No. This is a misinterpretation of the responsibility. Companies have great latitude in what they do, as long as they're forthright.

They have a duty to try to operate efficiently, but that doesn't make corporate social responsibility, a bad hire, or wasting something nobody liked in the canteen illegal.

Well, bad hire, bad food can always be justified (avoiding hindsight fallacy). But giving away money for nothing received (meaning of donation) is something different (at least to me)

companies donate money to stuff all the time what are you on about?

So I read up a little. To tax deduct the nonprofit must have registered as 501(c)(3). Is this the case here?

I can pay you to put my company name on your business website or a physical banner at a trade show and account for this as a business expense (deduct it) without you being a non-profit. I have broad latitude to make business expenditures in a manner that I believe is profit-seeking or optimizing for my business.

People do this with Google and Facebook all the time. We call them ads. Not every ad campaign has a positive RoI.

Yes, its possible, and, yes, they actually do. And the IRS is fine with it.