The influence of Silicon Valley was on display at Donald Trump’s inauguration, with the 47th president of the United States taking the oath of office flanked by some of the most prominent CEOs of the tech world.Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Alphabet Inc CEO Sundar Pichai, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos took some of the most exclusive seats at the inauguration on Monday, sitting closer to the president than even some of his cabinet picks.
The ceremony was originally planned as an outdoor event with tech leaders sitting some distance from Trump on a dais, but it was moved indoors to the much smaller Capitol Rotunda due to unusually cold weather in Washington, DC.
The prominence of some of the world’s richest people at the event marked a break from tradition, as the best seats at presidential inaugurations are typically reserved for family members and former US presidents.
As well as outgoing President Joe Biden, past presidents George W Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama attended the inauguration, although Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, stayed away. Advertisement
The optics of Silicon Valley’s proximity to the president were not lost on Trump’s critics, who have warned about the growing threat of a tech oligarchy since his re-election in November.
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