Billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg are scheduled to attend Donald Trump’s inauguration next week. NBC News reported Tuesday, emphasizing efforts by tech leaders to build stronger ties with the incoming president.
The network, citing an unnamed official involved in planning the Jan. 20 event, said the trio will be seated together on the platform with key guests, including Trump Cabinet nominees.
Musk — CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and majority owner of X — has become one of Trump’s closest allies and his planned presence at the event is no surprise.
Musk shares Trump’s hard-right politics and has poured millions of dollars into supporting his presidential campaign.
Trump has tapped Musk to co-lead an advisory commission aimed at cutting federal spending and bureaucracy, called the Department of Government Efficiency, or “DOGE,” which will not be a U.S. government agency.
Bezos and Zuckerberg have a less close relationship with Trump, but both have tried to curry favor with the president-elect since the election, including meeting him at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
Metta CEO Zuckerberg signaled a political shift to the right last week when he announced that Facebook and Instagram would end fact-checking in the United States, a reaction to what he called governments and so-called legacies. characterized as censorship by the media.
The pivot to Trump’s talking points shocked some meta-watchers, but it was also in line with Zuckerberg’s past decisions aimed at maintaining his dominance of social media.
Over the summer, Trump threatened to jail Zuckerberg over Facebook’s decision to ban him from the platform in 2021.
Underscoring Zuckerberg’s continued foray into politics, he will co-host the inaugural reception after Trump with several prominent Republican donors, according to an invitation obtained by the Pick news site on Tuesday.
Bezos’ relationship with Trump has also seen moments of significant friction.
The founders of Amazon are also owners. The Washington Postone of many newspapers that Trump has railed against over the years.
In a decision that shocked many in the American media. Post He refused to endorse a presidential candidate before the November election.
According to a newspaper report, Bezos intervened to prevent the board from publishing an editorial favoring Vice President Kamala Harris.
The management of the newspaper denied the report.
Bezos’ aerospace company Blue Origin also competes for lucrative government contracts.