The inauguration ceremony of US President Donald Trump was attended by influential people of the technology sector. However, there is a lot of criticism about the seating system in this event. Because these tech billionaires were given seats in front of the proposed cabinet members. Trump's critics see the incident as a symbol of oligarchy (state power in the hands of a few) and their dominant power.
SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Mater CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos were present at the ceremony held at the Capital Rotunda. They came as a symbol of the technology industry's increasingly close relationship with the US president.
Also expected to attend the event were TikTok CEO Shou Ji Chiu, OpenAI's Sam Altman and Uber's Dara Khosrowshahir.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams, podcaster Joe Rogan and Chairman Emeritus of Fox Corporation, News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch, and Argentine President Javier Miley were also present. But they were in less important seats.
The event was initially supposed to be held under the open sky outside the capitol building. There technology entrepreneurs were supposed to sit on the altar (place of high honor). It is a venue where members of the Trump family, former presidents and other high profile guests sit.
However, due to severe winter in Washington last Monday, the inauguration ceremony was moved inside the Capitol. As a result, the pre-arranged seating arrangements are changed. As a result, tech industry leaders were placed next to members of the Trump family and ahead of proposed cabinet members.
In a post on X, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren said the big tech billionaire had a front-row seat to Trump's inauguration. They are even better placed than Trump's own cabinet nominees. Many things are clear from this incident.
Apart from this, Jeff Bezos' fiancee Lauren Sanchez was in the first row at the event. Democratic media commentator Ron Filipkowski noted, 'No congresswoman could enter Rutanda at today's event. But the rules are different for oligarchs.'
Former Trump administration chief strategist Steve Bannon said the gathering of tech leaders at Monday's inauguration felt like they were making “a formal surrender” to Trump. He compared it to the September 1945 surrender of Japan in World War II, which took place aboard the USS Missouri.
Earlier, former President Joe Biden warned that 'an oligarchy is emerging in the United States, where extreme wealth, power and influence are combined to put our entire democracy in real jeopardy. He expressed concern about the dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a few very wealthy individuals.
