The $1 million donations got here regularly — after which .
Meta. Amazon. OpenAI’s Sam Altman. Each of those Silicon Valley corporations or their leaders promised to help President-elect Donald J. Trump’s inaugural committee with seven-figure checks over the previous week, typically accompanied by a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to bend the knee.
The procession of tech leaders who traveled to hobnob with Mr. Trump face-to-face included Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief govt, and Sergey Brin, a Google founder, who collectively dined with Mr. Trump on Thursday. Tim Cook, Apple’s chief govt, shared a meal with Mr. Trump on Friday. And Jeff Bezos, the founding father of Amazon, deliberate to fulfill with Mr. Trump within the subsequent few days.
This was the week when many tech corporations and their prime executives, as reluctant as they could have been, acknowledged the truth of getting enterprise finished in Mr. Trump’s Washington. With their donations, visits and feedback, they joined a celebration that has already raged for a month, as a cohort of influential Silicon Valley billionaires, led by Elon Musk, started working elements of Mr. Trump’s transition after endorsing him within the marketing campaign.
While companies steadily attempt to get on an incoming president’s good aspect, the frenzy of tech exercise stood out from different industries. Until President Obama’s administration, the tech business had largely stayed aloof from politics. Some wrote simply small checks for Mr. Trump’s first inauguration.
Now the bread-breaking with Mr. Trump has grow to be extremely public. Meta and Amazon, whose founders had beforehand been criticized by Mr. Trump, mentioned they might donate $1 million to Mr. Trump’s inaugural fund this week. Sam Altman, the chief govt of OpenAI, the high-profile synthetic intelligence start-up, mentioned on Friday {that a} $1 million donation to Mr. Trump’s inaugural fund would come from him personally.
