Million-Dollar Donors Flooded Trump’s Second Inauguration

President Donald Trump’s 2025 inauguration didn’t just break fundraising records, it fundamentally redefined them, spotlighting the growing role of the biggest donors. Individuals and corporations, many of which stand to benefit from the actions of the new administration, contributed an unprecedented number of seven-figure checks. 

The inaugural committee received more than $245 million in contributions, doubling Trump’s own record-setting $88 million inauguration in 2017 and quadrupling the $61.8 million raised by Joe Biden’s inaugural committee in 2021, when festivities were limited by the Covid-19 pandemic. No previous inaugural committee since at least 1973, even accounting for recent inflation, has come close to the fundraising scale of this year’s inauguration.

While the inauguration itself is a government-run event, newly elected presidents hold many accompanying events that are funded through private donations raised by lightly regulated inaugural committees. Unlike campaign committees, inaugural committees are not subject to contribution limits and have few restrictions imposed by federal law. Inaugurations can legally take donations of unlimited sums from individuals, corporations, and unions, so long as donors are not foreign nationals and certain disclosure rules are followed. Inaugural committees often impose their own caps on contributions, but Trump’s 2025 inaugural committee imposed no such limits.

The following analysis offers the first comprehensive examination of this year’s inaugural finances that includes amended filings and refunds, documenting the inaugural fund’s reliance on its biggest donors. This analysis breaks down funding by major industries, showing that tech interests, including cryptocurrency companies, were far and away the largest source of money. It also notes examples of substantial donations coinciding with advantageous policy or personnel decisions by the Trump administration, as well as an unprecedented number of refunds and millions of dollars in donations for which the true sources are not entirely clear.

The 2025 inauguration attracted more donors who gave $1 million or more than any prior inaugural fund. These seven-figure donors contributed more than the total amount raised for any previous inauguration and collectively accounted for a greater portion of funding than all donors that gave less than $1 million. The top 10 funders to Trump’s 2025 inaugural committee alone account for more than $1 out of every $10 raised for this year’s inauguration.

Prior inaugurations generally imposed voluntary contribution caps and other restrictions. Trump’s first inaugural committee, for instance, capped corporate contributions at $1 million. The Biden inaugural committee capped individual contributions at $500,000 and corporate contributions at $1 million, and it pledged to reject contributions from registered lobbyists, foreign agents, and fossil fuel corporations or their executives.

Both of President Barack Obama’s inaugural committees barred contributions from PACs and lobbyists. His first inauguration also capped contributions at $50,000 (although it allowed individuals to bundle contributions from multiple donors) and completely rejected corporate funding, although the second was not subject to these restrictions. George W. Bush imposed limits on his inaugural fundraising too: $100,000 in 2001 and $250,000 in 2005.

The 2025 inauguration’s donors featured corporate giants, tech titans, energy companies, financial institutions, and wealthy individuals. (In some cases, corporate givers touch multiple industries. This analysis counted each donor only once.)

Only six of the hundreds of major corporate donors to Trump’s inauguration had also contributed to super PACs supporting his 2024 presidential bid. While the actual motivations behind any one inaugural donation are not clear, donors who did not give to the president’s campaign have a significant financial stake in his administration’s early policy priorities. The vast majority did not give to his campaign, suggesting that inaugural donations can serve as another, potentially alternative, way to gain influence with the administration.

Silicon Valley investors, Big Tech giants, and burgeoning tech fields such as artificial intelligence (AI), fintech, and cryptocurrency were among the inauguration’s top contributors. Overall, technology interests gave roughly $44.6 million.

Cryptocurrency companies made up at least $13.5 million of that total — enough for the industry to be one of the top five donor industries unto itself. Many other corporate contributors also have interests related to digital currency or blockchain. Trump ran for office on a promise to make the United States “the crypto capital of the world." He has since embraced cryptocurrency with a blitz of strategic appointments, executive actions easing crypto enforcement, and personal investments.

Some of the biggest crypto donors to the inauguration also have direct stakes in specific Trump administration decisions.

Among them is Ripple Labs, a cryptocurrency company whose nearly $4.9 million contribution made it the second-largest donor overall. After the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) imposed a $125 million fine on Ripple last year, it more recently agreed to settle with the company for $50 million. However, in May, a federal judge declined to sign off on the settlement, citing procedural errors in the joint filing.

Electronic trading platform Robinhood Markets, which gave $2 million to the inauguration, has also expanded its cryptocurrency trading business under Trump following years of scrutiny and penalties under the Biden administration.

Several industries with major inaugural donors, including pharmaceuticals and semiconductors, also lobbied the Trump administration for industry-wide tariff exemptions.

