About 800 attendees, including leaders from America's "big tech" corporations, participated in the inauguration ceremony of U.S. President Donald Trump held on the 20th (local time) at the central hall (Rotunda) of the Capitol in Washington, D.C.
Before Trump appeared, big tech executives, including Elon Musk, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Tesla; Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon; Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Meta; Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google; Sergey Brin, founder of Google; and Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, took their places in the central hall. They lined up in the second row right behind President Trump's family, showcasing their presence.
The leaders of big tech made efforts to leave a good impression by attending the church service, Trump's first schedule, held at St. John's Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., before the inauguration ceremony. Most corporations contributed over $1 million (approximately 1.47 billion won) to this inauguration.
Since shortly after the U.S. presidential election last November, leaders of big tech have continued to meet with President Trump at his residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida. CEO Zuckerberg visited Mar-a-Lago twice after the election. He will co-host the reception for President Trump's inauguration this afternoon with Republican billionaire donors.
In addition to the leaders of big tech, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, and Zhou Shouzi, CEO of the Chinese video platform TikTok, also attended the inauguration ceremony. However, CEO Zhou could not sit alongside other big tech leaders.
TikTok faced a service suspension crisis in the U.S. under the so-called "TikTok Ban Act" implemented on the 19th. However, President Trump suggested the possibility of delaying the service ban by 90 days, leading to a brief suspension of services just hours before the law's implementation, followed by some restoration.