Musk attends dinner with Bezos and Trump at Mar-a-Lago

Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos became the latest billionaire to meet with Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort. Bezos was seen arriving on Wednesday night for a dinner with the president-elect, as shown in a video posted on social media. Reports later confirmed that Elon Musk joined the dinner, with Musk later tweeting, “It was a great conversation.”

Bezos has pledged $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund, following similar donations from other tech leaders. Bezos has significant business ties with the U.S. government, including Amazon’s cloud division and his space exploration company, Blue Origin.

Other prominent figures who have recently visited Mar-a-Lago include Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, TikTok’s Shou Zi Chew, and Apple’s Tim Cook. Google CEO Sundar Pichai is also scheduled to meet Trump. These meetings occur as Trump has both criticized and praised tech companies, accusing some of censorship and threatening to take action against their business practices.

Amazon will stream Trump’s inauguration on its Prime Video service, which will also count as a $1 million in-kind donation to the inauguration fund. Zuckerberg and Altman have each pledged $1 million to the fund. Musk, who contributed over $250 million to election efforts supporting Trump, is also heading a project to reduce government spending. Musk’s SpaceX holds U.S. government contracts worth $3.8 billion, while Bezos’ Amazon Web Services has a $10 billion contract with the NSA, and Blue Origin secured a $3.4 billion contract with NASA.

Bezos’ Washington Post, which refrained from endorsing a candidate for the first time in decades before the November election, explained the decision as a move to avoid perceived bias. Musk and other business leaders like Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick, Trump’s pick for commerce secretary, have been part of Trump’s inner circle since before the election. However, other tech leaders have maintained a more distant relationship with Trump.