2/2
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 banksto 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.”
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 Ricks were 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, 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, 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 investigationby 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.
https://archive.is/nW9nN