Donald Trump is keeping a close eye on which companies are donating money to his upcoming inauguration, and issued a veiled threat to those that don’t, Rolling Stone reported on Wednesday.
The report said Trump has been asking whether specific companies have given money to his inaugural committee, which is planning the events surrounding Trump’s swearing-in ceremony. When Trump was told that an unnamed “big corporation” had yet to give funds, Trump reportedly said, “Well, they better do it soon then”—a comment that sure as hell sounds like a threat.
A number of major companies are donating $1 million a pop to Trump’s inauguration, including Uber, Meta, Amazon, and major automakers like Ford, General Motors, and Toyota.
In fact, The Wall Street Journal reported that at least 11 companies that denounced the Trump-incited Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol are now donating to his inauguration.
The Journal reported that Trump’s inaugural committee is seeking major donations from these companies as “a means for extracting a mea culpa from corporate America for its shunning of Trump.”
The capitulation to Trump before he even steps foot back in the White House is a sign that corporate America fears being on Trump’s bad side, knowing that he has a vindictive personality and seeks revenge against those he believes have wronged him.
Indeed, Trump targeted companies during his first term in ways that would hurt their financial bottom line. One of the best examples of Trump using his office to inflict pain upon someone he disliked is Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
During his first stint in the Oval Office, Trump threatened to raise prices for the United States Postal Service to hurt Amazon’s business, took away a major defense contract from Amazon, and threatened The Washington Post, which Bezos owns. Now, Bezos is sucking up to Trump and he chipped in $1 million to Trump’s inaugural festivities.
Other companies are also capitulating to Trump to try to curry favor (and avoid his wrath) after Jan. 20.
ABC News gave $15 million for Trump’s future presidential library to get Trump to drop what experts said was a weak lawsuit against the news organization.
“Morning Joe” co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski also visited Trump’s gaudy Mar-a-Lago estate to make amends with Trump after their coverage of the 2024 election.
And tech giant SoftBank Group announced a $100 billion “investment” in U.S. projects during an elaborate Dec. 16 press conference with CEO Masayoshi Son and Trump at Mar-a-Lago.
It’s all an ominous sign that corporate America is “obeying in advance,” a term author Timothy Snyder coined in his book “On Tyranny,” which he describes as a “guide for surviving and resisting America’s turn towards authoritarianism.”
“Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given,” Snyder wrote in the book. “In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked.”
That sure looks like what is happening now, as corporate leaders travel to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump and fork over millions so the wannabe despot can throw himself a lavish celebration after he takes the oath of office.
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