High-profile corporate titans — Meta, Amazon, AT&T, Microsoft, Coinbase and Lockheed Martin, among others — have already acknowledged contributing millions to Donald Trump’s 2025 inauguration, hoping it will buy them access to the new president.
But several corporations whose fortunes could be impacted through government contracts and regulations also made significant, yet under-the-radar, contributions to Trump’s inauguration festivities, according to previously unreported congressional lobbying records reviewed by NOTUS.
They include an embattled digital identification firm that’s been investigated by Congress, a private prison company with massive government contracts, a cannabis distributor keen on pro-pot regulations and a Chinese-owned agriculture outfit with controversial U.S. landholdings.
Companies have scrambled to gain influence with Trump, his family and top Republican lawmakers as Trump aggressively moves to remake the federal government.
Here’s a rundown of who gave what:
ID.me, Inc.
The digital identification verification company, which recently clashed with a congressional committee over the effectiveness of its facial recognition technology, gave $100,000 to help bankroll Trump’s inauguration festivities, according to congressional records.
The company, a federal government contractor led by military veteran Blake Hall, made the inauguration contribution on Dec. 20, the document indicates.
Trump’s incoming administration has signaled interest in bolstering the federal government’s use of digital identification technology and biometrics for homeland security and cost-cutting purposes.
But ID.me’s relationship with the federal government has been notoriously turbulent.
In 2022, the Internal Revenue Service, which awarded ID.me an $86 million contract, dropped the company’s facial recognition software, citing concerns about taxpayer privacy and security.
Later that year, leaders of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform and Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, then led by Democrats, jointly accused ID.me of providing shambolic service on behalf of the government for Americans attempting to access COVID-19 benefits.
Excessive wait times and “concerns about the privacy, security, and effectiveness” of ID.me’s products ranked among the committees’ complaints.
At the time, ID.me’s CEO, Hall, denied wrongdoing. His company likewise downplayed long wait times.
“I would never use a claim about a national crisis to advance the interests of my company,” Hall wrote on LinkedIn. “My loyalty to my country supersedes my loyalty to my company.”
Representatives from ID.me did not return NOTUS’ requests for comment.
Hall’s views on Trump appear to have shifted over the years. In 2015, he publicly pondered “WTF is wrong with Trump” after Trump criticized then-Sen. John McCain’s military service.
More recently, Hall has spoken up in ways Trump would approve, including on Inauguration Day, when he wrote on X that outgoing President Joe Biden was a “corrupt POS.”
The same day, in responding to a PBS Newshour post about a “fascist salute” by billionaire Trump ally and adviser Elon Musk, Hall wrote: “America has had enough of this crap. Stop wasting taxpayer money. Stop trying to divide the country. Elon is a good man. He loves humanity.”
Months earlier, after attending a college football game with Musk, Hall described the billionaire as “an exceptionally kind human” whose “selflessness is admirable” and “loves America and her values.”
ID.me maintains a robust lobbying presence in Washington, D.C., with the company spending more than $2.25 million on federal lobbying efforts between Jan. 1, 2022, and Sept. 30, 2024, according to federal records.
Of late, federal records indicate, much of that lobbying has been directed at the Social Security Administration, with which ID.me contracts to “verify users,” who may “quickly and securely sign in to [their] SSA account to view and manage” benefits. ID.me also works with the Department of Veterans Affairs, among other federal agencies.
One government watchdog took a dim view of ID.me’s contribution.
“The pay-to-play nature of a contribution from this would-be contractor to the inaugural committee is classic legalized corruption,” said Danielle Brian, president and executive director of the Project On Government Oversight, a nonpartisan watchdog organization.
Syngenta Corporation
The U.S. arm of the Switzerland-based, Chinese-owned agriculture company gave Trump’s inauguration $250,000 on Dec. 30, congressional records show.
Because of its ties to ChemChina, its parent company, Syngenta has faced blowback for some of the land it owns in the United States — part of a growing skepticism among some American politicians toward Chinese-owned businesses that operate in the U.S., such as the video platform TikTok.
In Arkansas, for example, state officials in 2023 ordered Syngenta to sell 160 acres of land it owned there and pay a $280,000 fine for violating state laws on agricultural land ownership.
