing that Japanese investment firm Softbank plans to invest $100 billion in the U.S.
In what has been characterized as paying fealty to Trump, tech companies have rushed to donate $1 million to his inauguration committee and wine and dine with the president-elect.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta (META+0.20%) was the first to give $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee, followed by Amazon (AMZN-1.89%), which also plans to make a $1 million in-kind donation by streaming the Jan. 20, 2025, event on Amazon Video. Meta had declined to donate in 2017, while Amazon gave just $58,000 at the time. (President Joe Biden’s administration declined to accept tech donations for the 2021 inauguration, according to the Wall Street Journal.)
OpenAI’s Sam Altman followed suit, donating $1 million to the fund as he tries to curry favor with the next administration.
Although Altman has said he isn’t worried about rival Elon Musk’s tight-knit relationship with Trump, he’s worked behind the scenes with Trump associates including Jared and Josh Kushner to meet with the incoming administration, according to the Journal. That includes a meeting with Commerce Secretary nominee and Trump transition co-leader Howard Lutnick, where Altman touted OpenAI’s investment plans.
“President Trump will lead our country into the age of AI, and I am eager to support his efforts to ensure America stays ahead,” Altman said in a statement.
In recent weeks, a number of CEOs have made the trip to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, which was called his “Winter White House” during his first administration.
Apple (AAPL+0.58%) CEO Tim Cook joined him for dinner on Friday, in his first meeting with Trump since the election. That came just a day after Google (GOOGL+2.19%) CEO Sundar Pichai and Google founder Sergey Brin made their own visits. Pichai told Semafor ahead of the trip that he was excited to work on a “Manhattan Project” for artificial intelligence with Trump. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is set to meet with Trump later this week.
The most prominent of Trump’s tech supporters is Musk, who has become an almost constant presence in Trump’s orbit since the election and has been handed his own task force. Several of his allies, including Jared Isaacman, David Sacks, and the next head of the Federal Communications Commission have been selected for roles in the new Trump administration.
Marc Andreessen of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, who endorsed Trump, told the Free Press last week that he has spent “half my time” at Mar-a-Lago since the election and will join Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency in an unpaid position.
“It’s morning in America, so I’m very happy,” he said, adding that “people are finally poking their heads out of the frozen tundra of the culture and realizing that it’s actually okay to build things, hire on merit, celebrate success, and fundamentally be proud of the country and be patriotic.”
— Britney Nguyen contributed to this article.