Titans of industry and commerce, beware. When you bend the knee to the Mad King, when you shower him with money and bathe him in flattery, he will receive your gifts with apparent gratitude. But he will want more. He will always want more.

Since Donald Trump’s election victory, leaders of some of the biggest, richest, most powerful companies in the country have made the pilgrimage to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate to demonstrate their fealty. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Meta, has been there. Tim Cook, chief executive of Apple, has been there. Sergey Brin and Sundar Pichai — the co-founder and chief executive, respectively, of Google’s parent company, Alphabet — have been there. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon (and owner of The Post), was scheduled to dine at the president-elect’s rococo Palm Beach manor on Wednesday.

Sam Altman, a co-founder of OpenAI, has announced a gift of $1 million to Trump’s inauguration. Meta and Amazon have pledged identical donations. And while Disney chief executive Bob Iger, a longtime Trump critic, has not commented on the election outcome, he did approve paying $15 million to settle a defamation lawsuit Trump had filed against a Disney subsidiary, ABC News.

Marc Benioff, who founded Salesforce and also owns Time magazine, says he has no plans to give money to the inauguration. But he waxes poetic about how Trump’s election marks “a new chapter for America.” That is surely true, but not in a good way.

I’m reminded of the day in January 2021, just weeks after the Capitol insurrection, when then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California) visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago — and, with that gesture, welcomed him back into the Republican fold. You might think Trump would have been grateful enough to use his influence and save McCarthy’s job when MAGA rebels in the House GOP caucus moved to oust him. But you would be wrong.

In Trump’s worldview, loyalty flows in one direction: toward him. Don’t take my word; ask Mike Pence.

I believe I understand how these moguls are thinking. Some of their companies have, or seek, massive government contracts. All of their enterprises can be helped or harmed by the policies the new administration implements — the huge tariffs he threatens to impose, for example, or his “drill, baby, drill” plan for fossil fuels, or his promise to slash government regulation.

The business leaders should remember what it is about our system that has allowed their companies to grow and thrive — the rule of law and the impartiality of justice; immigration policies that welcome brains, talent and ambition from around the world; ample funding for basic research that leads to world-changing breakthroughs. Government shapes this landscape, and Trump threatens to alter it dramatically.

A sharp turn toward nationalism and xenophobia would be bad for the nation and the world, but it would be nothing short of disastrous for companies such as Apple or Meta or Alphabet. Maybe these executives believe they can convince Trump that mass deportations are a bad idea and that immigration greatly boosts the U.S. economy. Or that arbitrary and excessive tariffs would needlessly burden the American consumer. Or that unnecessary regulations should be eliminated with tweezers, not a lawn mower.

But if history is any guide, reasonable people who try to work with Trump eventually reach a point where they feel they have to part ways with him. And when those reasonable people tell the world why, Trump lashes out at them. He tries to hurt them. He does not forgive — unless the “traitor” offers a humiliating public display of submission, as did Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, and so many other Republican politicians. But even then, Trump never, ever forgets.

Meanwhile, half of the country — the half that voted for Vice President Kamala Harris, and that believes Trump has forfeited the right to ever be seen as a “normal” president — sees the traffic jam of limousines in the Mar-a-Lago driveway as, most charitably, an obvious mistake.

What’s the definition of hubris? Telling oneself, “I’m going to be the one who finally talks some sense into Donald Trump. Surely, he’ll listen to me.”