Syngenta’s U.S.-based political action committee is a frequent donor to congressional candidates, spreading tens of thousands of dollars last year among Democrats and Republicans alike, from Sens. Raphael Warnock and Dick Durbin to Sen. John Kennedy and Rep. Steve Scalise, according to congressional disclosures.
Saswato Das, a spokesperson for Syngenta, said in an email to NOTUS that his company “decided we will not comment” on its donation to Trump’s inauguration.
Curaleaf Holdings, Inc.
The cannabis company, which says it owns and operates 151 marijuana dispensaries and 19 cultivation sites across 17 states — including Trump’s home state of Florida — gave $250,000 on Dec. 6 toward Trump’s inauguration, according to congressional records.
But it did so indirectly, the records indicate.
“The payment made to the United States Cannabis Council (USCC) on Dec. 6, 2024, was given with the understanding that the funds would be used by USCC to make a donation to the Trump Vance Inaugural Committee,” Matthew Harrell, Curaleaf’s vice president of government relations, wrote to Congress on Tuesday.
Curaleaf has spent between $250,000 and $900,000 on federal-level lobbying efforts since 2018, according to federal data compiled by nonpartisan research group OpenSecrets.
Representatives from Curaleaf and the US Cannabis Council did not respond to a request for comment.
In September, the US Cannabis Council praised Trump, then a candidate, for his “historic endorsement of large-scale cannabis reform.” In November, it lauded Trump’s ultimately doomed pick for attorney general, former Rep. Matt Gaetz, given Gaetz’s pro-pot stances.
Socure, Inc.
Another digital identification company, Socure, Inc., made a $100,000 contribution to Trump’s inauguration, doing so on Dec. 13, according to congressional records.
The company — a government contractor that also lobbies the federal government — says it aims to “stop fraudsters, criminal rings, and nation state actors without compromising access and equity.”
Socure did not respond to NOTUS’ requests for comment except for Socure marketing official Amber Romo sending several unrelated sales messages.
CoreCivic, Inc.
The private prison company, which stands to benefit from the Trump administration’s efforts to deport many of the millions of the undocumented immigrants living in the United States, contributed $500,000 on Dec. 19 to Trump’s inauguration, according to congressional records.
CoreCivic operates nearly 14 million square feet worth of prisons and other corrections facilities, per a 2023 governance report.
The company has significant contracts with the federal government, including hundreds of millions of dollars in business with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Each year since 2018, CoreCivic has spent between $1 and $2 million to lobby the federal government on a variety of issues, according to federal records compiled by OpenSecrets.
CoreCivic officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Carrier Global Corporation
The heating and air conditioning manufacturing giant gave the Trump inaugural committee $1 million on Dec. 30, according to congressional records.
Carrier has spent at least $2 million on federal lobbying efforts each year since 2022, federal records compiled by OpenSecrets indicate.
Carrier and its subsidiaries are major government contractors, doing business across numerous agencies, according to data compiled by USAspending.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission last year, Carrier noted the turbulence of doing business with the federal government, writing: “[I]n light of the current U.S. government contracting environment, we are and will continue to be the subject of U.S. government investigations relating to our U.S. government contracts or subcontracts.”
Carrier officials did not respond to requests for comment.
No full disclosure until April
In a related matter, The Coca-Cola Company, which created bespoke Trump-themed Diet Cokes for the 2025 inauguration, contributed $250,000 on Dec. 27 to Trump’s inauguration, according to congressional records.
The U.S. Senate campaign committee of Sam Brown, a Nevada Republican who lost election in November, also contributed $250,000 to Trump’s inaugural committee, according to new campaign finance records filed with the Federal Election Commission.
Trump’s inaugural committee did not respond to requests for comment.
Trump allowed unlimited contributions to his inaugural committee and accepted money from any entity that could legally give, including government contractors and companies that spend large sums of money on federal-level political influence efforts.
Trump’s inaugural committee is not compelled by law to release a full accounting of Trump inauguration donors until mid-April — 90 days after the inauguration.
Even then, federal law does not require Trump’s inaugural committee, created in November as a Florida-based nonprofit corporation, to detail how it spent what’s certain to be a historically large amount of inauguration cash — potentially upward of $200 million.
Dave Levinthal is a Washington, D.C.-based investigative reporter.