Trump bullying business leaders into helping him build $500 million war chest: report

Business leaders are knuckling under Donald Trump's demands for cash, and the president-elect's team expects him to build up a $500 million war chest to exert his dominance over the Republican Party.

The former and impending president doesn't want to be seen as a lame duck after returning for a non-consecutive second term, even though he's constitutionally prohibited from running again, so he's stockpiling cash to help his GOP allies and punish anyone who steps out of line, reported Axios.

"The money is just pouring in at Mar-a-Lago," said one of five Trump advisers who talked to Axios. "Trump doesn't have to lift a finger. Everyone's coming to him. We're looking at half a billion [dollars] by June, and we're on track. It's sort of a target but it's just a realistic projection of what's happening."

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Donors from a wide variety of industries – agriculture, finance, health care, insurance and tech – have been giving to Trump's inauguration and presidential library funds, the MAGA Inc. super PAC, a political nonprofit called Securing American Greatness and the Republican National Committee, but the Trump adviser said cryptocurrency investors have been "blowing it out."

"It used to be $1 million was a big number," that adviser said. "Now we're looking at some folks giving like $10 [million] or $20 million."

"If the tech guys are giving big, it makes everyone give," another Trump adviser added.

Trump has reportedly kept a grievance list of GOP donors and business leaders who stopped giving after the Jan. 6 insurrection four years ago, and insiders say he has pulled out corporate balance sheets during meetings with business leaders to pressure them into resuming donations.

"You guys made this amount of money last year and you're gonna make so much more now because of me," the president-elect told the representatives of one company, according to a confidant who said they heard the story from Trump himself. "But when I needed you, where the f--- were you? You weren't with me and maybe you were with [Kamala Harris]."

Trump has been reminding these donors that he won re-election last year without their help, and one company's consultant said he saw Trump in a meeting with a client "raking them over the coals" over their pause in giving – which resumed after the confrontation – but sources say he's made clear he's not taking their money to support their priorities.

"He'll take your money and then tell you, 'I don't give a f--- what you want,'" said another Trump adviser. "He did that during the campaign. He's going to do what he wants, what the base wants."

Donors do seem to believe their contributions mean something, even if it's just to stave off public criticism by the president-elect or a more favorable view by Trump's allies Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy and their quasi-governmental Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) budget-cutting agency.

"We don't want to get DOGE'd," one lobbyist told Axios.