The second Trump inaugural fund is on track to be the most lucrative yet

The Wall Street Journal has identified at least 11 companies and trade associations that are backing the inauguration, which is on track to bring in a record fundraising haul, after earlier pledging to suspend or reconsider political-action committee donations after Jan. 6, 2021.

Ford, Intuit, Toyota and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America are each giving $1 million. Other major donors that made Jan. 6-related pledges include Goldman Sachs, General Motors, Bank of America, AT&T and Stanley Black & Decker.

For Goldman Sachs, Intuit, Toyota and PhRMA, this marks the first time in at least a decade that they are supporting an inauguration fund.

After Trump supporters invaded the Capitol in 2021 to protest the results of the presidential election, dozens of companies vowed to rethink their political contributions going forward. Some paused all donations. Others suspended donations to any lawmaker who voted against certifying the 2020 electoral college results. Some simply promised to factor integrity into their donation decisions going forward.

Now, as corporate executives hurry to make inroads with an incoming president whose agenda will have sweeping ramifications for the business world, many of those pledges are a thing of the past.

Most of the companies didn’t comment on the reason for their donation, though some noted that they had given to inaugurations for decades regardless of party. Toyota pointed to a 2022 statement in which it said it was resuming PAC donations but wouldn’t support those who incite violence. A PhRMA spokesperson said the company had “announced a pause on our giving at the time and then subsequently added new criteria to guide our contributions.”

Corporate executives have been flocking to Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida resort, in the weeks since the election to meet with the president-elect and his team, in the hopes that building a relationship could make the incoming administration friendlier to their causes. Trump has met with the chief executives of Meta Platforms, Amazon, Google, Pfizer, Eli Lilly and others in recent weeks.

Inauguration officials have told fundraisers that they are on track to raise more than the $107 million they brought in for Trump’s first inauguration. President Biden’s inauguration, in contrast, raised $61 million. Trump’s 2017 inaugural fund received donations of $1 million or more from 18 companies, and this year’s fund is on track to outpace that, people familiar with the fundraising said. The Journal has identified 13 companies that gave $1 million or more so far.

Donors who give $1 million or raise $2 million from others receive six tickets to a series of events in the days leading up to the inauguration, including a reception with cabinet appointees, a “candlelight dinner” with Trump and Melania Trumpand a black-tie ball.

Trump aides have said that the fundraising isn’t even really about drawing in money anymore: It is a means for extracting a mea culpa from corporate America for its shunning of Trump. One Trump aide rolled his eyes about tech billionaires “making a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago” and cutting $1 million checks for the inauguration as if that would patch up prior offenses.

While many companies that paused donations after Jan. 6 had since resumed their giving—including to lawmakers who objected to the 2020 election results—the rush to fund the inauguration is a sign of how far corporate America has swung in anticipation of Trump’s return to the White House.

“People just really want to move forward and move on. The election results were very clear,” said a representative at one of the companies that is changing course and contributing to the inauguration.

After Trump supporters invaded the Capitol in 2021, dozens of companies vowed to rethink their political contributions. Photo: ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images

Consultants have been advising companies that it is in their interests to support the inauguration and secure a meeting with Trump. “The old saying is, if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu,” said Kevin Madden, a longtime Republican strategist who said he advises his corporate clients to be proactive in getting involved in policy discussions. “There’s going to be a lot of work being done in 2025 and 2026, and the process starts now.”

The president-elect appears to be reveling in the outreach. “EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE MY FRIEND!!!” he posted on Truth Social last week.

Some Republican strategists have also been instructing companies to scrub their websites and corporate policies of language that favors Democrats—including pledges they made to pause donations after Jan. 6. Some companies’ news releases in the wake of the invasion of the Capitol are no longer online, including a letter from then-Stanley Black & Decker CEO Jim Loree condemning the invasion of the Capitol and vowing to “use our voice to advocate for our democracy and a peaceful transition of power.”

Stanley Black & Decker said it is donating $1 million, a major increase from the $25,000 it gave to Trump’s first inauguration.

Many of the companies donating to the inauguration stand to see their industries substantially affected by the incoming administration. They range from automakers like Toyota that would be affected by new tariffs, to pharmaceutical interests that are unnerved by Trump’s selection of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, to Big Tech companies that Trump allies have accused of censorship and monopolistic behaviors.

The cryptocurrency trading platform Kraken donated $1 million, a spokeswoman said. Kraken Chairman Jesse Powell and CEO Arjun Sethi met with Trump throughout the campaign and have met with him since the election. Among the priorities they discussed: ending “regulations by enforcement” and ending the refusal by some banks to take crypto companies and their founders.

Cryptocurrency-exchange platform Coinbase, whose CEO met with Trump last month, donated $1 million to the inauguration. Kara Calvert, Coinbase’s vice president for U.S. policy, said the company committed to backing Trump’s transition and inauguration before the election and said the company is “eager to work with the most pro-crypto administration in U.S. history.”

Trump has vowed to ease the regulatory burden on crypto, and the crypto world is hoping that he and Congress will deliver on the industry’s longstanding goal of getting rules that treat it differently from Wall Street. Eric Trump earlier this month retweeted a meme after the election of a bitcoin flag flying over the White House.

Intuit, the tax-software maker, is donating $1 million to the fund after not backing either of the last two inaugurations. Shortly after Trump’s election, the company’s shares declined on a report that the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency was considering making a free tax-filing app. While the company’s CEO has said he doesn’t think the Trump administration would invest resources into such a project, he has said he is “personally engaging” with the new administration and eager to partner on areas like a simplified tax code.

Intuit said that its “expanded participation in the democratic process” reflects its “growth as a company” and the policy issues that affect its consumers and said it has had a “decadeslong commitment to bipartisan advocacy.”

Corporate executives have been flocking to Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida resort, to meet with the president-elect and his team. Photo: Saul Martinez/Getty Images

The pharmaceutical industry—for whom Kennedy as HHS secretary is a worst-case scenario—has sought to improve its relationship with the Trump team. Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, PhRMA CEO Stephen Ubl and Eli Lilly CEO David Rickswere among the pharmaceutical executives who met with Trump and Kennedy for dinner at Mar-a-Lago earlier this month.

Pfizer said it plans to donate to the inauguration. The company also gave to the previous two inaugurations. The trade group PhRMA said it is donating $1 million to Trump’s inaugural after not giving to either of the last two inaugurations.

Some of the donors compete with Musk’s various businesses. Musk has become one of Trump’s closest advisers and has had a seat at the table for transition meetings, worrying competitors that Musk’s companies could benefit from proximity to the president-elect. Jeff Bezos, for instance, recently dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago and Amazon made a $1 million contribution to Trump’s inauguration. In addition to founding Amazon.com, which could be hit by tariffs, Bezos founded Blue Origin, a space exploration company that counts Musk’s SpaceX as one of its largest competitors.

Some donors are substantially boosting their inaugural donations from previous years. The telecom company Charter Communications, which gave $350,000 to Biden’s fund and $250,000 to Trump’s 2017 fund, is donating $1 million this time. Uber Technologies, which gave $1 million to Biden’s, donated $1 million to the inauguration, in addition to another $1 million from Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.

Trump’s 2017 inaugural fund came under investigation by federal prosecutors in Manhattan, who probed whether the committee misspent some of the money it raised and whether some of the committee’s top donors gave money in exchange for access or policy concessions. Two donors to the fund pleaded guilty to charges related to their donations, including one who funneled $50,000 from a Ukrainian oligarch into the committee.

By Rebecca Ballhaus

excerpts: The Wall Street Journal