- Donald Trump was sworn in because the forty seventh president of america on Monday.
- Huge names in enterprise and tech attended the inauguration and different weekend celebrations.
- Listed below are the billionaires and CEOs who attended Trump’s inaugural ceremony Monday.
Donald Trump was sworn in as president of america for the second time on Monday, and key enterprise and tech leaders have been there to observe it occur — and to attempt to get in his good graces.
It is a shift from current years, when Huge Tech leaders and Trump and different conservatives appeared extra at odds.
A number of of them even sat on the inaugural platform, getting higher seats than a few of Trump’s cupboard appointees.
Tesla’s Elon Musk, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Sundar Pichai, and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos have been amongst these seated on the inaugural platform. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, for instance, reportedly watched from the overflow room.
Listed below are the billionaires and CEOs who attended Trump’s inauguration.
Elon Musk, Tesla, SpaceX, and X
Christopher Furlong/Getty Photographs
Elon Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO who spent lots of of thousands and thousands of {dollars} to elect Trump, attended the inauguration and spoke at an inaugural rally Monday.
Musk has often been to Trump’s Florida property, Mar-a-Lago, within the weeks since Trump was elected.
Trump tapped Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to guide a brand new Division of Authorities Effectivity, although Ramaswamy confirmed Monday he is leaving DOGE.
Mark Zuckerberg, Meta
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Photographs
Zuckerberg and his spouse, Priscilla Chan, attended the inauguration an sat on the platform.
In a while Monday, he posted a photograph on Instagram of himself and Chan dressed for an inauguration occasion with the caption “Optimistic and celebrating,” alongside an American flag emoji.
Meta was one of many first main corporations to donate $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund, and the corporate has began 2025 with a slew of modifications that seem like influenced by Trump’s politics.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in November and is “very eager to play an lively function” within the president’s tech policymaking, in response to Meta’s then-global affairs chief, Nick Clegg.
Although Zuck did not endorse a candidate for president, he stated Trump’s response to being shot at a Pennsylvania rally this summer season was “badass.”
Trump was a vocal critic of Fb in his first time period and earlier this yr threatened to jail Zuckerberg if re-elected.
Sundar Pichai, Google
SAUL LOEB / POOL / AFP
Google CEO Sundar Pichai was additionally in attendance Monday.
Google was among the many corporations that donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund.
Jeff Bezos, Amazon
Kenny Holston/The New York Instances through AP
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his fiancée, Lauren Sanchez, reportedly met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in December for dinner, joined by Elon Musk. Amazon additionally donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund.
Bezos is “really very optimistic” about one other Trump time period and want to assist him with “lowering regulation,” he stated at The New York Instances’ DealBook Summit final month.
“What I’ve seen to this point is he’s calmer than he was the primary time and extra settled,” he stated. “You’ve got in all probability grown within the final eight years. He has, too.”
Bezos did not all the time really feel this manner about Trump. In 2016, he stated Trump’s want to lock up Hillary Clinton or refuse to just accept a loss within the presidential election that yr “erodes our democracy across the edges.”
Trump has criticized Amazon and The Washington Put up, which Bezos owns, often over time.
In 2024, for the primary time in a long time, The Washington Put up did not publish an endorsement of a presidential candidate. Bezos reportedly intervened to dam an endorsement of Kamala Harris that had already been drafted.
Bezos later defended the choice, writing in an op-ed that endorsements “create a notion of bias” and “do nothing to tip the scales of an election.”
Tim Prepare dinner, Apple
SHAWN THEW / POOL / AFP
In contrast to a few of his friends, Apple CEO Tim Prepare dinner — higher identified to Trump as “Tim Apple” — made a $1 million donation to Trump’s inaugural fund from his personal pockets, not his firm’s.
Prepare dinner has credited the primary Trump administration with serving to Apple break into the retail market in India.
Sam Altman, OpenAI
ALEXANDER DRAGO / POOL / AFP
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman additionally made a private donation of $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund.
Altman agrees with a few of Trump’s views round bureaucratic blockades.
“The factor I actually deeply agree with the president on is, it’s wild how troublesome it has turn out to be to construct issues in america,” Altman instructed Bloomberg earlier this month. “Energy crops, information facilities, any of that sort of stuff. I perceive how bureaucratic cruft builds up, but it surely’s not useful to the nation on the whole.”
Shou Zi Chew, TikTok
Shawn THEW / POOL / AFP
Within the wake of Trump’s efforts to reverse the current ban on TikTok, Shou Zi Chew, the app’s CEO, was additionally noticed within the Capitol Rotunda.
TikTok was briefly down within the US this weekend after the Supreme Court docket upheld a ban on it, however the app got here again on-line after just a few hours.
Chew stated in a subsequent TikTok, “I need to thank President Trump for his dedication to work with us to discover a answer that retains TikTok accessible in america.”
Rupert Murdoch, NewsCorp
Melina Mara/The Washington Put up through Getty Photographs
Rupert Murdoch, patriarch of the Fox Information empire, was additionally current Monday.
Bernard Arnault, LVMH
Pool/Getty Photographs
French billionaire Bernard Arnault, the CEO of luxurious conglomerate LVMH, which incorporates manufacturers like Louis Vuitton and Dior, attended the inauguration.
He was joined by daughter Delphine Arnault, who’s CEO of Dior, and son Alexandre Arnault, who will turn out to be deputy CEO of LVMH’s wines and spirits division, Moët Hennessy, beginning in February.
Dana White, UFC
Shawn Thew-Pool/Getty Photographs
Silicon Valley’s rising alignment with the cultural MAGA-verse was on show Monday.
In attendance on the inauguration was Dana White, president and CEO of UFC, who was not too long ago appointed to the board of Meta and is a Trump ally.
White and Meta’s Zuckerberg, whose hobbies embrace MMA preventing, have been noticed collectively a number of instances over time.
Podcaster Theo Von, one of many web celebrities Trump used to court docket younger male voters, was on the inauguration, too, representing an ascendant realm of right-wing media.
Joe Rogan, who interviewed Trump on his fashionable podcast in late October and Zuckerberg earlier this month, additionally attended from the Rotunda.
Miriam Adelson, Las Vegas Sands
Saul Loeb-Pool/Getty Photographs
Adelson, the widow of on line casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, was additionally in attendance.
In line with the Related Press, the longtime GOP megadonor co-hosted a reception for Trump on Monday evening alongside Zuckerberg; Tilman Fertitta, Trump’s choose for US ambassador to Italy; Todd Ricketts, co-owner of the Chicago Cubs; and Ricketts’ spouse, Sylvie Légère.
Phil Ruffin, Circus Circus Resort and On line casino
Chip Somodevilla through Getty Photographs
Las Vegas on line casino magnate Phil Ruffin attended the inauguration together with his spouse, Oleksandra Nikolayenko. Trump had served as Ruffin’s finest man when he married Nikolayenko in 2008.
Exterior of Washington DC, responses from the company world additionally poured in on-line, too.
Pichai, Prepare dinner, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and former New York Metropolis mayor Michael Bloomberg have been amongst these congratulating Trump on X, previously often known as Twitter, on Monday.
Correction: January 20, 2025 — An earlier model of this story misstated Jeff Bezos’ present place at Amazon. He’s the founder and government chairman, not the CEO.
