President Donald Trump’s 2025 inaugural committee enjoyed big donations from several travel and tourism industry titans – much more than in the two prior inaugurations, a Skift analysis of federal records indicates.
United Airlines and Delta Air Lines gave Trump’s 2025 inaugural $1 million each after having contributed nothing to Trump’s 2017 inauguration.
The seven-figure contributions also represent a major boost from what the two leading air carriers gave President Joe Biden’s 2021 inaugural committee: $228,223 from United and zero from Delta. Neither airline responded to requests for comment.
Hilton Worldwide, whose hotel brands include the Waldorf Astoria, Embassy Suites, Hampton and all Hilton-branded properties, made an in-kind contribution of $282,897.04 to Trump’s 2025 inaugural committee for what the company told Skift was an effort to “assist with the Presidential Inaugural Committee’s activities taking place at Washington, DC-area Hilton hotels.”
But Hilton made no donations at all to either Trump’s 2017 inaugural or Biden’s 2021 inaugural, according to records maintained by the Federal Elec
