NEW YORK — Amazon is planning to donate $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration fund, a move that comes as major tech companies seek to improve their relationship with the incoming president.
A company spokesperson confirmed Thursday evening that the e-commerce giant will also stream Trump's inauguration on its Prime Video service, a separate in-kind donation worth another $1 million.
Earlier in the day, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said it donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund.
Amazon's plans were first reported by The Wall Street Journal. The report came after Trump said Thursday morning that the company's founder, Jeff Bezos, was planning to visit him in person next week.
The two men had feuded in the past. During his first term, Trump criticized Amazon and railed against the political coverage at The Washington Post, which Bezos owns.
Meanwhile, Bezos had criticized some of Trump's past rhetoric. In 2019, Amazon also argued in a court case that Trump's bias against the company harmed its chances of winning a $10 billion Pentagon contract. The Biden administration later pursued a contract with both Amazon and Microsoft.
More recently, Bezos has struck a more conciliatory tone. Last week, he said at The New York Times' DealBook Summit in New York that he was ''optimistic'' about Trump's second term while also endorsing president-elect's plans to cut regulations.
In October, Bezos did not allow the Post to endorse a presidential candidate, a move that led to tens of thousands of people canceling their subscriptions and to protests from journalists with a deep history at the newspaper. At the time, Bezos wrote in an op-ed in the newspaper that editorial endorsements create a perception of bias at a time when many Americans don't believe the media.
