Prime Day special: Amazon gifts Trump team a $1B coupon to let Bezos’ company host federal websites
The General Services Administration has announced an agreement with Amazon Web Services that would give the government $1 billion worth of savings to adopt cloud technology, modernization and training for federal agencies through the end of 2028.
The move comes as the company has taken steps to comply with the Trump administration, such as purging warehouses of foreign workers who lost their work authorizations, and CEO Jeff Bezos reportedly trying to fill the gap left by the departure of Elon Musk from the president’s inner orbit and subsequent fallout. At the same time, the Trump administration sued Amazon and EBay for selling knock-off Trump merchandise.
Amazon also contributed $1 million to the president’s inauguration committee and attended Trump’s swearing in under the Capitol Rotunda alongside Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google.
GSA Acting Administrator Michael Rigas made the announcement on Thursday, saying that the partnership with Amazon would modernize out-of-date web systems.
“Through this new agreement with AWS, federal agencies will be able to enhance delivery of critical services, leverage cloud and advanced AI technologies, and dramatically reduce costs. I want to thank Deputy Administrator Ehikian and Commissioner Gruenbaum for their leadership in bringing this agreement to fruition,” Rigas said in a statement.
The initiative is part of the GSA under the Trump administration’s OneGov Strategy, which focuses on how the federal government purchases goods and services.
“We’re creating a more consistent, scalable, and efficient way to buy technology—one that benefits agencies, OEMs, and taxpayers alike. We expect this approach to have similar success and benefits across other categories,” Josh Gruenbaum, Commissioner of GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service, said in the same statement.
The release said that GSA also partnered with Google, which offered to temporarily reduce the price of Google Workspace for federal agencies by 71 percent.
“GSA will continue to engage with agency and industry stakeholders to implement the strategy in a flexible, collaborative way,” the statement said. “As a result of this and other initiatives, GSA will become the governmentwide hub for shared IT services.”
The move comes as technology companies have increasingly attempted to ingratiate themselves with the president. On Wednesday, Trump announced a 100 percent tariff on computer chips, but said that companies that moved to make chips in the United States would be spared the import tax.
This came the same day that Trump and Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that Apple would invest $100 million in US manufacturing ahead of the tariffs hitting technology companies. Cook’s announcement happened the day before Trump’s “reciprocal tariff” rates would begin. Much of the company’s manufacturing still takes place in China.
The Trump family has also been welcomed into Bezos’s inner circle. In June, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump – the president’s son-in-law and daughter, respectively – attended Bezos’s wedding in Venice.
