Billionaire tech CEOs Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, Sundar Pichai of Google, Tim Cook of Apple, and Elon Musk got prime seats at President Trump’s inauguration in the Capitol rotunda — peeving lawmakers in both parties.
The billionaire executives sat right behind Trump’s family close to the stage, with some of them accompanied by their spouses and significant others.
A number of governors, meanwhile — including Gov. Greg Abbott (R) of Texas and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) of Florida — and many spouses of members of Congress were relegated to an overflow room in Emancipation Hall due to the limited space in the Capitol rotunda.
Democrats publicly hit back at the seating decision.
“Big Tech billionaires have a front row seat at Trump’s inauguration. They have even better seats than Trump’s own Cabinet picks. That says it all,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote on the social platform X.
Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, called “all the billionaires and special interests who have come to town to suck up to him” the “most telling thing” about the president’s inauguration.
But some Republicans privately were miffed about the seating arrangements, too.
“I didn’t like that,” one GOP lawmaker told The Hill. “It’s just how it is.”
The executives or their companies had all donated hefty sums to Trump’s inauguration fund, likely largely explaining their top spots.
Yet some lawmakers said it sends a message about the incoming administration’s priorities.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) said the seating arrangement “doesn’t give me confidence that working families are the priority.”
“All you need to know. The billionaires are in charge. Not you,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) wrote on X.
Some Republicans are also skeptical about the message it sends to embrace the tech CEOs who previously had been adversaries.
“Why is Zuckerberg all of a sudden in our fold? My concern is, if we hadn’t won, where would he be? Would he be on the other team?” a second GOP lawmaker said. “At least Elon was in the fight.”
Not every billionaire tech mega-donor got a prime spot in the Capitol rotunda, though. Sam Altman of Open AI had a seat in the overflow room in Emancipation Hall, as did Alexandr Wang of Scale AI.
And some members are shrugging off Trump’s inauguration elevating the tech CEOs.
“I think it’s inevitable with something like this,” said Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.). “I know that there are many people that would have loved to have been there, even constituents who flew in, you know, that didn’t get to witness it.”
Taylor Giorno contributed.
