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Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world

A few days after Donald Trump’s last term in office in 2017, Google co-founder Sergey Brin joined a protest against the new administration’s immigration policies, warning that they threaten “fundamentals amount” in the US.

On Monday, he joined more than a dozen billionaires in the prime seats of Trump’s second inauguration, cheering on a man who has promised to deport millions of migrants, to use those lever of American justice to keep political opponents and launch sweeping tariffs.

said Trump inauguration ceremony in the US Capitol underscored the president’s deepening ties to titans of industry and the changing stance of business leaders who once mocked him. Four of the five richest people in the world are placed more prominently than members of his own cabinet, with their spouses occupying seats at the expense of governors and members of congress.

Elon Muska former Joe Biden supporter who spent a quarter-of-a-billion dollars on the acquisition Trump elected, joined by many people dais Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, who this month eliminated fact-checking on his social media platforms in a peace offer to Trump, and Jeff Bezos of Amazon, who stopped the editorial board in his newspaper endorsing Kamala Harris.

Meters away are Europe’s richest man Bernard Arnault, head of the LVMH luxury goods empire, India’s Mukesh Ambani, and Apple chief executive Tim Cook, who like other tech chief executives, donated $1m to Trump to advance the proceedings. They join cabinet nominees who are billionaires in their own right, including commerce secretary pick Howard Lutnick and Treasury nominee Scott Bessent.

“People are power,” Lutnick said of Trump in a speech Monday at the Capital One arena, where the president’s supporters gathered to watch him take the oath. “He is the power.”

Lutnick was followed by Musk, who received thunderous applause when he promised to help Trump usher in a “golden age”.

In a sign of Musk’s growing power and influence, people also cheered the billionaire’s reference to Trump’s pledge to send astronauts to Mars — a move that would benefit Musk’s SpaceX, and one that is considered wasteful. and is not required by scientists within the US government.

Such displays of corporate power have been challenged by some members of Trump’s core support base of ‘Maga’. Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, hit out at Musk and the tech moguls in the president’s orbit this week, echoing Biden in calling them “oligarchs” and claiming they were “created by the Democratic Party and lord of quick money”.

Democrats have also been quick to use the inauguration scene to undermine Trump’s populist credentials, with the Democratic National Committee claiming that by “leaving his own supporters literally out in the cold while those billionaire worth more than $ 1tn gets a front seat” the president indicated that he will always “put himself and his richest supporters ahead of the American people”.

Inside the Capitol One Arena on Monday, where Trump supporters gathered to watch the inauguration after it was moved indoors, the presence of the billionaires — seen by many Maga believers as supplicants, rather than puppet masters – most welcome.

Minnesota farmer Cherry Fiedler said she hopes the prominence of tech billionaires means “all censorship is gone”, and predicts diversity, equity and inclusion policies will also be removed from the biggest ones. company in the world after Trump’s victory.

“Many of those former business leaders . . . against Trump,” added Paul Kirby, an accountant from Missouri who traveled to Washington for the ceremony. “All the leaders are basically on their knees . . . (Trump) is in control, he’s regained power.