Other inaugural donors have interests in AI, social media, and other areas facing regulation. Sizable inaugural funds from the AI space included $1 million each from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, C3 AI, and Perplexity AI. Along with Google, which also contributed $1 million, OpenAI has been lobbying Trump’s administration for an exemption to be able to train AI models on copyrighted material.

Some donors do continue to face adverse actions by the government. Google and Facebook parent company Meta, another million-dollar inaugural contributor, are grappling with scrutiny over content moderation and antitrust issues. Apple, whose CEO Tim Cook personally contributed $1 million to the inauguration, is embroiled in an escalating fight with the Trump administration over tariffs on foreign-made iPhones.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi personally contributed $1 million to Trump’s inauguration, and the company gave another million. Uber stands to benefit from a tax break on tips for independent contractors such as rideshare drivers in the Trump-backed tax and spending bill that is currently being considered by Congress.

The finance industry contributed $20.9 million to the inauguration. Donors from the industry may benefit from the administration’s moves to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and loosen banking regulations.

Energy interests supplied another $16.2 million. The bulk of that amount — $11.8 million — came from fossil fuel companies, whose contributions Biden’s inaugural committee rejected.

Chevron, one of the companies the Biden administration accused of conspiring to profit off market volatility following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, contributed $2 million — putting the oil and gas company among the top three corporate contributors to Trump’s inauguration. Exxon gave the inauguration another $1 million. Both Chevron and Exxon successfully petitioned the administration to revisit their respective mergers with other oil and gas companies in the months following the administration. In addition, millions of inaugural dollars came from alternative energy sources like solar power companies. 

Donors from the health, pharmaceuticals, and food and beverage industries also gave to the inauguration. The single largest inaugural contribution came from Pilgrim’s Pride, a subsidiary of Brazilian meat processing conglomerate JBS SA, which gave $5 million. Pilgrim’s Pride has faced antitrust scrutiny in recent years and could stand to benefit from the Trump administration’s move in March to roll back regulation on poultry processing.

The top three individual donors to the inauguration each landed nominations for roles in the Trump administration. This phenomenon is not new: Presidents of both parties have long rewarded donors with plum diplomatic posts. However, the millions of dollars that Trump’s fund received from appointees is unrivaled by any prior inauguration. Altogether, individuals nominated for roles in Trump’s administration and their immediate families contributed more than $16.2 million.

Trump nominated the inaugural committee’s top individual donor, Warren Stephens, to be ambassador to the United Kingdom on the same day that Stephens contributed $4 million to the inaugural committee. His contribution is the second-largest individual inaugural contribution of all time, after the late casino executive Sheldon Adelson’s $5 million contribution to Trump’s first inauguration.

Trump nominated two other individual donors that each gave $2 million for roles in his administration. Melissa Argyros is a real estate investor whom Trump nominated to be ambassador to the Republic of Latvia. Jared Isaacman is an entrepreneur and commercial astronaut. Days after Isaacman’s contribution to the inaugural committee, Trump announced his plan to nominate him as the head of NASA, though the president later withdrew the nomination amid tensions with Elon Musk.

Millions of dollars in contributions to Trump’s second inaugural committee came from previously undisclosed or obscured sources. Several of these contributors are entities with little public-facing presence. 

Amended Federal Election Commission (FEC) records filed on May 2 reveal that a $1 million contribution originally attributed to the accounting firm Wipfli LLP was actually made by Alexander Karp, the CEO of Palantir Technologies, which Karp cofounded with billionaire Peter Thiel. The existence of the contribution was first reported by Issue One. SEC filings show that Karp had listed Wipfli LLP as his “care of” address, which matches the address that initially appeared in the inaugural committee’s disclosure. The Trump administration awarded Palantir hundreds of millions in government contracts, including a recent $217.8 million Department of Defense delivery order for data products and advanced analytics to the Space Force. Palantir has been a major government contractor for several years across multiple administrations. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has described Palantir’s work as “mission critical” to the agency’s targeting of immigrants for deportation. In April, ICE awarded the Denver-based company another $30 million to develop software that will give the agency “near real-time visibility” on people self-deporting from the United States.

Multiple trusts with varying levels of transparency also contributed to the inaugural committee. The Tang Family Trust gave $2 million, more than any other trust, placing it among the top five organization contributors overall. While the inauguration committee did not disclose the source of this funding in its initial filings or amendments, the address listed matches the Beverly Hills residence of Donald Wei Tang, the CEO of fast-fashion retailer Shein. Shein relies heavily on Chinese imports affected by the administration’s removal in April of a tariff exemption that allowed goods under a certain value to enter the United States duty-free. Trump issued an executive order on May 12, reducing tariffs on Chinese imports from 145 percent to 30 percent for the subsequent 90 days.

