The leaders of the nation’s biggest technology companies ― including Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Apple’s Tim Cook, and Tesla’s Elon Musk ― got top billing at Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration on Monday.
The tech CEOs, who donated millions of dollars to Trump’s inaugural committee, were seated on the inaugural platform in the U.S. Capitol rotunda in front of the vast majority of Trump’s expected Cabinet officials, giving them a prime view of the ceremony.
Moreover, the tech CEOs were joined by their spouses ― an accommodation not provided to most members of Congress due to space constraints in the circular Rotunda following Trump’s decision to move the inauguration inside of the Captiol building as a result of the cold weather in Washington.
“All you need to know. The billionaires are in charge. Not you,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) wrote in a post online.
Meanwhile, the nation’s governors who attended the inauguration were not present in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda at all. They were instead relegated to an overflow room with other dignitaries in the visitors’ center located in the basement of the Capitol complex. Those governors included Trump supporters like Florida’s Ron DeSantis, Georgia’s Brian Kemp, and Virginia’s Glenn Youngkin.
Corporate America’s warming to Trump, the many billionaires in his Cabinet, and the tech industry’s closeness to the new president have all generated alarm about unprecedented conflicts of interest in his administration.
We Won’t Back Down
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“I want to warn the country of some things that give me great concern: the dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultra-wealthy group of people and the dangerous consequences if their abuse is left unchecked,” outgoing President Joe Biden warned in his farewell address to the nation last week.
“Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America that literally threatens our democracy, our basic rights, our freedoms,” Biden added.
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