Corporate America launches unorthodox campaign to gain Trump’s attention

To break into the unusual circle of influence that surrounds Trump, chief executives are discussing whether to try to secure an appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast. They are buying the Trump family’s cryptocurrency token and emailing tips about spending cuts to Vivek Ramaswamy. Some lobbyists are instructing companies to scrub their websites and corporate policies of language that favors Democrats and instead tout GOP-friendly issues such as job creation.

“My in-box and text-message box looks like Niagara Falls," said Ramaswamy, who is co-running a new department to make government more efficient.

The moves are part of an effort by corporate interests to more strongly align with the Republican Party after drifting away from it in recent years.

The stakes are immense given Trump is quickly outlining key economic changes. The president-elect said Monday he would levy tariffs of 25% on imports of all goods from Mexico and Canada, and promised to levy additional tariffs of 10% on Chinese imports.

Those who can garner sway with Trump or his team could ask for exemptions to forthcoming tariffs and influence staffing. They could recommend officials who are friendly with the pharmaceutical industry to counterbalance vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his top health-agency nominee. At least one pharmaceutical company is in final negotiations to hire a Republican lobbying firm to help advise it about Kennedy and how to best navigate the second Trump administration.

Despite the populist influx among his base, Trump still cares deeply about markets and businesses, and he remains more accessible than most high-profile politicians. The most recognizable chief executives don’t require a go-between to reach the president-elect: Leave a message with one of his assistants and Trump will call back people whose names he recognizes directly, multiple corporate advisers said.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Wednesday, Trump adviser Stephen Miller told Fox News. (A Meta adviser confirmed the meeting.) And Coinbase Global CEO Brian Armstrong and a team from Ripple Labs have each spoken with Trump in recent days, according to people familiar with the matter.

Myriad others are scrambling. While the transition team is expected to set up a system for meeting with business executives, right now it is exceedingly difficult to book an in-person meeting at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida club. Lobbyists are counseling their clients to be patient—and shore up their connections to Republican Washington while they wait.

Uber Technologies CEO Dara Khosrowshahi flew to Washington, D.C., last week to discuss Trump’s “no tax on tips" campaign pledge. Khosrowshahi had meetings with Republican lawmakers, a company spokesperson said, and urged lawmakers to include Uber drivers if such legislation goes through Congress.

One lobbyist has recently counseled clients that they need to get rid of corporate policies adopted during the Biden administration that favor one party over another, such as bans on corporate PAC donations to lawmakers who didn’t vote to certify the 2020 election. Another strategist said he recently instructed a clean-energy company to strip a section on environmental, social and corporate-governance (ESG) policies from its website and instead focus the site on issues such as job creation.

Cryptocurrency executive Justin Sun said on Monday he is now the largest investor in World Liberty Financial, a crypto project backed by Trump and his family, by buying $30 million in the project.

“The U.S. is becoming the blockchain hub, and bitcoin owes it to @realDonaldTrump!" wrote Sun on the social-media platform X. The Securities and Exchange Commission sued Sun and three of his companies last year for alleged securities-law violations. Sun has said he believes the SEC’s complaint “lacks merit."

The most-desired envoys

Despite there being thousands of registered lobbyists in Washington, relatively few have thrown their weight behind Trump. Two who run their own firms, Brian Ballard and Jeff Miller, have quickly emerged as businesses’ most desired envoys to the Trump team.

Ballard, a longtime Florida lobbyist who represented Trump’s business in the state, has longstanding ties to many of Trump’s Florida-related cabinet picks. He moved up to Washington during the first Trump administration and in the years since has built a thriving business. Clients include Amazon, United Healthcare and Nippon Steel, a Japanese company facing headwinds as it tries to acquire U.S. Steel. On the campaign trail, Trump promised to kill the deal.

It was Ballard who introduced Trump to his incoming chief of staff, Susie Wiles, months before Trump ever declared his first bid for president. Wiles was a longtime employee of Ballard’s firm. She helped Trump win the state in 2016 and eventually ascended to top positions with his campaign. Pam Bondi, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, is another former Ballard lobbyist.

If Ballard’s biggest strength is his longtime connections, Miller can claim the mantle of being Trump’s K Street rainmaker. Miller—a lobbyist whose corporate clients range from Anheuser-Busch to Apple to Delta Air Lines—raised tens of millions of dollars for Trump’s 2024 campaign.

That included a March bash held just a couple blocks from the White House featuring Donald Trump Jr., to whom Miller is close. Dozens of Republican members of Congress, including House Speaker Mike Johnson reportedly attended, and Miller drew in more than $2 million for the re-election campaign that night alone.

Sought-after podcasts

During Trump’s first term, people looking to get to Trump knew an appearance on “Fox & Friends" could get them an audience—via cable news—with the president. Now podcasts are also drawing in interest from the business sector eager to reach Washington.

In recent days, corporate executives have asked public-relations consultants about appearing on podcasts such as the Joe Rogan Experience, which draws in huge audiences and has attained an agenda-setting status. If the Rogan podcast proves too difficult to book, several similar but smaller podcasts like the Jordan B. Peterson Podcast have piqued interest. There is less desire to talk to traditional mainstream media, one public-relations executive said.

Business leaders have met with staff from the Daily Wire, the media network that includes conservative podcaster Ben Shapiro, according to a person familiar with the meetings. Scott Bessent, Trump’s nominee for Treasury secretary, used appearances on conservative media outlets to campaign for the post: In November, he went on Steve Bannon’s War Room, which remains deeply influential in Trumpworld, to talk about the economy, pledging to cut regulations and government spending.

Piercing Trump’s circle

As Trump and his inner circle plan out the next administration at Mar-a-Lago, some businesses are pinning their hopes on the influence of people such as Trump confidant Elon Musk, Ramaswamy and transition co-chair Howard Lutnick, whom Trump will nominate to lead the Commerce Department. All are businessmen.

“I generally believe that Elon has a lot of the right instincts, so I’m optimistic that him being next to Trump is a very positive force to advancing innovation in America," said Aaron Levie, a Kamala Harris supporter and CEO of cloud company Box. “I think this could be a very different four-year period compared to 2016 and 2020."

Among other things, the tech industry is hopeful that Musk and others can push for friendlier policies around high-skilled immigration, artificial intelligence, cryptocurrencies and acquisitions.

Some are trying to be helpful by chiming in with ideas for Musk and Ramaswamy’s Department of Government Efficiency, which is charged with cutting costs across the government. Others have reached out to Lutnick, a financial executive and cryptocurrency enthusiast the industry sees as a potential ally.

Then there are the executives who put financial support behind Trump’s campaign to begin with: People such as oil executive Harold Hamm, a longtime Trump donor who is helping the transition, and Silicon Valley venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, a supporter of the cryptocurrency industry and startups more broadly who donated more than $3 million to help Trump.

“The best part of the new administration," Andreessen said on a recent podcast episode, is that it is “open for business, and open to the conversation, and willing to talk."

John McCormick, Chip Cutter, Vicky Ge Huang, Jack Gillum and Laura Cooper contributed to this article.

Write to Maggie Severns at maggie.severns@wsj.com, Preetika Rana at preetika.rana@wsj.com and Brian Schwartz at brian.schwartz@wsj.com