Donald Trump is a businessman. He once said , “deals are my art form.” Well, the dealmaker is back in the White House, and corporations and their billionaire owners and executives are doling out millions.
So far companies have paid about $80 million to the Trump family and the Trump presidential library that he hopes to build, according to the Wall Street Journal . That only represents settlements and business ventures, per the Journal , not the millions donated for his inauguration or crypto pursuits. Some deals were made before the president even stepped in the Oval Office, back when he stayed at Mar-a-Lago.
Notable agreements between the corporate elite and Trump family include Amazon acquiring a “behind-the-scenes” documentary about Melania Trump’s life for $40 million, Meta settling a lawsuit from four years ago for locking the president’s Facebook account after the Jan. 6 riot for $25 million, X reportedly settling a lawsuit of a similar nature for $10 million despite its new owner’s ties to the current administration, and Disney settling a defamation lawsuit for a comment made by an ABC News anchor for $15 million.
Ty Cobb, who served as a White House lawyer in Trump’s first administration, told the Journal : “Everything he does is either to be vengeful or to accumulate wealth, power and adulation.” Trump knows “all these people want a piece of him,” Cobb said.
Here’s we know about some of the money the Trump family has coming in since the president made his political comeback:
To be clear, Bezos and Zuckerberg appeared to have a strained relationship with Trump before their companies donated to his inaugural fund and attended the inauguration; Trump once threatened to jail Zuckerberg and called Bezos, “Jeff Bozo.” Then there’s Musk who backed Trump with a quarter of a billion dollars. The White House and a counselor to the president did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment. Amazon, Meta, X, Disney, and Paramount did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment.