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Research Exposes Trump Inaugural Fund as 'Cesspool of Special Interest Financing'
"The record-shattering abuses of the 2025 Trump-Vance Presidential Inaugural Committee, Inc. should signal the immediate need for legislation to prevent this influence peddling," said one ethics expert.
Jan 15, 2025
With Inauguration Day less than a week away, a watchdog group on Tuesday published research shining light on the unprecedented level of financial support President-elect Donald Trump's inaugural fund has received from corporations and executives seeking to court favor with the incoming administration.
The new research from Public Citizen includes a tracker that lists known corporate donations or pledged contributions to Trump's inaugural committee, which is tax-exempt and not subject to contribution limits.
Amazon, Apple, Chevron, Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Google, Meta, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, the pharmaceutical lobby, Pfizer, Microsoft, and Coinbase are among those that have pumped money into Trump's inaugural fund, which has raked in a record-shattering $150 million since Election Day—and could bring in over $200 million by January 20.
"These million-dollar donors come from a small class of very wealthy industries in Big Tech, cryptocurrency, government contractors, and others with lucrative contracts or business pending before the federal government," Public Citizen found. "Some of the biggest donors had long been critics of Trump, especially following the January 6 Insurrection by Trump supporters, and who are now fearful of retributions by a vengeful president."
Some of the companies that have donated to the inaugural fund are also facing federal investigations, amplifying suspicions that the contributions were made with the goal of receiving favorable treatment from the next administration.
"The record-breaking cesspool of special interest financing for the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee raises serious concerns about the ability of corporations and wealthy special interests to purchase influence over public policy or lucrative government contracts," Craig Holman, a government ethics expert at Public Citizen, said in a statement Tuesday."The record-shattering abuses of the 2025 Trump-Vance Presidential Inaugural Committee, Inc. should signal the immediate need for legislation to prevent this influence peddling."
"The possibility for corruption exists any time an officeholder accepts large donations from those who have business pending before the official."
Trump's inaugural fund has easily surpassed the then-record-setting $107 million he raised for his inauguration in 2017, The New York Timesreported earlier this month. On Monday, the Timesreported that "Harold G. Hamm, the billionaire oil and gas executive who helped bankroll Donald J. Trump's campaign and stands to profit from his energy policies, is hosting an exclusive fossil fuel industry celebration on Inauguration Day."
"Among the invited guests to Mr. Hamm's celebration is Doug Burgum, Mr. Trump's pick to run the Interior Department," according to the newspaper.
The president-elect has openly boasted that prominent figures in corporate America—from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg—have lined up to show support for his second administration, which is set to be packed with billionaires and others with close business ties. Trump is reportedly keeping close track of major companies that have yet to donate to his inaugural fund.
Public Citizen noted Tuesday that "while the self-serving motivations of inaugural donors has a long and troubling precedent, the scope of donations and, in many cases, the fear of retribution driving the donations to the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee represents a worrying shift."
"Buying access to the president and the president's inner circle is the name of the game," the group says in its new research brief. "For corporations and wealthy special interests attempting to influence public policy or secure lucrative government contracts, writing big checks to Trump's inaugural committee—or any presidential inaugural committee—provides a bonanza of access to leading government officials and influence over public policy. This is a level of influence peddling only available to those who can afford to pay the price and is denied to those who are not wealthy."
To "ensure that undue influence-peddling through Inaugural donations is mitigated," Public Citizen called on lawmakers to pass legislation banning corporate and lobbyist donations to inaugural funds, implementing contribution limits, and strengthening disclosure requirements, among other reforms.
"The possibility for corruption exists any time an officeholder accepts large donations from those who have business pending before the official," Public Citizen said. "Congress should end the double standard for presidential inauguration fundraising. The celebration of an election victory should be viewed as part and parcel of the process of selecting our president."
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135.9 Million Reasons Why the Working Class Is So Angry
Workers know that when a private equity firm buys up the company at which they work or a stock buyback is announced, they are likely about to get kicked in the face.
Oct 06, 2024
Since 1993, 60.2 million workers who had been on the job for at least three years have been laid off, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Another 75.7 million with less than three years tenure have also been let go.
