Corporate America Helped Pour $61M Into Biden Inaugural Committee: Here Are The Companies That Donated

The old saying that politics makes strange bedfellows was reaffirmed this year as the nation’s major corporations generously donated to the inaugural committee of the president who promised to jack up their taxes and increase their regulatory oversight.

What Happened: The Joe Biden inaugural committee raised more than $61 million, which is a bit unusual considering the presidential inauguration activities were low-keyed and mostly virtual events due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Biden inaugural committee accepted corporate contributions of up to $1 million and donations for up to $500,000 from individuals, according to a Politico report. The only entities that were barred from contributing were fossil fuel companies, foreign companies and lobbyists.

See Also: Benzinga's Ask The VC with Jeff Ransdell

How It Happened: Corporation contributions of $1 million were received from:

• AT&T T
• Bank of America BAC
• Comcast CMCSA
• Lockheed Martin LMT
• Masimo Corporation MASI
• Pfizer PFE
• Qualcomm QCOMM
• Uber UBER

Lower down on the money tree, United Airlines UAL donated more than $200,000. Among the companies that gave at least $100,000 to the inaugural committee were:

• Airbnb ABNB
• Amazon AMZN
• Amgen AMGN
• Anheuser-Busch BUD
• Charter Communications CHTR
• Doordash DASH
• Dow Chemical DOW
• FedEx FDX
• Ford Motor Co. F
• General Motors GM
• Google GOOGL
• PepsiCo PEP
• Verizon VZ
• Walmart WMT
• Yelp YELP

Prominent corporate executives who opened their checkbooks included Peloton PTON CEO John Foley with a $500,000 donation and Microsoft MSFT President Brad Smith with $100,000.

Outside of the corporate world, major Biden inaugural committee contributions came from labor unions, most notably $1 million from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and $250,000 from the American Federation of Teachers, and the National Football League, which punted $100,000 into the coffers. The Sherwood Foundation, a nonprofit run by Susie Buffett, daughter of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A) chieftain Warren Buffett, donated $1 million.

(Photo by Gage Skidmore / Flickr Creative Commons.)