President Donald Trump suggested last month he would look out for companies that didn’t seek tariff refunds after the Supreme Court struck down his wide-ranging global duties.

At first, some major firms like Amazon appeared to be holding off on asking for money back over concerns they’d offend the often transactional president and end up in his crosshairs, CNBC reported earlier this year. But now some of the largest U.S. companies from Walmart to Apple have confirmed they’re seeking what they’re owed — regardless of the consequences.

Home Depot, General Motors, John Deere, FedEx and Costco are among the other major U.S. corporations that have said they are trying to get refunds. The moves may not represent a sea change in how companies handle their relationships with Trump. Even so, they show key examples of when they’re willing to publicly break with the president, after he told CNBC he would “remember” if companies decided not to seek refunds.

There’s a strong business incentive to apply — as well as, for many, a fiduciary responsibility. Major companies have a chance to regain potentially billions of dollars and maximize returns for shareholders.

More than $35 billion in refund money has already been processed and is on its way to businesses’ bank accounts, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a court filing earlier this month. The government owes roughly $166 billion in refunds overall.

But the threat has not deterred the largest U.S. companies from trying to claw back what they paid in tariffs. Take the largest U.S. retailer Walmart, which drew Trump’s ire last year when it said it could have to raise prices in response to the duties, sparking Trump to tell the retailer to “eat the tariffs” and warn he would be “watching.”

In an interview with CNBC on Thursday, Walmart finance chief John David Rainey confirmed that the company applied to get back the money it paid for so-called IEEPA tariffs, but doesn’t expect a major windfall if and when it is paid back. 

“We have availed ourselves of the option to participate in those refunds. For us, it’s a relatively small part of our overall business,” said Rainey when discussing the company’s fiscal first-quarter results. “To be eligible for those refunds, you need to be the importer of record, and for us, where we are the importer of record, it’s about half of 1% of our U.S. sales.” 

In its most recent full fiscal year 2026, Walmart U.S. saw $483 billion in net sales, so half of 1% would total about $2.42 billion. While that total is larger than many companies’ annual revenue, Rainey said it’s hardly material for a business that saw more than $713 billion in total revenue last fiscal year.

Still, “every little bit matters,” he said. 

“We’re going to prioritize those refunds if and when we get them towards investing in price for our customers,” he said. “We recognize that given where we are right now with both the stress on the consumer as well as the retention of the share gains that we’ve seen, the best ROI on that dollar of capital is to invest in price for our customers.” 

Walmart is among the companies that have said they could try to use the money to benefit customers, even in indirect ways. Deploying the refunds to keep prices low for consumers has become a theme among companies applying for them.

“What we have heard most of all in terms of uses is, this is going to help us avoid raising prices as quickly as we thought we were going to have to,” said Neil Bradley, chief policy officer with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “That’s a hard thing to telegraph, but it’s real.”

Walmart confirmed it was seeking money back Thursday after Target CFO Jim Lee said on Wednesday the company was “working through the process” of getting a refund. Home Depot finance chief Richard McPhail also said Tuesday the retailer had applied for and had “received an immaterial amount to date.”

“We have assumed that that could provide a significant offset to those costs,” he told analysts.

Some firms have sought to find ways to spend any refund money in ways that would appease both the White House and their customers, one representative of an influential business group said. For example, Apple has said since Trump’s comments that it is applying for a tariff refund.

It plans to reinvest any money it gets back into “U.S. innovation and advanced manufacturing,” a major priority for Trump, Apple CEO Tim Cook said on a call with analysts last month.

Meanwhile, other major companies have stayed quiet about whether they’ll try to claw back their tariff payments.

Amazon, which was sued in a class action lawsuit last week over its decision not to pursue a refund, hasn’t responded to requests for comment on whether it’ll apply to get money back.

Others aren’t ready to admit their refund plans one way or another. On Wednesday, Lowe’s CEO Marvin Ellison would not say whether the retailer is applying.

“We’re just monitoring the situation,” said Ellison. “We haven’t talked publicly about whether we filed or not, but what we have done is paid really close attention to the situation, understanding that when tariff refunds go out, they go out to everybody, and so we’re right now trying to determine if and when those refunds happen.”

The biggest ever merger of real estate investment trusts — the combination of Equity Residential and AvalonBay, announced Thursday — has investors and analysts alike left with dropped jaws. 

The all-stock merger will have a market capitalization of about $52 billion and a total enterprise value of approximately $69 billion, according to a release. It will create one of the largest real estate companies in the U.S., with more than 180,000 rental apartments. 

“This combination creates a new and fundamentally stronger company with differentiated capabilities that will drive structurally superior cash flow generation, earnings and dividend growth, and value for shareholders,” said Benjamin Schall, CEO of AvalonBay. 

Schall will become CEO of the newly formed company, and Equity Residential CEO Mark Parrell will retire when the transaction closes.

Allan Swaringen, president and CEO of JLL Income Property Trust, which manages about $90 billion of real estate investments globally for institutional clients and high-net-worth individuals, called the tie-up “unbelievable.”

“That they would merge is really incredible,” he said. 

Swaringen noted that the stocks of both companies are trading at below their net asset values, a situation that makes them both ripe to be bought and privatized. 

“I think this might be a defense against privatization. By putting themselves together, they’re almost too big to get bought,” Swaringen said. 

He also noted the high cost of building technology, which residential tenants now demand – from online leasing to credit checking to delivering bandwidth and Wi-Fi. Consolidating could reduce those costs.

“Strategically, the rationale is straightforward: scale, liquidity, balance sheet efficiency and overhead synergies,” said David Auerbach, chief investment officer at Hoya Capital Real Estate. 

Auerbach said he thinks this could be the first of more megadeals in the space. 

“We have WAY too many Apartment REITs out there, and it’s a sector ripe for consolidation,” he wrote in emailed comments to CNBC. 

Auerbach noted that the deal comes after a challenging stretch for apartment landlords, who have been dealing with sluggish rent growth due to the post-Covid construction boom that delivered a massive wave of new supply.

Neither Auerbach nor Swaringen said they expect to see any effect on rents. While the combined company’s market share might be growing in certain markets, they are still going to have to compete with the rest of the field. The apartment market is highly diversified, building to building, giving consumers a lot of options. 

Regulatory and political scrutiny may arise, given the sheer size of the deal and the current drumbeat on housing affordability. But even after merging, the combined company will have a small market share. 

“While there are no antitrust regulatory approvals needed, there is the political PR battle for which we think management well articulated [that] the combined company is < 3% market share and heavily invests in expanding housing,” wrote Alexander Goldfarb, senior analyst with Piper Sandler. “Ultimately, we believe the combined company needs to improve earnings growth beyond the one-time synergies to show bigger is actually more profitable.”