Top billionaires are lining up to strengthen their relationships with new President Donald Trump during next week’s inauguration festivities, as leaders like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and others are expected to appear in Washington, D.C. .
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, left, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
AFP via Getty ImagesThe three richest people in the world will be present: Founder of Amazon Jeff Bezos (worth $235.3 billion according to Forbes estimates) and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg ($212.6 billion) would sit together on the inauguration stage alongside Elon Musk ($429.8 billion), the CEO of Tesla, the world’s richest person and confidant of the president who spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars to help Trump win the November election.
CEO of OpenAI Sam Altman ($1.1 billion), which donated to the inauguration, reportedly plans to attend the event.
Zuckerberg is also co-hosting a pre-inauguration reception for Trump alongside billionaire donors. Miriam Adelson ($31.8 billion), Tilman Fertitta ($10.2 billion) and Todd Ricketts, whose father J. Joe Ricketts and family are worth around $4 billion.
Asset he is worth an estimated $6.8 billion through his stake in Truth Social’s parent company, real estate investments and other assets.
CEO of Coinbase Brian Armstrong ($11.9 billion) has been invited to inauguration-related events, according to Bloomberg, which did not say whether he would attend the inauguration ceremony.
Several other billionaires and their spouses have been offered top positions in the Trump administration, but their presence has not been confirmed: Stephen Feinberg ($5 billion), Warren Stephens ($3.3 billion), Jared Isaacman ($1.7 billion), Howard Lutnick ($1.5 billion), Vivek Ramaswamy ($1 billion), Steve Wittkoff ($1 billion), Linda McMahon (husband Vince McMahon worth $3 billion) and Kelly Loeffler (husband Jeff Sprcher worth 1 billion dollars).
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Apple CEO Tim Cook ($2.3 billion) personally donated $1 million toward the inauguration, but it is unclear whether he will attend the event. Dozens of other billionaires have also supported Trump in his road to a second term, but their participation has not been confirmed, including Robert “Woody” Johnson ($3.3 billion), Elizabeth And Richard Uihlein (each worth $5.9 billion), Roger Penske ($6.4 billion) and Timothy Mellon (the family was worth $14.1 billion).
Some of them did, but others either stayed out of the presidential race or were Trump haters before they started trying to ingratiate themselves. Zuckerberg’s Meta had already banned Trump from Instagram and Facebook – and Trump had already threatened to send him to prison – before he fell in line after the election results. Since then, Zuckerberg has donated $1 million to his inaugural fund, met with Trump at Mar-A-Lago, changed the way his platforms fact-check posts, and named Trump’s friend Dana White as to the Meta board of directors. As the election approached, Zuckerberg did not endorse any candidate, but called Trump’s response to his assassination attempt “badass.” Bezos also has a history of conflicts with Trump: Amazon in 2019 blamed Trump’s “personal dislike” of Bezos for the loss of a multibillion-dollar cloud computing contract with the Pentagon, and Trump criticized the Bezos-owned Washington Post. Bezos did not support Trump last year, but said he “showed extraordinary grace and courage under literal fire” after the assassination attempt, and donated one million dollars to the inaugural fund. Others have always supported him. Musk is among Trump’s biggest donors, alongside Adelson, the widow of billionaire Las Vegas Sands CEO Sheldon Adelson, who donated $100 million to the pro-Trump super PAC Preserve America during the election . Fertitta, owner of the Houston Rockets and Landry’s restaurant group, was named U.S. ambassador to Italy after the Texas billionaire hosted a fundraiser for Trump last year. Ricketts, co-owner of the Chicago Cubs, has been a major fundraiser for Republican politicians and, although he initially raised money within the party against Trump during his first campaign, he ultimately spearheaded of pro-Trump fundraising in 2020 and last year. .
Other business leaders planning to attend the inauguration include Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla and Walmart CEO Doug McMillon, according to the Wall Street Journal. Other supporters are planning events around Washington during inauguration weekend, including an “Inaugural Crypto Ball” that will feature Snoop Dogg and a party hosted by Uber and its CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. James Quincey, CEO of the Coca-Cola Company, presented Trump with the “first-ever presidential commemorative bottle of Diet Coke” on Tuesday. Microsoft, Ford, Google and AI search startup Perplexity also donated $1 million to the inaugural fund. Ripple, a crypto company, donated $5 million of its cryptocurrency to the inaugural committee. Other major donors include Goldman Sachs, Intuit, Toyota, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, General Motors, Bank of America, AT&T and Stanley Black & Decker, the Journal reported.
More than $170 million. That’s the amount Trump’s inaugural fund reportedly raised, nearly three times more than the $62 million raised by President Joe Biden four years ago and well above the previous record of $107 million , established during Trump’s inauguration in 2016. Donors who gave $1 million or raised $2 million from others would have received six tickets to a series of events in the days leading up to the inauguration, notably a “ candlelight dinner” with Trump and Melania Trump and a black-tie ball.
The big weekend. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance is scheduled for Monday at noon EST, but inauguration events officially begin Saturday. The weekend will include a “victory rally” at Washington’s Capitol One Arena and tea with the Bidens and Trumps at the White House, and Trump is expected to speak at three different balls Monday evening. Carrie Underwood will perform at the official ceremony and the Village People will perform at several inaugural events. Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton will be at the inauguration, as will former First Lady Laura Bush and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Michelle Obama will not attend.
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