Trump’s Billionaire Groupies Get Inauguration Day Pay-Off for Kissing Up
President-elect Donald Trump’s billionaire groupies Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos are all expected to attend his Jan. 20 inauguration and have scored plum seating for the occasion.
According to NBC News, the tech leaders will sit together on a raised platform with Trump’s Cabinet members and other elected officials during the ceremony outside the U.S. Capitol.
During Trump’s 2017 inauguration, the platform included the Obamas, the Bidens, former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and a smattering of Trump family and Cabinet strategists.
Out of the three tech titans, technically only Musk would be an official member of Trump’s Cabinet as the co-head of the proposed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). However Bezos and Zuckerberg each donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund, which essentially secured them a seat for the occasion.
Zuckerberg made a shock announcement that he was rolling back content moderation policies that will affect Meta’s Facebook and Instagram platforms. NBC reported that he has also changed his lobbying staff to better align with Republican policy positions.
Meta announced on Jan. 2 that Joel Kaplan, a prominent Republican lobbyist, would replace Nick Clegg as its chief global affairs officer and also added Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) CEO Dana White, a longtime Trump ally, to the company’s board of directors.
Bending the knee further, Zuckerberg is also set to host an inaugural ball reception for Trump alongside billionaire acolyte Miriam Adelson with Chicago Cubs co-owner Todd Ricketts and billionaire CEO Tilman Fertitta, according to an invitation shared by a Puck correspondent.
NEW: More Zucking up... Zuckerberg to host an inaugural ball reception for Trump and Vance with Miriam Adelson, Todd Ricketts and Tilman Fertitta pic.twitter.com/yfpL617NO1
— Tara Palmeri (@tarapalmeri) January 14, 2025
Bezos has equally positioned himself to be more palatable to Trump, putting the kibosh on a planned endorsement of Kamala Harris by The Washington Post to the outrage of the legacy newspaper’s staff.