In total, that's 135.9 million workers who know all too well the pain and suffering of a major disruption to their employment.
Working people understand that the periodic ups and downs of the economy can legitimately lead to job loss. But they also know that in many cases the reason they lost their job was not mismatches in supply and demand. Rather, their jobs were sacrificed to satisfy out and out corporate greed.
Private Equity and Greed
Workers know that when a private equity firm buys up the company at which they work, trouble lies ahead. Just ask the 33,000 workers at Toys 'R' Us, who lost their jobs when that fabled company was driven into the ground by KKR, a huge private equity company. KKR bought the toy giant for $6 billion in 2005. Five billion dollars of the purchase price was financed with debt, which KKR put on the Toys 'R' Us books.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist (especially not the labor-averse space mogul Elon Musk) to design simple solutions that would provide some protection against needless mass layoffs.
Then the rape and pillage commenced, as Toys 'R' Us slashed costs to service the debt, pay KKR hefty management fees, and quickly fall behind its competition, Walmart and Amazon. Aliya Sabharwal, writing in the LA Times last year, tells us:
KKR and its partners sold off Toys ‘R’ Us real estate, pocketed the money and forced the retailer to lease back its buildings. Along the way, KKR and the other firms paid themselves $250 million in “management fees” and big bonuses to hand-picked executives — right before Toys ‘R’ Us entered bankruptcy.
This kind of corporate looting by private equity has, since the 1980s, happened thousands of times in all sectors of the economy, leading to the needless loss of millions of jobs. Researchers writing for the Becker Friedman Institute at the University of Chicago have found that, on average, employment shrinks by 13 percent when a private equity firm buys a public company. As Forbes notes,
All too often when private equity professionals tout their cost cutting strategies, they do not mention that cost cutting means firing people and taking away their livelihoods.
Stock Buybacks and Greed
Workers are also learning that when hedge funds buy up company stock and demand stock buybacks, there’s job trouble ahead. Just ask the 32,000 workers at Bed, Bath and Beyond, who saw their jobs evaporate to finance stock buybacks, over and over until the company was forced into bankruptcy and liquidation.
A stock buyback, which was essentially illegal until 1982, is a form of stock manipulation. A company uses its funds, or borrows money, to go into the market place and buy up its own shares of stock. By doing so, the number of shares in circulation goes down, while the earnings per share goes up. The stock price rises even though no new value was added to the company. The rise in the share price rewards company executives, who are mostly paid with stock incentives, and moves corporate wealth into the pockets of Wall Street investors.
Starting in 2004, Bed, Bath and Beyond spent $11.8 billion on stock buybacks that, in the short term, boosted the company’s share price and enriched the Wall Street stock-sellers who had pressured the company to buy back those shares. Even as the company struggled in 2022, it spent $230 million on stock buybacks, loading the company up with even more debt to finance them. In April 2023 the company declared bankruptcy. That July, the last store of what had been, in 2011, a chain of 1,142 stores closed
The same thing is happening right now with John Deere, the huge farm equipment manufacturer. Deere wants to move 1,000 jobs to Mexico, ostensibly to remain competitive in the international farm equipment market. But Deere is competitive now. The company posted $10 billion in profits in the 2023 fiscal year and paid its CEO $26.7 million.
The real reason Deere wants to discard workers and flee to Mexico is to finance the $11.6 billion in stock buybacks it committed to over the past year.
Reducing the use of mass layoffs to provide financing for corporate and executive looting would be a big win for working people.
In 2025, Goldman Sachs estimates that corporations will conduct more than $1 trillion in stock buybacks. Tens of millions of jobs will be sacrificed to shift all that money to the richest of the rich.
Solutions Are Easy to Find, But Political Will is not
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist (especially not the labor-averse space mogul Elon Musk) to design simple solutions that would provide some protection against needless mass layoffs. Here’s a list:
- The Security and Exchange Commission, which deregulated stock buybacks in 1982, should basically outlaw them again by limiting stock buybacks to no more than 2 percent of corporate profits. Today, nearly 70 percent of corporate profits go to stock buybacks.
