The tech industry's emerging relationship with Trump was on full display Monday, with leaders like Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos seated together in the Capitol Rotunda for Trump's swearing-in.
The tech leaders were long slated to sit on the dais at the inaugural ceremonies — a position of honor where Trump's family members, former presidents and other high-profile guests sit.
While the ceremony was moved inside the Capitol, the leaders still got prime seats. That peeved lawmakers on both sides of the aisle while suggesting the tech titans have made headway with Trump, who spent years hammering the companies in the traditionally deep-blue Silicon Valley.
"You have this incoming president, elevating these people, seating them on the dais and … effectively trying to make them captives of his policymaking," said Daniel Alpert, managing partner at the investment firm Westwood Capital.
Other leaders including Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Apple CEO Tim Cook were also seated in the rotunda, while OpenAI Sam Altman and Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang sat in the overflow room.
The chorus of tech leaders sitting near Trump on Monday would have been an unlikely scene during his first administration. In 2016, many of the same people voiced concerns about Trump's ascendance in the political world.
Some observers in Washington were quick to characterize these moves as attempts to make amends with Trump before he heads back to the Oval Office.
"When we look at the tech space, a lot of these founders want to maybe be on the good side of the president of the United States," said Republican strategist Brittany Martinez.
"I think that's probably helpful in general, you don't want to be an enemy of the most powerful individual of the world,' she added.
Read more in a full report at TheHill.com.
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