Neowin

When President Barack Obama is sworn in for his second term on Jan. 21, Microsoft will help pick up the check for some of the festivities.

According to a report by Reuters, Microsoft is one of about 400 donors who will be providing funds for the president's second inauguration. Most of the donors will be individuals, although this year Obama's organizing committee allowed corporations to donate money for the event, unlike his 2009 inauguration. In addition to Microsoft, AT&T also donated funds for the event, although exact amounts were not disclosed.

Besides the inauguration itself, the president is expected to attend two official inaugural balls, the Commander-in-Chief's Ball for the military and the Inaugural Ball for the general public.

According to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, Microsoft employees and political action committees gave more money to Obama's reelection campaign ($815,435) than employees and PACs of any other company. Additionally, Microsoft was the second-leading corporate contributor to the Democratic National Committee in 2012 with $568,274, behind only Time Warner's $663,923. Overall, more than 67 percent of Microsoft's political donations last year went to Democratic candidates.

Source: Reuters | Image via The White House

first lol

i may not like Xbox, but i've alway been an MS fan.

MS thank you for supporting the re-election of Obama.

Pretty class that not every rich American company were backing Ryan/Romney

As much as I hate Obama, I approve of this. Corporations can spend their money however they like.

Pfft Thanks NObama! ;P

I wonder why they decided to open it up to corporations this year. Did they give any reasoning on that?

well i got to say, this makes me like ms a lot less.

Good for MS. Nice to see not every big corporation was in the back pocket of Romney and his group of wall street crooks only looking out for the mega-rich.

I also like that Bill Gates is so actively involved in so many charities and good causes.

I love the comments about how people are thankful that not every corporation and Wall St.donated to the Republican ticket, as if 99% of corporate money automatically goes to Republicans.  Shows how brainwashed most of you are.

Newsflash:  doners from Wall St. gave way more to Obama back in 2008 than McCain... almost 4-1 to be exact.  Then they saw how anti-business he truly was and decided to back a moderate like Romney instead this time.  But that's only one portion of "Corporate America"... the tech, media and entertainment industries (think Google, Apple, M$, GE, the entire Hollywood industry... you know, some of the biggest companies on the planet) donated overwhelmingly to Obama in both elections.

You need to look into who funded and supported Obama. I'll give you a hint, its the same big corporationsa and wall street crooks. Big corporations and wall street support both republicans and democrats, and that is the problem, we have 2 of the same parties.