Another obscured donor is Quantum Legal Consulting LLC, which gave $1 million. It was initially incorporated as the Athens Project in 2021 by Georgia lawyer Joshua P. Jones then changed its name again to 2HD Consulting LLC in May of this year. While Quantum Legal Consulting was incorporated in Georgia, its address listed in the inauguration filings matches that of the Outside America Foundation, a nonprofit started in 2023 by Jones and Erik Prince, the brother of former Trump Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and founder of the private military company Blackwater.

Trump’s 2025 inaugural committee also made more refunds, totaling more than $6.2 million, than any prior inauguration. Biden’s inaugural committee reported refunding around $550,000, and only two of those refunds reached six figures. Trump’s first inaugural committee reported making just three refunds totaling $37,800. Obama’s two inaugural committees refunded approximately $1 million each.

Why the 2025 inauguration made so many refunds is unclear. FEC filings do not specify whether the refunds were initiated by the inaugural committee or requested by donors. Several of the refunded donors, however, are tied to foreign entities. Foreign nationals are prohibited from donating to a presidential inauguration fund.

The largest refund was $1 million to Freedom Holdings Corporation, dated one day after the inauguration. Freedom Holdings is an investment and financial services firm with a Las Vegas address that was founded by Timur Turlov, a Russian-born Kazakhstani entrepreneur and financier who controls about three-quarters of the corporation.

Two U.S. subsidiaries of South Korean company Hanwha received refunds totaling $1 million. The inaugural committee returned $500,000 to Hanwha Defense USA and another $500,000 to Hanwha Qcells America. While Hanwha is headquartered in South Korea, its affiliates collaborate closely with U.S. defense contractors and have been awarded tens of millions in government contracts since the start of last year. On June 16, Hanwha Systems signed an agreement with U.S. defense contractor Northrop Grumman to jointly develop integrated air defense systems. Earlier in June, Hanwha entered into another agreement to collaborate with defense contractor BAE Systems to collaborate on a “multi-sensor satellite system.”

Hong Kong Go Win Investment Fund, which is listed as Hong Kong Go Investment Fund in refunds disclosed by the inauguration, also received a full refund of its $500,000 contribution. An initial FEC filing omitted the fund’s address, but the Hong Kong location was disclosed in an amendment. The investment fund has little public-facing presence, although a similarly named company, Hongkong Win Go Fund, is incorporated in Hong Kong.

Inversiones Productivas del Norte received a $100,000 refund from Trump’s 2025 inaugural committee. The Mexican company played a key role in a chain of million-peso financial transactions connected to a controversial land deal for Tesla’s proposed factory in Nuevo León, Mexico. 

VoltaGrid, a $4 billion Houston-based startup that assembles modular gas-fired power plants to meet the expanding needs of data centers and oil fracking companies, received another $500,000 refund from Trump’s inaugural committee. 

Another $250,000 was refunded to Robin Rosenzweig, the wife of Trump fundraiser and former inaugural co-chair Elliott Broidy. Broidy pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate foreign lobbying laws as part of a covert campaign on behalf of foreign interests following a Justice Department investigation into his allegedly offering foreign actors access to the Trump administration.

Alonso Ancira Elizondo, known as the “king of steel” in Mexico, received a $200,000 refund from Trump’s inauguration. Elizondo, who served as president of a major steel plant in Mexico from 1991 to 2023 but is now based in San Antonio, Texas, is known for leading one of the largest scams in Mexico’s history and defrauding the Mexican government of $500 million. The disgraced steel magnate is currently battling allegations of stealing shares in the bankrupt company to help secure his release from prison.

Inaugurations are a venue for powerful donors to curry influence with little accountability, highlighting the need for stronger safeguards for inaugural fundraising and raising questions about donors’ influence over the administration.

The bulk of contributions to Trump’s 2025 inauguration fund came from a small circle of wealthy donors and corporations, including some with clear interests before the administration and others shielded by layers of opacity. The event accentuated a glaring gap in the nation’s political finance safeguards. Some proposals to address the lack of checks on inaugural giving — no matter the party of the president — include mandatory contribution caps, stronger disclosure rules, and prohibitions on obscured donations funneled through intermediaries.

The power of big money in American politics doesn’t stop on Election Day. It shapes priorities and access to the administration from day one.

Anna Massoglia is an investigative analyst, writer, and editor tracking money and influence in politics. She serves as an independent advisor and contributing analyst to multiple newsrooms, academic institutions, and nonprofits. Her work focuses on political finance, foreign influence, government transparency, and accountability. Massoglia has been widely cited by policymakers and featured on The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, and CNN. Previously, Massoglia was the editorial and investigations manager at OpenSecrets. She holds degrees in political science and psychology from North Carolina State University and a JD from the University of the District of Columbia School of Law.