Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and other Big Tech leaders flocking to Trump's inauguration

Elon Musk, the “First Buddy,” is expected to be near Trump during the inauguration, owing to his close relationship with the incoming president.

Musk has been granted his own task force — the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE — a non-government body that will make recommendations to Trump and Congress for cutting federal spending. He’s expected to lead the committee with fellow billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, who may instead pursue a seat in the Senate.

Musk will reportedly have his own office space in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which is adjacent to the White House, allowing him continued access to Trump. Musk has been renting a cottage at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in recent weeks so he can provide advice to the incoming president at his “Winter White House” and livestream himself playing video games.

He’s also joined Trump for a number of meetings with world leaders and fellow tech leaders, including Jeff Bezos. On Wednesday, Musk joined Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance for lunch with Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Satya Nadella and President Brad Smith, Semafor reports. Microsoft is heavily investing in artificial intelligence and recently donated to the inauguration.

Amazon (AMZN) chairman and Blue Origin owner Jeff Bezos will also join Musk at the inauguration, just a handful of days after his aerospace firm launched its mega-rocket into orbit.

Amazon was one of the first major public companies known to donate to the inauguration; it donated $1 million to the fund itself and plans a separate $1 million in-kind donation by streaming the event on Amazon Video.

That’s a big increase from the $58,000 the company gave to Trump’s 2017 inauguration. In 2021, Amazon gave $276,509 to Biden’s fund, while its subsidiary Amazon Web Services contributed $50,000.

Bezos has been trying to make amends with the president-elect, who he clashed with frequently during his first term over a lucrative contract known as JEDI, which was initially awarded to Microsoft. In October, he quashed plans from The Washington Post, which he owns, to endorse Trump’s Democratic rival, a move that quickly hit the newspaper’s wallet.

Last month, Bezos met with Trump for dinner at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla., alongside Musk. “EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE MY FRIEND!!!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social the following morning.

Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly joining Bezos and Musk at the inauguration as he continues to draw closer ties to the next administration.

Besides donating to the inaugural fund, Meta (META) has added Dana White, the CEO of Ultimate Fighting Championship (EDR) and Trump ally, to its board of directors and scrapped Meta’s fact-checking practices in favor of an Elon Musk-inspired crowd-sourced solution.

Moderation policies have also been rolled back, in a move praised by conservatives but criticized by groups worried that it will allow antisemitism, anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric, and disinformation to spread. Meta also canned its chief diversity officer position, ended diversity hiring goals, and said it would not prioritize minority-owned vendors.

Later on Monday, Zuckerberg is co-hosting a black-tie reception alongside Miriam Adelson, the widow of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and one of Trump’s top donors, according to The Hill. The three-hour event is also being co-hosted by a former Republican National Committee chair and Houston Rockets owner, Tilman Fertitta.

Fertitta, whose net worth is estimated at $10 billion, also owns the company behind Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. and has been tapped as Trump’s ambassador to Italy.

Google (GOOGL) CEO Sundar Pichai is expected to join the cavalcade of tech leaders heading to Trump’s inauguration, Business Insider reports, citing a person familiar with his plans.

The news came shortly after his company $1 million to the inaugural fund and said it would livestream the event on YouTube with a direct link featured on the video-sharing platform’s homepage. Google had donated $285,000 to each of the prior two inaugural funds.

Pichai also expressed excitement to work on a “Manhattan Project” for artificial intelligence ahead of a meeting with Trump in December, referring to the World War II-era program to develop nuclear weapons. During The New York Times’ DealBook Summit last month, Pichai said he hoped Trump could help build infrastructure for AI.

That would likely see Google — and other AI firms — work with David Sacks, the venture capitalist who Trump has named his “crypto and AI czar,” and Former Microsoft executive Sriram Krishnan, who will serve as a senior advisor to Trump on AI.

The New York Times reports that TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew will attend Trump’s inauguration on Monday, just a day after his social media platform will likely be banned from the U.S.

Chew was invited to sit in a position of honor on the dais, the Times reports, where important guests — including Zuckerberg, Bezos, and Musk — will also be seated. It’s a move that highlights not only Trump’s changing views on TikTok but also his plans to save the app from being kicked out of the country.

Chinese firm ByteDance, which has expressed its unwillingness to sell TikTok, was given until January 19 to find a buyer or face a ban, which would make the app unbailable for download in the U.S. and block U.S. internet service providers from allowing access to the platform. The Supreme Court is currently debating whether to block the ban.

Trump has asked the Supreme Court to delay implementing the ban until he enters office so that he can look into the case. In December, he said that he has a “warm spot” in his heart for TikTok, which he credited for delivering support from younger voters. He also met with Chew last month at his Mar-a-Lago club.

Trump, who first proposed a ban on TikTok in 2020 before announcing a sudden change of heart in March, could issue a 90-day pause on the ban if the Supreme Court approves it. He could also ask the Justice Department and attorney general not to enforce the TikTok ban. When asked on Wednesday, Attorney General nominee Pam Bondi refused to commit to enforcing the ban.

Apple (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook plans to attend the inauguration, according to Bloomberg News, citing a person familiar with the matter. According to Axios, he donated $1 million to Trump’s 2025 inaugural committee.

Cook is one of the few tech CEOs who has yet to have a major falling out with Trump. During the first Trump administration, Cook frequently called the then-president, sat on the administration’s Workforce Policy Advisory Board, and hosted Trump at Apple’s campus in Austin, Texas.

In 2019, after Cook managed to convince Trump to get Apple an exemption from a series of tariffs affecting Chinese imports, Cook gifted the then-president with one of the first Mac Pros built at its new U.S. facility. In an interview with Bloomberg News in June, Trump remarked that he found Cook to be “a very good businessman.”

“I believe that if Tim Cook didn’t run Apple, if Steve Jobs did, it wouldn’t be nearly as successful as it is now,” Trump said on an episode of the PBD Podcast in October. “I think so because I think Tim Cook has done an amazing job, and I’m not knocking Steve Jobs, but it wouldn’t have been the same.”