Dozens of corporations and trade groups who actively lobby the federal government have acknowledged bankrolling Donald Trump’s 2025 presidential inauguration with tens of millions of collective dollars, but many of these corporate titans and upstarts also have a history of sharply criticizing Trump, a NOTUS analysis of financial disclosures and public statements shows.
The contributions indicate an effort by corporate interests to repair relationships or otherwise gain access to Trump, his incoming administration and a Republican-controlled Congress during a moment of profound political upheaval affecting trade, economics and the very shape of government itself.
Take the rideshare company Uber.
In 2017, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi blasted Trump’s leadership abilities, tweeting: “I keep waiting for the moment when our Prez will rise to the expectations of his office and he fails, repeatedly.”
The same year, Khosrowshahi told CNBC that “the American dream is you come here, you believe in democracy, you believe in the Constitution, you work hard, you can make it. That’s what makes this country great, and I think the president should be for that, not against it.”
But as of late, Khosrowshahi appears to be putting Uber on a different course.
On Nov. 19, just two weeks after voters elected Trump to a second term, Uber contributed $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee, becoming one of the first corporate powerhouses to do so. In December, Khosrowshahi also confirmed personally donating $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee.
Uber did not respond to NOTUS’ request for comment.
Short-term rental company Airbnb has a similar history.
In 2016, Airbnb co-founder Brian Chesky declared that Trump’s border wall policies would put him on the “wrong side of history.”
Then, in 2017, a day after Trump issued an executive order that temporarily banned refugees and nationals from a number of Muslim-majority countries, Chesky said the company would provide no-cost housing to refugees and people not allowed into the U.S.
In 2018, Chesky and the two other Airbnb co-founders issued a statement criticizing Trump’s family separation policy at the border: “Ripping children from the arms of their parents is heartless, cruel, immoral and counter to the American values of belonging.”
In 2021, Airbnb stated they would “withhold support from those who voted against the certification of the presidential election results.”
On Dec. 31, however, Airbnb made a “non-monetary” contribution worth $100,000 to Trump’s 2025 inaugural committee, according to a congressional lobbying disclosure document reviewed by NOTUS.
All three co-founders are currently involved with Airbnb. Chesky remains the CEO of the company, another co-founder serves as chief strategy officer and the third is on the board of directors and chairman of Airbnb’s nonprofit. Airbnb told NOTUS that they provided $100,000 in housing coupons to both the Democratic and Republican national committees for volunteers that were staffing conventions last summer. The RNC ultimately did not make use of them and later asked Airbnb if they could be redirected to the inaugural committee, which Airbnb allowed them to do. That was the “non-monetary” contribution found in congressional filings.
Airbnb and Uber are hardly alone among past Trump critics who helped hypercharge the new president’s inaugural fundraising.
ExxonMobil generally aligns with Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” philosophy for energy and oil production.
But in an interview with Politico in November, CEO Darren Woods dinged Trump on proposed tariffs that could affect the price of petroleum.
“I think it’s a bad idea. It’s a really bad idea,” Woods said.
On Dec. 13, ExxonMobil contributed $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee, per congressional disclosure records. The company did not respond to NOTUS’ request for comment.
Not to be outdone, oil industry rival Chevron gave Trump’s inaugural committee $2 million on Dec. 3.
In 2021, immediately following Trump supporters’ attack on the U.S. Capitol, Chevron CEO Mike Wirth said the company would review its political donations in light of the riot, which injured dozens of law enforcement officers and delayed the congressional certification of 2021 presidential electoral votes.
“I specifically asked my team to take a look at the events of last week and make sure those are brought into account as we make our decisions going forward,” Wirth said.
Chevron also did not respond to a request for comment.
Following the 2017 violent white supremacist demonstration in Charlottesville, Va., then-Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky quit the White House Manufacturing Advisory Council, on which he served.
“The president’s remarks yesterday — equating those who are motivated by race-based hate with those who stand up against hatred — were unacceptable,” Gorsky said at the time, referencing Trump’s comments to reporters that there were “very fine people on both sides.” (Though in the same press conference, Trump said he was not referring to “neo-Nazis and white supremacists because they should be condemned totally.”)
However, a year later, Gorsky had changed his tune and was praising Trump’s stewardship at a dinner for corporate executives at Trump National Golf Club.
Gorsky stepped down in 2022, but Johnson & Johnson contributed $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee on Dec. 19, according to congressional disclosures.
Trade association Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America’s relationship with Trump during his first term was sometimes turbulent.
In 2018, a top PhRMA executive said the group had “serious concerns” with Trump’s broad plan to bring down drug prices.
Then in 2019, PhRMA launched a multipronged attack against a Trump administration proposal that would have “tied the price of drugs in the U.S. to their costs abroad.”
By 2020, when Trump issued two orders on the matter, PhRMA said the action “defies logic” and that it is “considering all options to stop this unlawful onslaught on medical progress.”
But with Trump poised to sweep back into office, PhRMA, on Dec. 20, contributed $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee.
