In one way, Bay Area tech CEOs’ very visible presence at President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday was an almighty flex, a crowning moment for an industry that has remade the economy and society.

Cabinet members, governors, and long-serving public servants are positioned in rows behind the tech billionaires, with only family seated ahead of them.

Companies like Amazon, Meta, Alphabet and OpenAI have donated $1 apiece to the Trump Inauguration, and their leaders are in prime spots.

The leaders of the nation's biggest technology companies got better positions at Donald Trump's inauguration than many elected officials.

X owner Elon Musk, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg sat closer to President Donald Trump as he took the oath of office on Monday than his Cabinet nominees.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Elon Musk, CEO of X, Tesla and SpaceX arrive for the inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on January 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. Donald Trump takes office for his second term as the 47th President of the United States.