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A parade of tech billionaires and key members of his orbit joined President-elect Donald Trump as he began his pre-inauguration festivities with a church service Monday morning.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg, Apple leader Tim Cook and Google chief Sundar Pichai were spotted in their prime at St John’s Church.
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch, FIFA president Gianni Infantino and former British prime minister Boris Johnson were also spotted at the church.
Many of these executives were among Trump’s first critics in the business world during his first term, speaking out on issues such as climate change and immigration.
TikTok chief executive Shaw Ji 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 Khasrowshahi.
Then, of course, there’s SpaceX and Tesla boss Elon Musk, who spent nearly $300 million to help the presidential campaign and has been on his side ever since.
It is an impressive sight. The last public event in Washington that brought so many tech bosses together in one room was the 2020 congressional hearings targeting their companies.
Today, most firms still have serious outstanding issues with the US government, including antitrust lawsuits, investigations, regulatory battles and tariffs.
Last week, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Michael Bennet, both Democrats, shared a letter addressed to the governors, accusing them of trying to “coddle the incoming Trump administration to avoid scrutiny, limit regulation and buy favors.”
“Funny they never sent me one of these for contributing to the Democratic Party,” Altman wrote back on social media.
How sustainable the tech bromance is, and how far Trump will push on many of these issues, remain open questions.
But the president, who left office the first time as something of an outcast in the business world, seems to be relishing his new role.
As he wrote on social media last month: “Everybody wants to be my friend!!!”
Trump’s friendship with tech executives didn’t sit well with everyone in his circle.
Former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon on Sunday called Musk a “really bad guy,” saying he wanted him “out of here before Inauguration Day.”
“The way I look at it, and I think most people in our movement look at it, is that President Trump broke the oligarchs, he broke them, and they gave up,” Bannon told ABC News.