- Debt used in leveraged buyouts should be limited to no more than 10 percent of the purchase price. That would protect workers from being sacrificed to service enormous debt loads.
- Add two simple clauses to the $700 billion of taxpayer money that goes for federal purchases of goods and services. It should read:
- No taxpayer money shall go to corporations that lay off taxpayers or conduct stock buybacks.
- For those companies receiving taxpayer money, layoffs must be voluntary, not compulsory, as is already the case for many white-collar employees.
Reducing the use of mass layoffs to provide financing for corporate and executive looting would be a big win for working people. Alas, we all know deep down that politicians are not about to bite the Wall Street hands that feed them. In the meantime, millions of workers will continue to be sacrificed on the alter of corporate greed.
When no political party dares to challenge Wall Street’s war on workers, there’s only one remaining alternative: working people need to build their own political movement just as the Populists did in the 1880s. There are 135 million reasons for doing so, and soon.
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No, Says Consumer Watchdog, Goldman Sachs Shouldn't Be Allowed to Sell Electricity
"It is highly concerning to see a large Wall Street bank enter a market known for its lack of consumer protection."
Nov 01, 2023
Federal regulators should not allow Goldman Sachs to become the first Wall Street bank to sell retail electricity contracts to U.S. households, a campaigner with Public Citizen argued Wednesday.
"Competitive retail electricity suppliers solicit households to sign contracts to provide electricity, often door-to-door," said Tyson Slocum, director of the consumer watchdog's energy program, in a statement. "The industry is known to frequently employ unfair and deceptive marketing and sales tactics, disproportionately impacting low-income communities, communities of color, and the elderly."
"It is highly concerning to see a large Wall Street bank enter a market known for its lack of consumer protection," declared Slocum, who also dove into problems with the competitive retail electricity industry and a related application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in a short essay.
The essay cites reporting from The Wall Street Journal as well as findings from the National Consumer Law Center and the Massachusetts attorney general that the "predatory" sector engages in greenwashing and problematic marketing strategies while saddling vulnerable people with higher utility bills.
"Key to Goldman's ability to make money from selling retail electricity to households is having a sizable financial power trading business buoyed by control over generation."
Industry issues are so bad, the essay notes, that Public Citizen joined with other advocates earlier this year in calling on the Federal Trade Commission to better protect consumer from misleading claims associated with home energy products.
Goldman Sachs is attempting to enter this troubling industry through a private equity firm that last month sought permission from FERC to make sales on behalf of Rhythm Energy—which, according to the application, is "a retail electric provider currently operating in Texas that is seeking to expand its business."
Slocum stressed Wednesday that "lawmakers have attempted to build a firewall between banks owning and controlling nonbank businesses. While Goldman is playing a game with shell corporations, there are very clear connections between Goldman Sachs, private equity firm West Street Capital Partners, and Rhythm Energy."
His essay details a "rent-a-director" scheme for shell companies and states that "Goldman Sachs—a bank holding company subject to regulatory oversight by the Federal Reserve—controls this private equity firm and is able to direct its holdings like Rhythm Energy despite the apparent conflict" with federal law.
"Key to Goldman's ability to make money from selling retail electricity to households is having a sizable financial power trading business buoyed by control over generation," the essay explains. "On October 24, FERC approved allowing Goldman Sachs to control GenOn's fleet of fossil fuel power plants out of bankruptcy (Avenue Capital Group, Prudential Financial, Graham Goldsmith's Cross Ocean, and Stone Point Capital-managed Trident Capital are the other firms controlling it along with Goldman)."
"While this push into selling retail electricity contracts to households appears to be the first by a Wall Street bank," the essay says, there are other examples from private equity firms and fossil fuel giants which show how "aligning control over wholesale markets with locking consumers into retail contracts can be lucrative."
The essay concludes that "Goldman Sachs clearly sees profits to be made selling American families electricity. The question is why the Federal Reserve is allowing Goldman Sachs to be in the business of marketing electricity to households."
As Slocum warned Wednesday, "Controlling both energy generation and building out a network of households that are contractually obligated to buy your energy is ripe for consumer abuse."
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