Tech CEOs Front And Centre At Trump’s Inauguration

The CEOs of many big name tech giants, which also included the world’s three richest men, have attended the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 47th President of the United States.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg, Apple leader Tim Cook, and Google chief Sundar Pichai were seen at St John’s Church.

Later the tech CEOs also joined Trump at the Capitol Rotunda, which included Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos, Shou Zi Chew (TikTok CEO), Sundar Pichai (Alphabet CEO) and Dara Khosrowshahi (Uber CEO), taking prime seats next to Trump’s family and ahead of cabinet nominees.

It comes after President Biden in his farewell address from the Oval Office, had said there was “a dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a few ultra-wealthy people,” and warned of “dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked.”

Dangerous Oligarchy?

Biden did not name Donald Trump during his address to the American nation, but said: “Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that really threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedom and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.”

Biden did not identify members of this oligarchy, it is well known that some of the world’s richest individuals and tech titans have suddenly revealed their support for Trump, especially after his election win in November.

Amazon, Alphabet’s Google, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Apple CEO Tim Cook have made a $1 million donation to Trump Inauguration Fund.

The donations come after the tech industry had endured a frosty relationship with Trump in recent years.

One big name tech leader that did not attend was Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (he was visiting Asia).

It is unclear if Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella was at the swearing-in, but he and Microsoft’s president Brad Smith have met with Trump to discuss tech policy and Redmond’s pledge to invest $80 billion (£64 billion) into global AI infrastructure.

Elon Musk

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, featured prominently at Trump’s inauguration, after he spent a reported $300 million helping Trump’s presidential campaign campaign.

Musk was accused of giving the straight arm “sieg heil” or “Nazi salute” at the Trump inauguration celebration, although his supporters state Musk was awkwardly gesturing “I want to give my heart to you.”

Musk had thanked the crowd for “making it happen”, before placing his right hand over his heart and then thrusting the same arm straight out into air straight ahead of him.

Musk then turned and repeated the action for those sitting behind him.

In response to accusations of a Nazi salute, Musk tweeted on X: “Frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired.”

Doge head

In November Donald Trump appointed Elon Musk and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to head up an advisor group called the Department of Government Efficiency (known as Doge).

Doge is not a government department but will instead offer the White House “advice and guidance” and will partner with the Office of Management and Budget to “drive large scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach to government never seen before.”

Musk has publicly stated they will seek to cut approximately $2 trillion from the federal budget and cut regulations.

Given that paying federal employees accounts for only 15 percent of the federal budget, this potentially means that the bulk of cuts will fall on government projects, budgets and initiatives.

There have been media reports that Musk is seeking to remove Vivek Ramaswamy as co head of Doge, as Ramaswamy seeks to become governor of Ohio.

Tom Jowitt

Tom Jowitt is a leading British tech freelancer and long standing contributor to Silicon UK. He is also a bit of a Lord of the Rings nut...

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