Several tech billionaires joined President-elect Donald Trump at a church service ahead of his inauguration on Monday. Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg, Apple leader Tim Cook, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and Google chief Sundar Pichai were seen at St John’s Church, ready to attend the president-elect’s inauguration ceremony.
TikTok chief executive Shou Zi Chou was also present in the nation’s capital amid his company’s issues with the U.S.
Trump has said he will sign an executive order to try to delay congressional legislation to ban TikTok.
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Sam Altman of OpenAI and Dara Khosrowshahi of Uber are also attending the inauguration. SpaceX and Tesla boss Elon Musk, who spent almost $300 million helping the Trump campaign, also attended.
Deadline.com reported on Monday that these tech CEOs will get “the choicest of seating”. Musk, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, as well as Rupert Murdoch and Joe Rogan were spotted in the Rotunda.
The last time so many tech titans were seen together in the same room in Washington was a 2020 congressional hearing targeted at their companies.
Many of these tech companies also have unresolved issues before the U.S. government, including investigations, anti-monopoly lawsuits, regulatory fights and tariffs, BBC reported.
Some of the bosses of these companies have also had a rocky past with Trump, with some temporarily banning him from their platforms. Still, scores of them met the president-elect at Mar-a-Lago, showing their preparedness to work with him ahead of his swearing-in.
“This is about mutually beneficial as it gets,” CNN’s Dana Bash said of the presence of the tech CEOs ahead of Trump’s inauguration.
Even though these tech entrepreneurs made up a majority of the list of the attendees at Trump’s inauguration, several political leaders were also present at the ceremony. Former President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden, as well as former Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff, were in attendance.
Former Vice President Mike Pence was also seen in the Rotunda, as well as former President Barack Obama, former President Bill Clinton and former first lady Hillary Clinton. Former first lady Michelle Obama was not present but former President George W. Bush and former first lady Laura Bush were there.
