Billionaires got prime seats to Trump’s inauguration — ahead of his own cabinet and lawmakers

• Trump was sworn in as president for the 2nd time today.
• Key business and tech CEOs are in Washington for his inauguration.
• As his 2nd term begins, business and tech are largely embracing him, rather than shunning him.

Donald Trump was sworn in as President of the United States for the second time on Monday — and key business and tech leaders were there to watch it happen.

It’s not just Elon Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO who spent hundreds of millions of dollars to elect Trump. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai were also in attendance. Musk, Zuckerberg, Pichai, and Bezos were sitting on the inaugural platform, in front of many of Trump’s cabinet appointees and politicians — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, for example, reportedly watched from the overflow room.

In light of the news that Trump will reverse a recent ban on TikTok, Shou Chew, the app’s CEO, was also been spotted in the Capitol Rotunda. Many of those leaders’ companies have donated to Trump’s inaugural committee, and Zuckerberg recently announced changes to Meta that seemed designed to please conservatives. Ruport Murdoch, patriarch of the Fox News empire, was also present.

Silicon Valley’s new alignment with the cultural MAGA-verse is on display — Dana White, CEO of UFC and new member of Meta’s board, was in attendance. Podcaster Theo Von, one of the internet celebrities Trump used to try and court young men this election, was at the inauguration, too.

It’s not just the new cultural and media leaders that have a seat, as longstanding luxury titans have a prime spot for the ceremony. Members of the Arnault family, who controls brands including Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior, were spotted in the Rotunda.

Vivek Ramaswamy, still the co-head of the Department of Government Efficiency who is rumored to be leaving the commission to run for governor of Ohio, was also in attendance.

It’s a big shift from recent years, when Trump and other conservatives had often been at odds with Big Tech and occasionally found themselves on the wrong end of their content moderation policies.