Amazon plans to donate $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration
CNN
Amazon is planning to donate $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, a person familiar with the matter told CNN. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is expected to visit with Trump in person in the coming days, as he and other tech founders seek closer relationships with the incoming president.
Amazon is planning to donate $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, a person familiar with the matter told CNN. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is expected to visit with Trump in person in the coming days, as he and other tech founders seek closer relationships with the incoming president. Bezos and Trump spoke over the summer after the first assassination attempt. Bezos publicly praised Trump at the time. “Our former President showed tremendous grace and courage under literal fire tonight,” Bezos wrote on X at the time. Trump has been warming up to tech giants. He has flaunted his private conversations with them in interviews and appearances and now heaps praise on companies he once blamed in part for his 2020 electoral defeat. The Wall Street Journal first reported the planned donation. Bezos joins other tech leaders in looking to foster a closer relationship with the president-elect.
The US has completed its first sale of Venezuelan oil since the US attached Venezuela and captured its president, Nicolás Maduro, earlier this month, according to an administration official.
President Donald Trump enacted a new 25% tariff on “certain advanced computing chips” on Wednesday, according to a White House fact sheet. That includes Nvidia’s H200 chip and AMD’s MI325X. However, chips imported to support building up the US technological supply chain would be exempt.
Verizon said some of its wireless services were down Wednesday, leaving many customers without access to voice and data services.
YouTube will now let parents limit the amount of time their teens can spend scrolling through its short-form video feature, Shorts, or block them all together.
Last month, Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson penned a first-person piece about her long year as “the federal government whisperer,” receiving tips from hundreds of federal workers. On Wednesday, the FBI searched her home, a source familiar with the situation told CNN.
Price hikes picked up speed for US-based businesses toward the end of last year, a potential signal that inflation has yet to peak and prices could soon rise faster for consumers.
Trump is threatening to take “strong action” against Iran just after capturing the leader of Venezuela. His administration is criminally investigating the chair of the Federal Reserve and is taking a scorched-earth approach on affordability by threatening key profit drivers for banks and institutional investors.
Perhaps no data point better encapsulates the American economy right now than this nugget from Delta’s quarterly earnings:
China recorded the world’s biggest ever trade surplus in 2025, as well as a 20% jump from 2024, capping off a year in which the world’s largest manufacturer defied US trade pressure by ramping up exports to other global markets.
Saks Global, the parent company of luxury retailer Saks Fifth Avenue, filed for bankruptcy protection late Tuesday, according to court documents filed in US Bankruptcy Court in Houston, Texas.
China on Wednesday reported a strong export run in 2025 with a record surplus of nearly $1.2 trillion, as producers braced for three more years of a Trump administration set on slowing the production powerhouse by shifting US orders to other markets.
Microsoft says it will ask to pay higher electricity bills in areas where it’s building data centers, in an effort to prevent electricity prices for local residents from rising in those areas. The move is part of a broader plan to address rising prices and other concerns sparked by the tech industry’s massive buildout of artificial intelligence infrastructure across the United States.
US consumer prices rose 2.7% annually in December, closing out a year that saw slight progress on inflation but continued affordability concerns for many Americans.