Tech billionaires take centre stage at Donald Trump’s inauguration

The world’s three richest people were given prime positions at the US President’s inauguration, marking a dramatic shift from Silicon Valley’s hostile response to his first term.

Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Google boss Sundar Pichai and X owner Elon Musk at the inauguration ceremony. Picture: AFP

US tech multibillionaires – including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos – were given prime positions at Donald Trump’s inauguration, in an unprecedented demonstration of their power and influence.

Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg are the world’s three richest people, and in addition to Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who also attended, their combined fortune sits at just above $US1 trillion, according to Forbes.

The tech tycoons have spent the weeks since the election courting favour with Trump, marking a dramatic shift from Silicon Valley’s more hostile response to his first term four years ago.

Attendees also included Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai.

TikTok CEO Shou Chew sat in the back row of the stage, even as his platform’s future remains uncertain.

He was seated next to Tulsi Gabbard, President Trump’s nominee to be the director of national intelligence, at the Capitol as Trump was sworn in.

The seating at the Capitol Rotunda was tight, putting some of the attendees in awkward positions.

Major tech executives, who are often competitors in business, including Zuckerberg, Musk and Bezos, were all seated together.

Musk received a booming reception from a watch-party audience at Washington’s Capital One Arena as he cheered on an incoming Trump administration he helped secure with massive financial donations.

“This is what victory feels like,” the world’s richest man yelled after the swearing-in ceremony. “This was no ordinary victory. This was a fork in the road of human civilisation.”

Musk went on to say the nation would now have “safe cities,” “secure borders” and “sensible spending”.

He referenced the advisory group he will lead to look for ways to cut the federal government, saying, “We’re going to take DOGE to Mars.”

The seating of Chew and Gabbard together comes as TikTok is under scrutiny for national security concerns.

Joe Biden signed a bill into law requiring Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell TikTok or shut down by January 19, but Trump has said he will grant the company more time to work out a sale.

TikTok on Sunday credited Trump for promising an executive order to save the app from an American ban, though its fate in the United States remains unclear while under Chinese company ByteDance’s ownership, in defiance of a US law.

Despite highly limited seating after the ceremony was moved indoors due to bad weather, Meta CEO Zuckerberg attended with his wife Priscilla Chan, while Amazon executive chairman Bezos was accompanied by his fiancee, Lauren Sanchez.

“They have even better seats than Trump’s own cabinet picks. That says it all,” said US Senator Elizabeth Warren in a social media post.

Their prominent positions on the inauguration stage was particularly notable for Zuckerberg, whom Trump had threatened with life imprisonment just months ago.

The Meta chief recently made headlines by brashly aligning his company’s policies with Trump’s worldview, notably by eliminating fact-checking in the United States and relaxing hate speech restrictions on Facebook and Instagram.

Musk has shown the strongest support for Trump, spending $277 million to help him and other Republicans win November’s election while transforming his X platform into an amplifier for pro-Trump voices.

Bezos, like Zuckerberg and his peers, has visited Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida leading up to the inauguration, with favourable treatment, government contracts and reduced regulatory scrutiny for Amazon in the balance.

As owner of The Washington Post, Bezos sparked controversy by blocking the newspaper’s planned endorsement of Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris for the 2024 presidential election, triggering newsroom protests and subscriber cancellations.

Musk has been named a leader of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency to advise the White House on cutbacks to public spending and has spent much of the past two months at Mar-a-Lago.

While Musk’s SpaceX is already a major government contractor, Amazon’s AWS cloud computing division and Google also count the US government among their biggest clients.

Google, Meta, Apple, and Amazon are also fighting landmark antitrust lawsuits from the US government that could force their breakup.

“These are very wealthy people who have basically paid for access, which is something that they would do for any upcoming administration even if we all recognise Trump is very transactional,” said Andrew Selepak, media professor at the University of Florida.

“They’re making sure it’s very clear that their faces, names, and especially their money, is here,” he added.
Agencies