Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony in Washington DC on Monday will bring together giants of business and technology, perhaps most dramatically embodied if Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg sit together at the US Capitol.
Musk, the world’s richest person and one of Trump’s top advisors; Bezos of Amazon; and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg will be placed prominently near members of Trump’s Cabinet, according to an NBC News report released Wednesday, continuing their rapid public shift to the right as they close in on the Make America Great Again power base (Maga) of Trump.
Musk has become the largest donor in the 2024 election, with the electric vehicle and space entrepreneur contributing more than a quarter of a billion dollars to Trump’s campaign.
It was announced in November that Tesla’s CEO would co-lead a newly created but ill-defined entity called the Department of Government Effectiveness, tasked with reforming the federal government’s vast employee apparatus.
Musk has been accused of using the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, which he owns, to spread disinformation and propaganda to help the Trump campaign.
Bezos, owner of online e-commerce giant Amazon and the Washington Post newspaper, broke with long tradition and his largely indifferent attitude toward the Post’s editorial operations when he suddenly blocked his reporters from supporting a candidate for office. the presidential election, shortly before the newspaper. was set to announce he was supporting Kamala Harris for the White House – a race she lost decisively to Trump on November 5.
The move sparked outrage, leading to resignations and a dramatic loss of subscriptions, while Bezos defended his decision. Amazon later donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund, as did Meta, owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, announced last week that he would get rid of his company’s fact-checking program and further beef up political content, in a move widely seen as facilitating more conservative comments and pandering to the arguments of Trump, newly empowered, that the right is being censored. on social networks.
Zuckerberg also last week scrapped DEI policies at Meta and eased speech restrictions seen as protecting groups including LGBTQ+ people.
Zuckerberg will also co-host a lavish black-tie reception Monday alongside Republican mega-donor Miriam Adelson to celebrate before the three inaugural balls. The event was first reported by Puck News.
Meanwhile, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced last month that he would make a personal donation of $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund.
Generous donors to the inauguration committee will be rewarded with dinners alongside the president-elect and his wife, Melania, before the ceremony and after their return to the White House on Monday.
The price of access is high, however, with the Guardian revealing that major donors to the inaugural committee must contribute twice as much to gain direct access to Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance at private events around the taking the oath. -in ceremony compared to the first inauguration in 2017, according to fundraising documents.
The opportunity to briefly interact with Trump and Vance requires donors to contribute at least $1 million to the committee — the largest ticket package — a marked increase from the previous cycle, when the same access cost $500,000 .
The Jan. 20 inauguration ceremony coincides this year with Martin Luther King Day, a federal holiday celebrated on the third Monday in January to commemorate the life and work of the civil rights leader, who was assassinated in 1968.
And Trump will take the oath of office in front of the U.S. Capitol, on the same platform where his supporters on January 6, 2021, attacked police guarding the Capitol and then invaded the halls of Congress in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to prevent national lawmakers from certify Joe. Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
The sudden support from the richest people on the planet has raised ethical questions and concerns about the ulterior motives of billionaires. Trump’s economic policy proposals would cut taxes for the richest 5% of Americans and raise them for everyone else, according to an analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP).
But it’s not just tech billionaires who have come out in support of Trump’s upcoming presidency. Music stars Carrie Underwood and the Village People booked gigs to perform at the inauguration, each releasing statements about the importance of music in “uniting people” in times of political division.
