Donald Trump mentioned he’s assembly with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos subsequent week because the president-elect continues to strengthen his ties to billionaire tech leaders.
On Thursday, Trump was revealed as Time journal’s 2024 Particular person of the Yr and rang the opening bell on the New York Inventory Trade to rejoice amid cheers of “USA” from Wall Avenue titans and enterprise bigwigs.
“Bezos is coming up next week,” Trump revealed in an interview with CNBC after he rang the bell.
The president-elect met with Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg two weeks in the past and Meta donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, in line with The Wall Avenue Journal. Google CEO Sundar Pichai can also be reportedly anticipated to fly to Mar-a-Lago on Thursday to satisfy with Trump, in line with The Data.
Trump additionally nodded to his shut ties with Elon Musk, the world’s richest individual whose internet price topped a record-breaking $400 billion on Wednesday.
“I want to get ideas from them,” Trump mentioned, talking about enterprise leaders. “Look, we want them to do well.”
Bezos’ area firm, Blue Origin, has been concerned in a variety of federal contracts with NASA.
Amazon, which is price roughly $2.4 trillion, additionally has a number of authorities contracts. It secured a $10 billion cloud computing contract from the Nationwide Safety Company after protesting in opposition to the award initially being given to Microsoft.
Trump’s historical past with Bezos’ firms is a little more difficult. On Oct. 31, towards the top of his marketing campaign, Trump filed a grievance with the Federal Election Fee alleging The Washington Submit – which Bezos purchased in 2013 for $250 million – aided Vice President Kamala Harris’ marketing campaign with its essential protection of him.
Bezos later blocked his paper from publishing a drafted endorsement of Harris in a transfer that elicited outrage from left-leaning staffers and readers. Greater than 200,000 readers canceled their subscriptions and a few editorial writers resigned.
At The New York Occasions’ DealBook summit earlier this month, Bezos mentioned he was “very optimistic” about Trump’s second time period.
“I am very hopeful, he seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation, and if I can help him do that, I am going to help him,” Bezos mentioned.
Musk – who owns Tesla, SpaceX, xAI, the social media platform X and has a internet price of $433.8 billion, in line with Forbes – has been an in depth confidant of the president-elect and certainly one of his most outspoken, influential supporters.
He donated a whopping $250 million to his marketing campaign efforts and pro-Trump PACs, in line with FEC filings, and rallied on Trump’s behalf in swing states. He additionally joined the president-elect on election evening at his Mar-a-Lago residence.
His area firm, SpaceX, is one other giant federal contractor. Musk has additionally been chosen to guide the newly-created Division of Authorities Effectivity, which goals to slash federal spending – an concept of Musk’s that he floated throughout Trump’s marketing campaign.
