Bezos, Zuckerberg, Pichai join Trump for pre-inauguration church service
A parade of tech billionaires and prominent members of their class joined President-elect Donald Trump as he kicked off his pre-inauguration celebrations with a church service on Monday morning.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg, Apple leader Tim Cook and Google chief Sundar Pichai were seen taking their prime seats at St John’s Church.
Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, FIFA president Gianni Infantino and former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson were also seen at the church.
Many of these executives were among Trump’s earlier business critics during his first term, speaking out on issues such as climate change and immigration.
TikTok Chief Executive Shaw Zi Chou is also expected to attend the inauguration, as his company grapples with the fallout from the US ban, as well as OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Uber’s Dara Khosrowshahi.
Then of course there’s SpaceX and Tesla owner Elon Musk, who spent nearly $300 million to help the president’s campaign and has remained firmly at his side ever since.
It is an amazing sight. The last public event in Washington to bring so many tech bosses together in the same room was a 2020 congressional hearing aimed at targeting their companies.
Today, most companies still have serious pending cases before the US government, including antitrust lawsuits, investigations, regulatory fights, and tariffs.
Last week, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Michael Bennet, both Democrats, shared a letter addressed to the executives, accusing them of “coordinating with the incoming Trump administration in an effort to avoid scrutiny, limit regulation, and buy favors.” Was accused of trying.
“Interestingly, they never sent me one of these to contribute to the Democrats,” Mr. Altman posted on social media in response.
How enduring the tech bromance proves to be, and how far Trump will go on many of these issues, remains open questions.
But the president, who first left office as a sort of pariah in the business world, appears to be relishing his new position.
As he wrote on social media last month: “Everyone wants to be my friend!!!”
Trump’s budding friendship with tech executives hasn’t gone over well with everyone in his circle.
Former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon on Sunday called Musk a “really evil guy”, claiming he would “run him out of here by Inauguration Day”.
“I look at it and I think most people in our movement look at it as if President Trump broke up the oligarchs, he broke them and they surrendered,” Bannon told ABC News.
