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This week Goal announced that had donated $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural fund. The fund is used to finance the festivities that accompany the inauguration day celebrations of the president-elect. It would seem to be yet another sign that the tech giant is doing everything it can to look good to a man who once threatened send its CEO to prison for the rest of his life.
Meta’s generous financial donation, which is quite large as inaugural contributions go, follows on the heels of other conciliatory measures taken by Zuck. In November, the tech mogul dined with the president-elect at Mar-a-Lago, after which Meta said its CEO was “Grateful for the invitation to dinner with President Trump and the opportunity to meet with members of his team about the incoming administration.” Before the election, Zuckerberg also spoke to Trump and congratulated him, saying he thought so. was “rude” how he handled the assassination attempt against him. The Meta founder also gave Trump a much cheaper gift: his company’s Ray-Ban smart glasses.
It makes sense that Zuck is using his charm since Trump has repeatedly threatened to put him in prison. In fact, a constant theme with Trump has been that Zuckerberg somehow helped undermine his electoral chances during the 2020 presidential election. This year, Trump actually co-authored a coffee table book in which he alleged that Zuck and his wife, Priscilla Chan, had conspired against him. While the book is vague as to the details of what this alleged conspiracy entailed, it is believed to be a reference to a series of major electoral infrastructure donations that Zuckerberg and Chan brought to the election offices in 2020. For whatever reason, Trump appears to assume that these donations undermined their electoral chances that year. The book claims that if the tech CEO ever “does anything illegal again,” he “will spend the rest of his life in prison.” Trump has also threatened Zuckerberg with prison and prosecution at other points, usually through posts on his social media platform, Truth Social.
Meta’s inauguration gift is yet another effort by the tech platform to stay in the new president’s good graces, which isn’t a particularly unique thing a company can do when there’s a new administration.
In fact, while the presidential inauguration itself (the part where the president is sworn in) is publicly funded, many of the celebrations after the initial ceremony, technically known as “inauguration events” They are driven by private donations. In fact, a wide variety of people and organizations can contribute to the president’s inaugural committee, but, in most cases, the largest donations come from corporations, lobbyists, and political action committees. These donations are widely seen as an attempt to curry favor with the incoming administration.
The rules for inaugural giving can change from presidency to presidency. For example, in 2009, in a show of populist solidarity, Obama prohibited corporate contributions to its inaugural celebrations. However, it later lifted that limit in 2012. One study showed that 40 percent of Obama’s inaugural funds in 2013 came from special interest groups, with telecommunications AT&T the largest donor (donating $4.1 million).
During its first rodeo, Trump’s 2016 inaugural committee raised a whopping 107 million dollarswhich was the largest inaugural haul for a president in American history. For comparison, Obama’s 2013 inauguration raised around 43 million dollars, while his inauguration in 2009 raised $55 million. In 2016, Trump’s only limit was on lobbyist contributions. The companies that were biggest spenders On hand for Trump’s inauguration were notables from the military-industrial complex Lockheed Martin and Boeing, as well as Wall Street pillars Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase. Other notable contributors included Dow Chemical, Pfizer, Microsoft, Google, and several private prison companiessuch as CoreCivic, Geo Group and Union Supply Group. Once again, the largest contributor was AT&T, with a donation of about $2 million.
Notably, Trump’s first inauguration was not without controversy. In 2022, the Trump Organization and the Trump inauguration committee paid $750,000 to the District of Columbia to resolve accusations, leveled by DC Attorney General Karl Racine, that they had misappropriated funds. Trump said at the time that the payment was not an admission of guilt or guilt.
