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Tech bros Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Tim Cook were seen sitting together at the inaugural church service for President-elect Donald Trump on Monday.
The Meta CEO, Amazon founder and Apple CEO, respectively, were seen at the St. John’s Episcopal Church in Lafayette Square across from the White House on Monday. Also in pews were Google CEO Sundar Pichai and the former executive chairman of Fox Corp Rupert Murdoch.
Another addition to the Trump church crew was podcaster Joe Rogan.
Tech leaders have been trying to get into Trump’s good books ever since he was re-elected in November. Some made the trek to Mar-a-Lago to pay their respects and some have also made changes to their company’s policies to ease the relationship with the incoming commander-in-chief.
The entrepreneur closest to Trump, Elon Musk, who has been seen at a number of events related to the inauguration, donated hundreds of millions of dollars to help the president-elect win the 2024 election.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO is also co-leading the newly created Department of Government Efficiency alongside 2024 Republican primary candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who is now expected to run for governor of Ohio.
The advisory body will make suggestions on how to cut government spending. Musk appeared with Trump on the campaign trail after his endorsement and has been a near-constant presence since the election.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg made changes this month to his lobbying staff and content moderation policies to more closely align his company with the second Trump administration. Meta then donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has also rolled back its program on diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI. This comes after its decision to remove its third-party fact-checking program and roll back hate speech and abuse policies.
Bezos, the Amazon founder and Washington Post owner, put a stop to an expected endorsement of Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris by the paper’s editorial board. He instead decided that the paper wouldn’t make an endorsement in the race, for the first time in 36 years.
Similar to Meta, Amazon also donated $1 million to the inaugural fund.
Trump hosted Cook for dinner at Mar-a-Lago last month. The president-elect has previously said that he has spoken to Cook about Apple’s tax fights with the European Union. That meeting came less than two months after Trump said he spoke to Cook by phone and soon after Apple lost an appeal in a dispute with the European Union over back taxes to Ireland totaling more than $14 billion.
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