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The stagecraft of Donald Trump’s inauguration that placed global billionaire tech titans in front of his own cabinet picks has come under immediate fire from Trump critics as sign of oligarchy and the powerful influence they wield.
During the ceremony at the Capitol rotunda, tech leaders including Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg; Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook; Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai; Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos; and Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, gathered together to symbolize the increasingly close relationship between the tech industry and the new American president.
The industry leaders were originally supposed to sit on the dais – a position of honor where Trump’s family members, former presidents and other high-profile guests when the ceremony was still scheduled to be held outside.
But with the frigid weather in Washington on Monday, the inauguration was moved inside the Capitol, scrambling existing seating arrangements, and promoting the tech leaders to positions next to Trump family members and ahead of cabinet nominees.
“Big Tech billionaires have a front row seat at Trump’s inauguration,” posted the Massachussetts senator Elisabeth Warren on X. “They have even better seats than Trump’s own cabinet picks. That says it all.”
TikTok’s chief executive, Shou Zi Chew, was expected to attend, as well as Sam Altman of OpenAI and Dara Khosrowshahi of Uber. The New York City mayor, Eric Adams, podcaster Joe Rogan and Rupert Murdoch, chairman emeritus of Fox Corporation and CEO of News Corp also attended – as did the Argentinian president Javier Milei – but in less prominent positions.
Among the tech leaders was Bezos’ fiancee Lauren Sanchez. The Democratic media commentator Ron Filipkowski noted: “No congressional spouses were allowed in the Rotunda for the ceremony today. Different rules for the oligarchs.”
In comments over the weekend, Steve Bannon, the former Trump White House chief strategist, described the tech titans gathering at Monday’s inauguration as “supplicants” to Donald Trump making “an official surrender”, akin to the Japanese surrender to allied forces on the deck of the USS Missouri in September 1945.
The comments came as former president Biden warned that “an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy” and of “the dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a few ultra-wealthy people”.
Read more of the Guardian’s Trump coverage
