Corporate America's Trump trap

The big picture: A Democratic House would carry its campaign against billionaire power and corruption deep into corporate America, scrutinizing the relationships between Trump's White House and the executives who courted him.

• Corporate leaders now face a delicate balancing act: rebuilding ties with Democrats while avoiding retaliation from a president who still controls federal contracts, tariffs and regulators.
• Already, companies that scrambled to dismantle DEI programs or fund Trump's ballroom are hiring Democratic lobbyists, pushing back against the administration and rediscovering the virtues of bipartisanship.

Zoom in: Elon Musk is taking a more confrontational approach. The billionaire, who has poured $445 million into Republican super PACs this election cycle alone, has threatened retaliation against Democrats preparing to investigate his sprawling business empire and tenure in the White House.

• DOGE: As head of Trump's short-lived cost-cutting initiative, Musk gutted USAID, drove mass federal layoffs and gave his team access to sensitive government systems. Investigators want to know whether his companies benefited from contracts or regulatory decisions while he wielded power inside the White House.
• Ukraine: A fierce critic of President Volodymyr Zelensky, Musk ordered Starlink restrictions that disrupted Ukraine's military satellite communications. Democrats are now demanding records of his communications with Trump and Vladimir Putin.

Zoom out: Across corporate America, the pursuit of Trump's favor has left a trail of donations, deals and concessions that Democrats are determined to follow.

• AI accelerationists: Trump has made the AI boom a centerpiece of his economic agenda, while giving industry leaders extraordinary influence over regulation and chip exports. Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, who set the template for corporate America's reconciliation with MAGA, is among the AI leaders likely to face scrutiny for pressing Trump to back off safety regulation.
• Media consolidation: Trump ally Larry Ellison helped finance his son David's rise to control of CBS and CNN, culminating in a $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery. Along the way, Paramount paid $16 million to settle Trump's lawsuit against CBS while seeking federal approval for its Skydance merger.
• Elite law firms: Trump's pressure campaign against the legal establishment yielded $940 million in pledged free legal services and concessions on diversity policies from nine major firms. Democrats are probing the terms of those agreements and whether the firms compromised their independence to appease the White House.
• Ballroom donors: Trump's massive White House construction project has drawn at least $333 million in private commitments, including $25 million apiece from Apple and Nvidia. Many donors — including some who kept their contributions secret — have lucrative business before the administration.
• Equity deals: Trump has transformed the U.S. government into a major corporate investor, striking roughly $30 billion in equity and warrant arrangements spanning more than 40 companies. Democrats are questioning how the beneficiaries were selected and whether political connections influenced the deals.
• Fossil fuel giants: Trump asked oil executives to raise $1 billion for his 2024 campaign while promising sweeping regulatory relief. His administration has since delivered major tax breaks and environmental rollbacks, prompting a Democratic probe of the industry's political contributions and the government benefits that followed.

The bottom line: Corporate America's old instinct for bipartisan relationships existed for a reason. The same executives who spent the past two years seeking Trump's favor could spend the next two explaining exactly how they obtained it.