Tech billionaires take centre stage at president’s inauguration

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 favour 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.