A good reason to outlaw bribes is that politicians tend to be incredibly cheap and offer an extremely high ROI. Albeit at the cost of a nice democracy.

Ghengis Khan didn’t need your chest of gold, he owned many gold mines. Regardless, he was going to take it from you the easy way or the hard way.

You're forgetting that this is the same guy who managed to bankrupt a casino. He's not actually that good with money and until the latest bribe channels opened, eg Trump Coin and the Board of Peace, opened their finances may have been in a bit of a mess. Also I'd bet the ballroom donation was much larger, it's a massive blackhole of graft waiting to happen.

It's also not solely about money, you can get far just knowing how to chum it up with Trump when you get in the room with him. Look at the odd quasi-bromance between him and Mamdani who you'd expect to be enemy #1 but Mamdani knows how to schmooze the exact type of New York Guy Trump is.

To Nvidia, or to the recipients?

For fascism, it's not always about getting something you think is a lot. It's about a power relationship. Trump has demonstrated that Nvidia will bow to his will.

It's also potentially an implementation of the foot-in-the-door technique (https://www.simplypsychology.org/compliance.html). It's a common manipulative strategy where you get someone to do a small favor for you which makes them much more likely to do a large favor for you later.

Ah yes, again the: "I am so rich I could not possibly be corrupt!"

"Trump’s Profiteering Hits $4 Billion" - https://www.newyorker.com/news/a-reporter-at-large/trumps-pr...

"How much money President Trump and his family have made" - https://www.npr.org/2026/01/14/nx-s1-5677024/trump-profits-m...