X owner Elon Musk, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg sat closer to President Donald Trump as he took the oath of office on Monday than his Cabinet nominees.
The tech giants, along with their spouses, were seated on the left side of the dias, directly behind Trump’s family as the incoming president took the oath of office. Many of the CEOs were also spotted at Trump’s prayer service at St. John’s Church, along with podcaster Joe Rogan.
The news comes after the executives donated heavily to Trump’s inaugural fund and began fostering good relations with the new president.
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Musk has emerged as a top Trump ally since vigorously campaigning for the president last fall and subsequently being appointed to lead the new Department of Government Efficiency.
Zuckerberg recently rolled back diversity, equity, and inclusion policies at Meta, a key priority for Trump during the campaign. The Meta founder also rescinded controversial fact-checking policies, which critics had argued were biased against Trump and other Republicans.
All of the tech gurus have flocked to meet with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, the president’s Florida home since he won a second term in office.
As a result of the ceremony’s limited capacity – only 600 – a number of governors including Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), Brian Kemp (R-GA) and Greg Abbott (R-TX) were relegated to an overflow room in Emancipation Hall. Open AI CEO Sam Altman was also spotted in the room as well, in addition to the spouses of members of Congress.
Even Trump himself seemed to be caught off guard at the seating arrangements when he entered the hall to address the crowd and immediately called out Abbott.
“Wow, look at you. We couldn’t get you in the front row,” Trump said, pointing to Abbott during his secondary remarks. “See, I didn’t know you were there and he’s doing a great job.”
“I’m so glad I mentioned that they have a really good governor in Texas and I swear I didn’t know he was here. I swear to you, sounds like a setup. I didn’t know,” Trump said later in the remarks.
Even before Trump spoke, Democrats began to launch their counter-messaging, taking issue with the seating arrangements and echoing earlier statements from former President Joe Biden, in which he warned of the danger of the influence of the nation’s tech CEOs and compared them to oligarchs.
“This isn’t about left or right. It’s about whose side you’re on. I’m with workers and middle-class families, not the billionaires who want you to foot the bill for their tax cuts,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) said in a post on X, referencing another post that stated the CEOs had been seated among the Trump family.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said the seating arrangements send a powerful message about the future administration’s priorities.
“Big Tech billionaires have a front row seat at Trump’s inauguration. They have even better seats than Trump’s own Cabinet picks. That says it all,” Warren wrote on X.
Trump had previously clashed with social media companies frequently during his first term, many of which had flagged his posts and others that included “misinformation.” After leaving office, Trump was banned from Twitter and suspended from Facebook after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. In his speech, he vowed to “bring back free speech to America.”
“After years of illegal and unconstitutional federal efforts to restrict free expression, I will also sign an executive order to immediately stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to America,” Trump said.
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Some Republicans weren’t thrilled about the seating arrangements either, but were expressing their grievances privately.
“Not the best message to send, having some of these tech folks there instead of prominent governors who will work with this incoming administration,” one GOP lawmaker to the Washington Examiner. “Musk certainly has earned his place there, but why Zuckerberg and some of the others? It just felt wrong to me.”
