By Ben Norton / Geopolitical Economy Report
Donald Trump has returned for his second term as US president.
He invited some of the world’s most powerful billionaire oligarchs to his inauguration in Washington.
Sitting next to Trump’s cabinet nominees, at the center of his inauguration, were the three richest people on Earth: Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla; Jeff Bezos, the founder and executive chairman of Amazon; and Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, which is the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.
Together, these three men have nearly $900 billion in wealth.
They could be seen on video chatting alongside Sundar Pichai, who is the billionaire CEO of Google and its parent company Alphabet.
Billionaire Apple CEO Tim Cook also attended Trump’s inauguration.
These Big Tech oligarchs donated millions of dollars to Trump’s inauguration fund.
The image was deeply symbolic, because Donald Trump has selected a slew of billionaires and multi-millionaires to fill his new administration.
At least 13 billionaires will have an important role in Trump’s second administration, and Trump himself is a billionaire.
This makes Trump’s team the richest administration in the history of the US government.
As Treasury secretary, Trump chose billionaire hedge fund manager Scott Bessent; as education secretary, billionaire Linda McMahon; as commerce secretary, billionaire Howard Lutnick; as “White House AI & Crypto Czar”, Silicon Valley oligarch David Sacks; the list goes on.
Trump told wealthy donors during his campaign that he would continue reducing taxes on the rich and on corporations.
During his first term, thanks to Trump’s tax cuts on the rich, the 400 richest billionaire families in the US paid a lower average tax rate than the bottom half of households, of working-class Americans.
Please share this story and help us grow our network!
Ben Norton
Ben Norton is a journalist, writer, and filmmaker. He is the founder and editor of Geopolitical Economy Report, and is based in China.
Editor’s Note: At a moment when the once vaunted model of responsible journalism is overwhelmingly the play thing of self-serving billionaires and their corporate scribes, alternatives of integrity are desperately needed, and ScheerPost is one of them. Please support our independent journalism by contributing to our online donation platform, Network for Good, or send a check to our new PO Box. We can’t thank you enough, and promise to keep bringing you this kind of vital news.
You can also make a donation to our PayPal or subscribe to our Patreon.