In an email responding to questions about this decision, PhRMA Senior Vice President of Public Affairs Alex Schriver did not directly address his trade group’s choice to give Trump’s inaugural committee money.
“We work with policymakers and stakeholders around the country to highlight the critical role of pharmaceutical innovation and the need for patients to have access to affordable, lifesaving medicines,” Schriver wrote to NOTUS. “The pharmaceutical industry is a pillar of the American economy, providing patients with more treatment options than anywhere else in the world while supporting millions of high-skilled, high-paying jobs. We remain committed to advocating for policies that uphold these priorities and reinforce the industry’s global leadership in innovation.”
Telecommunications behemoth Verizon was likewise critical of Trump in the past.
A notable spat came in 2020, when Verizon clashed with the Trump administration after a third-party screening tool blocked Trump campaign texts sent over Verizon’s network.
Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg then condemned the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, saying, “We condemn and we don’t accept the way we saw things happening yesterday. That’s not how democracies work.” Verizon did not reply to a request for comment.
On Dec. 19, the company contributed $1 million to Trump’s inauguration, according to congressional lobbying records.
Executives and analysts at investment bank Goldman Sachs have at various times expressed skepticism about Trump’s presidential actions, from banning travelers from Muslim-majority countries to pulling out of international climate change agreements. Recent concerns involve the president’s then-campaign promise to slap tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, which has since come to fruition.
Nevertheless, Goldman Sachs made a pair of $500,000 contributions — on Dec. 18 and Dec. 19 — to Trump’s inaugural committee.
In a statement to NOTUS, Goldman Sachs said: “We’re pleased to sponsor this and future presidential inaugural committees. This is a non-partisan donation and we look forward to working with the administration to support policies that drive economic growth.”
Big money, early
Trump’s 2025 inauguration is primed to obliterate all previous fundraising records for a presidential inauguration, potentially doubling — or more than doubling — the previous record of $107 million that he raised for his 2017 inaugural celebration.
ABC News, citing Trump sources, pegged the 2025 presidential inauguration’s overall haul at $250 million, despite Trump canceling planned outdoor events.
Obscure congressional lobbying disclosure records reviewed by NOTUS only capture a slice of presidential inaugural donations: About 50 corporations and trade groups formally registered to lobby federal officials who made inaugural donations in either November or December. But they do give a poignant window into corporations’ rush to donate to Trump’s 2025 inauguration in the weeks after his decisive Nov. 5 defeat of Kamala Harris.
This subset of inaugural donors together contributed more than $33 million to Trump’s celebration, with 25 of them — from Occidental Petroleum Corporation to tobacco giant Altria to several cryptocurrency outfits — giving at least $1 million.
Other smaller outfits, such as the American Beverage Association ($250,000), Elevance Health Inc. ($150,000) and law firm Barnes & Thornburg LLP ($100,000), also chipped in early money that guaranteed them prime inauguration tickets and exclusive access to the president’s inner circle.
Former President Joe Biden, meanwhile, raised about $62 million for his entire 2021 inauguration — from all donors. President Barack Obama raised even less for each of his two inaugurations.
Biden voluntarily capped each inaugural donation at $1 million and refused certain corporate contributions, such as those from fossil fuel companies. Obama instituted dramatic contribution restrictions for his first inaugural, although he loosened some restrictions for his second. Trump took no such action and accepted any legal contribution for his 2025 inauguration.
Trump is required by law to reveal a full accounting of his inauguration donors in April — including donations made by individual people, corporations that don’t lobby the federal government and corporate entities such as McDonald’s and Delta Air Lines, who appear to have donated in January.
But presidential inaugural committees are not required by law to publicly disclose how they spent their money, and there are few rules dictating how Trump’s committee may spend the massive amounts of money it raised from various lobbying forces and special interests.
Washington’s corporate influencers — particularly those that have previously challenged Trump’s actions and rhetoric — contributed money to his inauguration “out of fear” they will lose business, said Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist for nonprofit watchdog group Public Citizen.
“They fear that without befriending Donald Trump now — better late than never — he will deny them government contracts and take other negative action against them,” Holman said.
Corporate contributions of this sort are “likely to curry favor with the new administration and position themselves to either avoid retaliation or take advantage of their newly purchased access, or both,” said Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, director of government affairs for the nonpartisan Project on Government Oversight.
There are few avenues to rein in inaugural spending. Days before Trump’s inauguration, Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Mary Scanlon introduced legislation, along with 13 co-sponsors — all Democrats — that would “prohibit certain donations to inaugural committees,” “establish limitations on donations to inaugural committees” and “require certain reporting by Inaugural Committees.”
The bill is an extreme long shot. Similar legislation introduced by Scanlon in the last congressional session died without even a committee vote. But Holman says he’s actively lobbying members of the U.S. Senate to introduce a version of Scanlon’s bill.
“If Congress doesn’t do something about it, what just happened at the Trump inauguration will be the new norm,” he said.
—
Dave Levinthal is a Washington, D.C.-based investigative journalist. Nuha Dolby is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.