Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg may sit together at Trump inauguration

Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony in Washington DC on Monday will have giants from across the business and tech worlds in attendance, perhaps personified most dramatically if Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg sit together at the US Capitol.

Musk, the world’s richest person and a top adviser to Trump; Amazon’s Bezos; and Mark Zuckerberg of Meta will be prominently placed together near members of Trump’s cabinet, according to an NBC News report on Wednesday, continuing their rapid public swing to the right as they cozy up to Trump’s Make America Great Again (Maga) power base.

Musk became the biggest donor of the 2024 election, with the electric-vehicles and space entrepreneur contributing more than a quarter of a billion dollars to Trump’s campaign.

It was announced in November that the Tesla CEO would co-head a newly created but ill-defined entity, called the department of government efficiency, tasked with reforming the vast apparatus of federal government employees.

Musk has been accused of using the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, which he owns, to spread misinformation and propaganda to help the Trump campaign.

Bezos, the owner of online e-commerce giant Amazon and the Washington Post newspaper, broke from a long tradition and his largely hands-off attitude toward the Post’s editorial operations when he suddenly blocked his journalists from endorsing a presidential candidate, shortly before the paper was set to announce it was backing Kamala Harris for the White House – a race she lost decisively to Trump on 5 November.

The move sparked outrage, leading to resignations and a dramatic loss in subscriptions, while Bezos defended his decision. Amazon later donated $1m to the Trump’s inauguration fund, as did Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, announced last week that he would be getting rid of his company’s factchecking program and boosting more political content, in a move widely seen as facilitating more conservative commentary and bending to the newly empowered Trump’s arguments that the right is censored on social media.

Zuckerberg last week also scrapped DEI policies at Meta and relaxed restrictions on speech seen as protecting groups including LGBTQ+ people.

Zuckerberg will also co-host a lavish black-tie reception on Monday alongside the Republican mega-donor Miriam Adelson to celebrate before the three inaugural balls. The event was first reported by Puck News.

Meanwhile, the OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, announced last month that he would make a personal donation of $1m to the Trump 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 are having to contribute twice as much to get direct access to Trump and the vice-president-elect, JD Vance, at private events around the swearing-in ceremony compared with the first inauguration in 2017, according to fundraising materials.

The ability to briefly interact with Trump and Vance requires donors to contribute at least $1m to the committee – the highest-tier ticket package – in a marked increase from the previous cycle when the same access cost $500,000.

The swearing-in ceremony taking place on 20 January coincides this year with Martin Luther King Day, a federal holiday held 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 be sworn in in front of the US Capitol, on the same platform where his supporters on 6 January 2021 attacked police guarding the Capitol and then invaded the halls of Congress in an attempt, ultimately unsuccessful, to block national lawmakers from certifying Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 election.

The sudden support of the planet’s wealthiest people has raised ethical questions and concerns that the billionaires may have ulterior motives. Trump’s economic policy proposals would cut taxes for the richest 5% of Americans and increase them for everyone else, according to an analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP).

But it’s not only tech billionaires who have shown support for Trump’s upcoming presidency. Music stars Carrie Underwood and the Village People have booked gigs to perform at the inauguration, each releasing statements about the importance of music “uniting people” during politically divisive times.