Trump Inauguration Looks Like the World’s Most Expensive CEO Summit

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Donald Trump’s inauguration Monday was pitched as a return to populist politics. Instead, the most striking image was a neat row of tech billionaires, clustered like living proof of where American power now resides.

Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, and Tim Cook occupied the front seats, their collective net worth towering over actual government officials scattered behind them. Trump’s Cabinet picks—fierce loyalists like Marco Rubio and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—filled out the remaining rows.

“Presidential inaugurations are meant to symbolize power passing to the people’s representatives,” said one political analyst. “This one looked like power had passed directly to the men who already own half the economy.”

Trump dismissed concerns, saying the billionaires “just happened to show up” and praising them as “smart guys who get things done.” Yet the symbolism was impossible to ignore.

As one onlooker put it, “If you wanted a snapshot of America in 2025, there it was. The richest people alive, the most partisan loyalists alive, and the rest of us left to watch on TV.”