Trump inauguration: When Silicon Valley descends upon the Capitol - The Front Page

Donald Trump with his most influential backer, Elon Musk. Photo / Getty Images)

Donald Trump is set to be inaugurated as the 47th President of the United States.

After four years out of office after losing in 2020, Trump is about to return to the White House with a vengeance – with his “Make America Great Again” agenda front and centre.

He’s only the second US President to be elected for two non-consecutive terms – and, he’ll also make history as the first convicted felon to become America’s Commander-in-chief.

On the election trail, Trump’s usual bluster saw him make bold promises about what he’d do on day one—including being a “dictator” just for the day.

Just a few things he’s promised: closing the border with Mexico, deporting millions of undocumented migrants, winding back environmental programmes, pardoning January 6 Capitol rioters, and introducing a raft of tariffs.

Washington-based New York Times reporter Kenneth Vogel told The Front Page the election was seen as a cultural tipping point.

“Among the business community and the folks who are among the major donors to his inauguration, there’s a real sense that some key businesses, including tech and Cryptocurrency, could be unshackled, that there could be a lot less regulation than what we saw under the Biden administration that could be good for business.

“So, that explains why the inauguration has raised so much money from people who want to tap into and take advantage of that more favourable regulatory environment,” he said.

Vogel said Trump had received considerable backing from Silicon Valley’s elite.

“By far his biggest and most influential backer, not just in the tech industry, but overall, is Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of Tesla, SpaceX, X formerly Twitter. It’s arguable that we’ve never seen a private individual with as much influence as he has right now.”

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will, along with Musk, be attending Trump’s inauguration.

And, breaking with tradition, Trump has invited several international leaders. No world leaders have attended a US presidential inauguration since 1874.

These include Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Argentinian President Javier Milei, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

British populist Nigel Farage will also be there - as will former Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

Trump’s intended administration has already raised eyebrows with some of its unusual Cabinet appointments.

Vaccine sceptic Robert F. Kennedy jnr is to become Health Secretary, Fox News host Pete Hegseth as Defence Secretary, and Anti-China former senator Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, to name a few.

He has also named Mel Gibson, Jon Voight, and Sylvester Stallone as ‘Hollywood Ambassadors’ - the trio to be his “eyes and ears” in the entertainment capital.

Vogel said there’s no consistent theme amongst those chosen to represent the new administration.

“Some of these folks are traditional sort of Republican orthodoxy. I’m thinking of Rubio in particular there. He’s a hawk. He’s in favour of robust American foreign policy that has an interventionist bent to it.

“That’s very different from what Trump and a lot of his supporters in the MAGA base want. They support a more non-interventionist foreign policy, including in Ukraine.

“It’s a real eclectic hodgepodge and I think there is a strong anti-establishment vein that runs through some of the nominees,” he said.

Listen to the full episode to hear more about what could be first on Trump’s agenda on day one as President.

The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.

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