Trump, a populist president, is flanked by tech billionaires at his inauguration

NEW YORK (AP) — Some of the most exclusive seats at President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday were reserved for powerful tech CEOs who also happen to be among the world’s richest men.

That's a shift from tradition, especially for a president who has characterized himself as a champion of the working class. Seats so close to the president are usually reserved for the president's family, past presidents and other honored guests.

Photos show the tech CEOs mingling with several of Trump's picks for the Cabinet, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary and Marco Rubio as secretary of state.

In one image, Rubio looks on from the background, facing a lineup of tech's wealthiest leaders. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, stand beside Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and his fiancee, Lauren Sánchez, along with Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Elon Musk, one of Trump's closest advisers. The world's wealthiest person, Musk also runs Tesla, SpaceX and the social platform X.

Also at the Capitol for the day's events were Apple CEO Tim Cook and TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew.

The mega-rich have long had a prominent role in national politics, and several billionaires helped bankroll the campaign of Trump’s Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris. Then-President Joe Biden recently gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to George Soros, a billionaire donor to liberal causes.

But the inaugural display highlights the unusually direct role the world's wealthiest people will likely have in the new administration. In his outgoing address, Biden warned that the U.S. was becoming an oligarchy of tech billionaires wielding dangerous levels of power and influence on the nation.

Speaking in the Oval Office Monday, Trump rejected Biden's criticism, saying the tech executives supported Democrats until they realized Biden “didn't know what the hell he was talking about.”

“They did desert him,” Trump added. "They were all with him, every one of them, and now they are all with me.”

Despite taking millions from the executives and their companies for his inaugural committee — and receiving more than $200 million in assistance from Musk in his presidential campaign — Trump claimed he didn't need their money and they wouldn't be receiving anything in return.

“They're not going to get anything from me," Trump said. "I don't need money, but I do want the nation to do well, and they're smart people and they create a lot of jobs.”

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