America's 47th Inauguration Day was notably different and not just for record cold temperatures bringing events indoors and January 20 coinciding with the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and the College Football Playoff National Championship Game (where my alma mater, Notre Dame, did not pull off a necessary Hail Mary play to beat Ohio State).
President Donald Trump gave three speeches. One was his inaugural address, and two were given at campaign rally style-events preceding and following the swearing in. Most striking to me was the presence of prominent billionaires at the many social events, balls, rallies and the inauguration itself. Once an event for politicians and political insiders, the 2025 inauguration was very much a gathering of the Billionaires' Club, and VVIP passes were given to Big Tech.
The Wall Street Journal ran an interactive photo story showing the seats of various VIPs at the inauguration in the Capitol Rotunda and their proximity to the podium. Elon Musk, world's richest man and CEO of X, Tesla and SpaceX, had a front row seat, as did Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon and owner of The Washington Post; Mark Zuckerburg, CEO of Meta, which includes Facebook and Instagram, Sundar Pinchai, CEO of Google along with Google's founder, Sergey Brin; Tim Cook, CEO of Apple; and, not be left out, Shou Chew, CEO of TikTok.
High-profile Republican governors like Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas, along with many members of Congress and their spouses, were seated in the Siberia section, i.e. the overflow seating in Emancipation Hall.
Silicon Valley is not generally known for its right-wing politics, outside of Musk who actively campaigned for Trump and poured money into his campaign and also holds a quasi-official post in the administration (the temporary Department of Government Efficiency he chairs is already facing lawsuits over its charter).
But there is BIG money to be made in Washington, and the tech bros are already lapping at the federal trough. SpaceX is the 58th largest federal contractor, and the 2nd largest contractor at NASA. Bezos' space company, Blue Origin, is the 85th largest federal contractor and the 10th largest at NASA.
It's no surprise that Bezos pulled The Washington Post's editorial endorsement in the presidential race last fall; he couldn't afford the risk. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the recipient of a $10 billion, ten-year, single-award cloud computing contract with the National Security Agency (NSA). Bezos would have to sell a lot of Kindles to make up for that deficit should the NSA contract be cancelled.
AWS is also part of the $9 billion Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) contract, a multi-cloud Defense contract running through 2028. Google, Oracle and Microsoft are also part of JWCC, which was awarded after much White House posturing during Trump's first term and litigation over the previous military cloud computing contract. Big Tech wants a happy Donald Trump. So do military IT procurement officials.
At the same time, Big Tech needs political cover. There is concern on both sides of the aisle with the tech industry regarding individual privacy, national security and anti-trust issues. And Apple is the third-most China-dependent U.S. firm, reliant on China both for manufacturing and for sales. Trump's proposed China tariffs could price Apple out of the U.S. market.
Among all else, Trump is a transactional president. And he sees the immense value of algorithms. It's not just that the tech bros are giving donations to his campaign funds. Everyone does that. It's the access to the major social media platforms and deregulation. Zuckerberg famously dropped fact-checking earlier this month from Meta. This means the opportunity to control a narrative with propaganda rather than fact is unlimited. Musk has already uncoupled fact from X. Trump also owns his own social media channel.
Then there's TikTok. TikTok is not a business. It is a highly successful surveillance and data gathering platform from the Chinese Communist Party. (With this statement, I am losing the favor of people under 40 and influencers everywhere.)
Hear me out. If TikTok were a purely business enterprise, it would fight to stay online when major nations seek to ban it. In 2020, India, which then had 200 million TikTok subscribers, banned it. TikTok took exactly zero action. That's not the reaction of a money-making enterprise.
Similarly, after the Supreme Court ruled last week that the U.S. TikTok ban should be upheld, TikTok took the app down. But wait! President Trump noted that many of his supporters used TikTok to promote his campaign and commented "We have to save it," adding that small businesses rely on it, despite documented security concerns from NSA.
And suddenly TikTok's CEO is at the inauguration. With a better seat than Governor Greg Abbott. The same day he took office, Trump signed an executive order delaying the TikTok ban for 75 days to give them time find a U.S. buyer. Just another powerful data collection tool and influence algorithm that will owe him.
Trump has found the real power in America lies in controlling the narrative and social media is the key. By bombarding the American public with a relentless stream of word salad he has worn out his opponents, energized his base and convinced the uninterested to look elsewhere.
Speaking of power, that is Trump's primary motive. His governing style is more CEO-acquisitive than Presidential-diplomatic. For Americans in everyday life this may not change things significantly in four years. But we should be watchful.
It's easy to marginalize journalists in 2025. I suggest reframing your perspective. Social media have now lined up to be highly sophisticated megaphones for political messaging. This is not the same as objective reporting of facts. It's time to let disinterested third parties gather facts about the events impacting how we live and work and form our own opinions about the issues based on true information, instead of listening to a single opinion-laced narrative manipulated by sophisticated algorithms to reach our screens by the wealthiest people on the planet seeking more influence and power. (Note: while I use facts to build this column, this is an opinion column, not an objective news article. There is a difference.)
The pictures of all the tech bro billionaires assembled on the dais at the inauguration should give Americans pause. Americans spend more than 7 hours – more than 40% of their waking hours – online. Trump has done his homework and has gathered his inner circle. James Madison, one of the most prolific writers of the American Revolution, said: "Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression."
Merritt Hamilton Allen is a PR executive and former Navy officer. She appeared regularly as a panelist on NM PBS and is a frequent guest on News Radio KKOB. A Republican for 36 years, she became an independent upon reading the 2024 Republican platform. She lives amicably with her Democratic husband north of I-40 where they run one head of dog, and one of cat. She can be reached at
