WHO RULES AMERIKA
ByAFP
January 20, 2025
Priscilla Chan, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Lauren Sanchez, Jeff Bezos, Alphabet’s CEO Sundar Pichai, and businessman Elon Musk, attend the inauguration ceremony of US President-elect Donald Trump in the US Capitol Rotunda in Washington, DC - Copyright POOL/AFP Shawn THEW
US tech multibillionaires — including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos — were given prime positions at Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday, in an unprecedented demonstration of their power and influence in the White House.
The tech tycoons, whose companies are among the world’s most valuable, have spent the ten weeks since the election courting favor with Trump, marking a dramatic shift from Silicon Valley’s more hostile response to his first term four years ago.
Attendees also included Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, along with the search engine’s founder Sergey Brin. TikTok CEO Shou Chew sat in the back row of the stage, even as his platform’s future remains uncertain.
TikTok on Sunday credited Trump for promising an executive order to save the app from a US ban, though its fate in the United States remains unclear while under Chinese company ByteDance’s ownership, in defiance of a US law.
Despite highly limited seating after the ceremony moved indoors due to bad weather, Meta CEO Zuckerberg attended with his wife Priscilla Chan, while Amazon executive Bezos was accompanied by his fiancée, Lauren Sanchez.
Their prominent positions on the inauguration stage — more visible than many cabinet members — was particularly notable for Zuckerberg, whom Trump had threatened with life imprisonment just months ago.
Zuckerberg recently made headlines by brashly aligning his company’s policies with Trump’s worldview, notably by eliminating fact-checking in the United States and relaxing hate speech restrictions on Facebook and Instagram.
Musk has shown the strongest support for Trump, contributing $277 million to the president’s campaign and transforming his X platform into an amplifier for pro-Trump voices.
Bezos, like Zuckerberg and his peers, has visited Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida leading up to the inauguration, with favorable treatment, government contracts and reduced regulatory scrutiny for Amazon in the balance.
As owner of The Washington Post, Bezos sparked controversy by blocking the newspaper’s planned endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris for the 2024 presidential election, triggering newsroom protests and subscriber cancellations.
Musk has been appointed to co-lead the Department of Government Efficiency to advise the White House on cutbacks to public spending and has spent much of the past two months at Mar-a-Lago.
While Musk’s SpaceX is already a major government contractor, Amazon’s AWS cloud computing division and Google also count the US government among their biggest clients.
Google, Meta, Apple, and Amazon face landmark antitrust lawsuits from the US government that could force their breakup.
'Have they found Jesus?' Scarborough gobsmacked by tech CEOs at church with Trump
Jennifer Bowers Bahney
January 20, 2025
Jennifer Bowers Bahney
January 20, 2025
RAW STORY
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump attends a service at St. John's Church on the inauguration day of his second Presidential term in Washington, U.S. January 20, 2025. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough seemed gobsmacked when he learned the list of big-name tech CEOs attending church with the first family Monday morning.
On Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski set the stage saying, "This is quite a day in history. Amid a flurry of last minute pardons put out by President Biden, we are getting ready for President-elect Donald Trump to take over again in his second term as president."
"So, John Lemire, why don't you get us up to date with the church service?" Joe Scarborough added. "Also, the pardons, who we've heard from those pardons, and also the news, there has been some contradiction earlier about whether you had to accept the pardons or not. Get us up to date on all of that."
"First, we're looking at Saint John's Church there, at 'The Church of the Presidents,' as it's known, just north of Lafayette Park, just a block or so north of the White House. President-elect Trump, Melania Trump, his family, close advisers, have all entered in the last 15 or 20 minutes."
ALSO READ: Inside the parade of right-wing world leaders flocking to D.C. for Trump's inauguration
"Who else is in there? Do you know?" Scarborough asked.
"We also have, in addition to, we saw J.D. Vance walk in, we also have other new Trump supporters have joined. In fact, Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos, some of these tech giants who have been spotted at a number of events —"
"They're in the church?" Brzezinski asked, incredulous.
"They're actually in the pews?" Scarborough added.
Lemire continued, "They are now in the church, spotted by — "
"I didn't know they were religious!" a voice said off camera.
Scarborough quipped, "I didn't either! Have they found Jesus, Lemire?"
"They found something in the last few weeks, to be sure," Lemire said. "Spotted by the press pool that's inside all of those tech leaders inside that church and are expected to participate in the inaugural events later today."
Zuckerberg, Cook, and Bezos have all been roundly criticized for "bending the knee" to Trump by traveling to Mar-a-Lago after the election where they are believed to have curried the incoming president's favor in the interest of their trillion-dollar businesses.
Watch the video below or at this link.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump attends a service at St. John's Church on the inauguration day of his second Presidential term in Washington, U.S. January 20, 2025. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough seemed gobsmacked when he learned the list of big-name tech CEOs attending church with the first family Monday morning.
On Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski set the stage saying, "This is quite a day in history. Amid a flurry of last minute pardons put out by President Biden, we are getting ready for President-elect Donald Trump to take over again in his second term as president."
"So, John Lemire, why don't you get us up to date with the church service?" Joe Scarborough added. "Also, the pardons, who we've heard from those pardons, and also the news, there has been some contradiction earlier about whether you had to accept the pardons or not. Get us up to date on all of that."
"First, we're looking at Saint John's Church there, at 'The Church of the Presidents,' as it's known, just north of Lafayette Park, just a block or so north of the White House. President-elect Trump, Melania Trump, his family, close advisers, have all entered in the last 15 or 20 minutes."
ALSO READ: Inside the parade of right-wing world leaders flocking to D.C. for Trump's inauguration
"Who else is in there? Do you know?" Scarborough asked.
"We also have, in addition to, we saw J.D. Vance walk in, we also have other new Trump supporters have joined. In fact, Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos, some of these tech giants who have been spotted at a number of events —"
"They're in the church?" Brzezinski asked, incredulous.
"They're actually in the pews?" Scarborough added.
Lemire continued, "They are now in the church, spotted by — "
"I didn't know they were religious!" a voice said off camera.
Scarborough quipped, "I didn't either! Have they found Jesus, Lemire?"
"They found something in the last few weeks, to be sure," Lemire said. "Spotted by the press pool that's inside all of those tech leaders inside that church and are expected to participate in the inaugural events later today."
Zuckerberg, Cook, and Bezos have all been roundly criticized for "bending the knee" to Trump by traveling to Mar-a-Lago after the election where they are believed to have curried the incoming president's favor in the interest of their trillion-dollar businesses.
Watch the video below or at this link.
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