Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Michael Bennet of Colorado sent letters to tech company CEOs at OpenAI, Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Uber about their or their companies’ million-dollar donations to Donald Trump’s inaugural fund.
In each letter, the senators remind the tech giants that their generous donations come at a suspicious time as their industry has “come under increased scrutiny from federal regulators for antitrust violations, violations of privacy, and harms to workers, consumers, and competition.”
“We are concerned that your company and other Big Tech donors are using your massive contributions to the inaugural fund to cozy up to the incoming Trump administration in an effort to avoid scrutiny, limit regulation, and buy favor,” the letter reads.
Some of those big-money donations come from people like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, whose company reportedly donated at least $1 million to Trump’s inauguration. But as Warren and Bennet explained in the letter to the Amazon CEO, his company “is the subject of multiple ongoing regulatory actions, including multiple Federal Trade Commission (FTC) suits related to anticonsumer and anticompetitive practices, a Department of Justice (DOJ).”
Uber and its CEO Dara Khosrowshahi donated a combined $2 million to Trump’s inaugural fund.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi
“The company is the subject of an ongoing FTC investigation for predatory practices,” Warren and Bennet wrote in their letter to him, referring to the recent investigation into the ride-hailing company’s subscription and cancelation policies.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman donated $1 million to Trump. And the senators’ letter to him details how his company is under both an FTC investigation concerning its consumer practices as well as one from the Securities and Exchange Commission concerning its investors.
Google donated $1 million to Trump’s fund, and CEO Sundar Pichai was reminded by Warren and Bennet that the search giant “was found by a federal court to have an illegal monopoly over the online search market.” Google has promised to appeal the ruling, and it will be up to Trump’s Department of Justice to decide whether to contest its appeal.
Meta, led by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, got its $1 million in early—after limiting political news on Facebook in the months leading up to the 2024 election. All this clearly seems done in order to ingratiate Zuckerberg and his company to Trump. Meta is facing a FTC antitrust lawsuit in April.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg
According to Democracy Now, Trump’s inauguration committee has raised upward of $250 million. To put into perspective, before Trump’s inaugural committee raised more than $100 million during his first go-round, the largest amount of money ever spent on an inauguration was President Barack Obama, who reportedly raised $50 million. Craig Holman, a lobbyist for the consumer-rights group Public Citizen, reports that much of that money has been donated by billionaires, such as the tech CEOs whom Warren and Bennet sent the letters to.
Many of the CEOs who received letters from the senators are expected to attend Trump’s inauguration on Monday, and have been given VIP status for the day. And it cost them only a drop in their buckets.
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