Billionaires Are Bending the Knee to Trump in Record Numbers

Donald Trump’s inaugural fund is set to break the fundraising record the president-elect set in 2017. 

The fund is not restricted by campaign finance law and is made up of donations by businesses and executives, raising questions about corruption and influence peddling in the next Trump administration. Seven years ago, Trump’s first inaugural fund raised $107 million, and this time, corporate leaders will shatter that amount, with pledges already exceeding $150 million. 

For example, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg have each pledged $1 million to the fund. Hedge fund manager Ken Griffin has said he’ll donate $1 million, and Uber and its CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, plan to donate $1 million each. Automakers General Motors, Ford, and Toyota are also donating $1 million apiece, with Ford reportedly donating a fleet of vehicles as well.  

Some companies on the donation list, according to The Wall Street Journal, are scrubbing their websites and corporate policies of anything that could be perceived as pro-Democrat or hostile to Trump, including, in the case of hardware manufacturer Stanley Black & Decker, criticism of the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. The company is donating $1 million to the fund, up from the $25,000 it donated to Trump’s 2017 inauguration. 

The donations come with immediate perks: Anyone who donates $1 million or raises $2 million from other donors will get six tickets to pre-inauguration events, including a black-tie ball, a candlelight dinner with Trump and his wife, Melania, and a reception with Cabinet nominees. 

Trump celebrated last week, posting, “EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE MY FRIEND!!!” on his Truth Social profile. More likely, all of these businesses and executives don’t want to run afoul of the president-elect’s trade policies or deal with anger from his supporters. Trump’s tariffs, if they go ahead, will upend the economy and hurt several U.S. industries such as automobiles. CEOs will be hoping for exceptions and carve-outs, and the way to Trump’s heart is through his wallet.

Trump went shitposting for Christmas.

The president-elect spent Wednesday on Truth Social taking shot after shot at his perceived enemies. What started as a “MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!” became 34 straight posts of vitriol. In one post, he gave a shoutout to “the wonderful soldiers of China, who are lovingly, but illegally, operating the Panama Canal (where we lost 38,000 people in its building 110 years ago), always making certain that the United States puts in Billions of Dollars in ‘repair’ money, but will have absolutely nothing to say about ‘anything.’”

He then took shots at Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, suggesting that he’d slash the country’s taxes if they’d be oh so kind enough to become our “51st State.”

The posting marathon continued as Trump got into his usual self-victimization bag. “Merry Christmas to the Radical Left Lunatics, who are constantly trying to obstruct our Court System and our Elections, and are always going after the Great Citizens and Patriots of the United States but, in particular, their Political Opponent, ME,” he wrote in yet another Truth Social post in the afternoon. He also aimed his ire at the 37 prisoners on death row whom Biden granted clemency, commuting their sentences to life in prison rather than execution. “Also, to the 37 most violent criminals, who killed, raped, and plundered like virtually no one before them, but were just given, incredibly, a pardon by Sleepy Joe Biden. I refuse to wish a Merry Christmas to those lucky ‘souls’ but, instead, will say, GO TO HELL!”

Aside from the two longer posts, Trump posted a meme with a picture of himself and former President Barack Obama captioned “when you see the guy who said ‘you’ll never be president’ at your inauguration.” He also reshared multiple headlines and positive articles regarding his FBI director nominee, Kash Patel, and defense secretary nominee, Pete Hegseth.

“We had the Greatest Election in the History of our Country, a bright light is now shining over the U.S.A. and, in 26 days, we will, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. MERRY CHRISTMAS!” he concluded.

Donald Trump’s “border czar” is pledging to bring back the practice of family detention for undocumented immigrants.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Tom Homan, who oversaw the family separation policy as acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Trump’s first term, said that the next Trump administration will be holding families in detention centers and won’t hesitate to deport undocumented parents with U.S.-born children.

“Here’s the issue,” Homan told the Post. “You knew you were in the country illegally and chose to have a child. So you put your family in that position.”

“We’re going to need to construct family facilities,” Homan added. “How many beds we’re going to need will depend on what the data says.”

