Google donates $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund

Google donated $1 million to the president-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration fundbecoming the the last great technology company to try to curry some goodwill with the incoming administration.

“Google is pleased to support the inauguration of 2025, with a livestream on YouTube and a direct link on our homepage. We have also donated to the inaugural committee”, Karan Bhatia, the global head of government affairs and Google’s public policy, he told CNBC on CNBC. a statement.

The company made its donation on Monday. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta both announced $1 million in donations to the inaugural fund late last year, and Amazon and Apple CEO Tim Cook also contributed.

After a candidate wins the presidential election in the United States, they appoint an inaugural committee to organize and finance the inaugural events such as the opening ceremonies, galas and the parade. Unlike a direct contribution to a candidate’s campaign, there are no limits on how much an individual—or a corporation or a labor group—can give to an inaugural committee.

Google has donated to inaugurations in the past, and the YouTube livestream and link to the inauguration on Google’s homepage are in line with previous inaugurations, a spokesperson said.

Trump has had a rocky relationship with the big tech companies over the years and has not escaped criticism of the sector after the election. He signaled at the end of last year that he will not rule out antitrust enforcement, which is a particularly painful place for Google.

A United States District Judge ruled in August that the company illegally held a monopoly in search and text advertising. Arguments in a second antitrust case on Google advertising business closed in November, although a verdict has not yet been announced.

“Big Tech has been running rampant for years, stifling competition in our most innovative sector and, as we all know, using their market power to strip away the rights of so many Americans, including those of Little Tech!” Trump wrote in a post on December 4 Social truth.

Former Alphabet chairman Sergey Brin and Google CEO Sundar Pichai met with Trump after the election, and Pichai publicly congratulated the president-elect on his “decisive victory” a place on X.

Tech CEOs have made substantial moves to publicly demonstrate their support for Trump and repair their relationship with the incoming president.

Meta announced on Tuesday radical changes to their approach to content moderation on their platforms. The company has eliminated its third-party fact-checking program in favor of a “Community Notes” model, much like the one that exists in Elon Muskof X

In addition, Meta removed restrictions on subjects such as immigration and sex, and implemented a new approach to policy enforcement that focuses on illegal and high-severity violations. This means that fewer posts containing misinformation will be suppressed or removed.

Trump praised Meta’s changes during a press conference Tuesday. When asked if he believed the CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerbergwas “responding directly to the threats you’ve made to him in the past,” Trump replied, “Probably.”

— CNBC’s Kevin Breuninger contributed to this report.