- After President Donald Trump’s election victory, Amazon purchased the rights to his wife Melania’s documentary about her life, Meta and X settled years-old lawsuits involving the Jan. 6 riot, and Disney settled a defamation suit after Trump went after its news network.
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:
- Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his fiancée Lauren Sánchez had dinner with Trump and his wife Melania at Mar-a-Lago in December. He was the president-elect then. Two weeks later Amazon agreed to pay $40 million to license a documentary about Melania; it is the most Amazon has ever spent on a documentary, and a lot more than the $14 million Disney offered, according to the Journal. People familiar told the outlet that the first lady’s cut is more than 70%.
- Four years ago, Trump sued Meta for locking his Facebook account after the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg visited Mar-a-Lago in November, and at that dinner, according to the Journal which cited a person familiar with the conversation, Trump told Zuckerberg the lawsuit needed to be settled if he wanted peace. Meta settled a couple months later and agreed to pay Trump $25 million: $22 million would go to a fund for his presidential library and the rest to legal fees.
- Earlier this week, Elon Musk’s X reportedly agreed to pay about $10 million to settle a lawsuit against the social media site and its prior chief executive after Trump sued what was then Twitter for deplatforming him after the Jan. 6 riot, people familiar told the Journal. However, more recently the outlet reported that money is expected to go directly to him rather than his presidential library, per sources familiar with the matter.
- In December, Disney reached a settlement with Trump in his defamation case against ABC News and its anchor George Stephanopoulos after he said that Trump had been found civilly liable for rape—but really, Trump had been found liable for sexual abuse. The company agreed to donate $15 million to Trump’s future presidential foundation and museum and an additional $1 million for his legal fees.
- This has not happened yet, but the New York Times previously reported CBS’s parent company Paramount is in talks to settle with Trump after he sued the network for $10 billion in damages, accusing it of deceitful editing for its Kamala Harris interview.
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.