In the first Trump term, ICE used facilities known as “residential centers,” which contained 3,000 beds similar to dormitories. Immigration activists and doctors criticized them as creating a harmful environment for children. This time around, with Trump’s plan to increase deportations on a massive scale, ICE plans to house immigrant families with “soft-sided” tent structures, Homan said.

President Biden ended the family detention policy in 2021, and the federal judge who oversees immigration detention has put a 20-day limit on how long children can be held at an immigration facility. Trump has repeatedly promised an overhaul of Biden’s immigration policies, pledging mass deportations for millions of undocumented immigrants in the United States.

Trump is already getting pushback on his deportation plans, which is probably a contributing factor as to why Homan said he hasn’t committed to a target number of deportations.

“I’ll be setting myself up for disappointment,” Homan said, telling the Post that he doesn’t know how much resources he’ll have.

Billionaire immigrant Elon Musk and his supporters are beefing over how to grow Silicon Valley.

“There is a permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent. It is the fundamental limiting factor in Silicon Valley,” Musk wrote on X on Wednesday morning, in response to Replit CEO Amjad Masad, suggesting that the industry needs to look outside of the United States for its engineers.

“The number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low,” Musk continued in another post. “Think of this like a pro sports team: if you want your TEAM to win the championship, you need to recruit top talent wherever they may be. That enables the whole TEAM to win.”

This ruffled the feathers of many MAGA fans on the right who are anti-immigration.

“There are over 330 million people in America. Surely, there must be enough among them to build your ultimate team?” said one X user in a viral reply to Musk. “Why would you deny real Americans that opportunity by bringing foreigners here?”

That “real Americans” quip underscores some of the tension between Musk, himself an immigrant from South Africa, and the MAGA base. Musk thinks it necessary to draw an influx of international engineering talent while many of those who voted for Trump (and arguably Musk by proxy) are against that on principle. The end result of this tension is yet to be seen.

“It comes down to this: do you want America to WIN or do you want America to LOSE. If you force the world’s best talent to play for the other side, America will LOSE,” Musk reiterated in another post. “End of story.”

In the least surprising revelation ever, Donald Trump’s adviser Corey Lewandowski said the president-elect’s dream of annexing Greenland was all to boost his own ego—and acted like that was a good enough reason.

During an interview on Newsmax Monday, Lewandowski suggested that Trump’s recent calls to have the U.S. claim the Panama Canal and Greenland were purposefully outrageous declarations, and just part of the tactical brilliance one could expect from his bold America First agenda.

“So what is Donald Trump talking about? He’s talking about maybe Greenland from a historic perspective coming as part of the United States, taking back the Panama Canal so that China doesn’t have its influence there,” Lewandowski said.

“This is a president who is making out-of-the-box announcements to put the world on notice that once again the United States is the dominant world superpower, and we have a president who understands what that means, and is not going to kowtow to our foreign friends, or our foreign adversaries,” Lewandowski added.

Technically, Lewandowski is right. A world superpower can easily keep both allies and enemies on their toes if they continually make a series of absurd statements on the world stage.

When Newsmax’s Emma Rechenberg gently reminded Lewandowski that Greenland was a semiautonomous state, owned by Denmark, he didn’t seem the least bit dissuaded.

“Why would [Trump] want this?” Rechenberg asked.

“Well, look, Donald Trump is a real estate master, and he understands the historic and the strategic, more importantly, significance of Greenland,” Lewandowski replied, but didn’t appear to know what exactly made it so significant.

“So it’s not because of its beautiful temperatures. We know that’s not the case,” Lewandowski continued. “There is a very important strategic value to the United States having control of this.”

But Lewandowski wasn’t done. “And by the way, we have not expanded our country in 70 years. So, look, Donald Trump is, again, thinking outside the box. How do we have a lasting impact on the world stage? What does his legacy look like?”

Pretty much stating the obvious, Lewandowski explained that the megalomaniacal Trump was hoping to acquire Greenland so he would look cool. A big acquisition like that might distract from any calamities stateside, including his planned massive violent deportations and tariffs set to tank the economy.