Steve Bannon says inauguration marks ‘official surrender’ of tech titans to Trump
Steve Bannon, the former Trump White House chief strategist, has described the tech titans gathering at Monday’s inauguration as “supplicants” to Donald Trump making “an official surrender”, akin to the Japanese surrender to allied forces on the deck of the USS Missouri in September 1945.
Bannon, who served as architect of Trump’s 2016 presidential win but later fell out with the president-elect after he criticized his intellect and members of his family, told ABC News in an interview airing Sunday that Trump “broke the oligarchs” who had previously been aligned against him.
Elon Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google’s Sundar Pichai and TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew are expected to be at Trump’s second inauguration, having already visited him at Mar-a-Lago. They, or the firms they founded or represent, have given generously to Trump’s inaugural fund.
“Jeff Bezos came,” Trump said last week. “Bill Gates came. Mark Zuckerberg came. Many of them came numerous times. The bankers have all come. Everybody is coming.”
