I think there are Democrats who are reeling here that they got hijacked. That’s the story of the election. Speaking of all the money, we’ve been talking about the big tech CEOs and the billionaires putting their money to work when it comes to President-elect Trump and the inauguration, which is coming on Today.
Eamon Javers joins us with some new details. Good morning, Eamon. Good morning, Sara. This is something we’ve never seen before: the CEOs of some of the most powerful and wealthy technology and media companies in the world seated on the platform for the inauguration of an American president.
Here is what we know: the CEOs of Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta, Tesla, and of course the social media site X will all appear on the Capitol’s west front. Each company has enormous stakes, in some cases possibly existential stakes, in decisions that could be made by President-elect Trump.
For Tim Cook of Apple, for example, it’s all about U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods. Trump has called for tariffs on imports from China as high as 60%, and Apple is said to produce as much as 95% of its iPhones and Macs in China. Jeff Bezos’s Amazon has enormous contracts with the federal government, as does his smaller rocket company Blue Origin.
The billionaire who feuded with Trump during his first term visited Mar-a-Lago in December. The “Washington Post” broke with precedent and declined to make an endorsement in the recent presidential election. Stakes are equally dramatic for Sundar Pichai, with the threat of a breakup of the search giant Google looming.
The Trump Department of Justice will make crucial decisions affecting the outcome of that case. Trump has expressed some skepticism of the idea of breaking up Google back in October. That may be an opening for Google, and Pichai might be thinking about that as he sits on the platform on Monday.
It’s even more personal for Mark Zuckerberg. Trump has repeatedly threatened to send the Meta CEO to prison or said he should go to prison. Trump would not have the power to do that directly, but his DOJ would have the power to initiate investigations into Meta. Zuckerberg has enormous interest in the outcome of the debate over TikTok, the popular and growing social media site that competes with Facebook and Instagram.
Donald Trump may have a lot to say about the fate of TikTok. We will wait and see next week. Elon Musk, of course, has been by the President-elect’s side at Mar-a-Lago nearly day and night since election day. Almost all of his companies are tied up with the federal government in terms of regulation, contracts, and the like.
I want to clarify. The President-elect has taken back those things that he said about Mark Zuckerberg. That is not the latest state of things. It’s much more positive. I know that both of them want to be sure that it’s not the case that he is sent to jail. I want to point that out because of the people that you mentioned with the best relationships, it’s now Zuckerberg.
And is the TikTok CEO going to be there? What’s the latest? We do expect the TikTok CEO to be there as well. In this case, we are just talking about American CEOs, but we also are expecting the Vice President of China to be there as well. This is a President-elect who has given a lot of thought to who he wants to be up there and the message that sends to the world in terms of American power and the power of this presidency.
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