[Tee tiong huat]

World’s three richest people—Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg—will attend Trump’s inauguration and have a prominent spot at the ceremony. The tech moguls will be seated together on the dais alongside former Presidents, Trump’s family, and Cabinet nominees. 

But....comes a little surprise that Musk, the X owner & Tesla and SpaceX CEO. 
Who donated more than a quarter-billion dollars in campaign funds to help elect Trump, would be invited to inauguration. Musk has remained at Trump’s side after campaigning with him & was tapped by Trump to co-lead a new Dept of Government Efficiency. Meanwhile...

Bezos, the Amazon founder also owns Washington Post, decided to withhold newspaper’s endorsement of Harris over Trump in presidential race. Meanwhile, Zuckerberg, >Meta CEO, has apparently tried to earn favor with Trump in recent mths, reshuffling his lobbying staff & content moderation policies by replacing 3rd-party fact-checking with user-written “community notes.” He when on to reportedly co-hosting a black-tie reception Monday with Republican megadonor Miriam Adelson to celebrate Trump’s inauguration.

Shou Zi Chew, the CEO of TikTok, also plans to attend Trump’s inauguration & was reportedly invited to sit on same dais as other tech executives. Trump has embraced TikTok, it faces ban in U.S. on Jan. 19, even though in his first term he tried to block app in the U.S. and force its sale to an American company.

Other Big Tech executives who will reportedly be in attendance are Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI; Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google; Tim Cook, CEO of Apple & Dara Khosrowshahi, the CEO of Uber.

The outgoing president, Democrat Joe Biden, has said he plans to attend the ceremony & witness the transfer of power, as a courtesy. Trump will take the oath of office, admin by Chief Justice of the US John Roberts, at 12 pm eastern standard time (1700 GMT) was originally due to take place in front of US Capitol but now take place inside congressional complex because of bitter cold.

Trump will then deliver his inaugural address. In interviews, he has said he intends it to be uplifting & unifying. That would mark a departure from his first Inauguration Day speech in 2017, which detailed a broken country he described as “American Carnage.”