The Trump Administration And America's Tech Leaders

1A

NPR

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4.4 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2025

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Tesla's Elon Musk, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, and Amazon's Jeff Bezos were all in attendance Monday as President Donald Trump was sworn into office. In fact, they had better seats than most.

Tech Industry Titans have spent months cozying up to the 47th president of the United States. Musk made campaign appearances with Trump. Zuckerberg has switched up his cultural rhetoric to fall in line with the new administration. And Bezos's companies are investing in the first family.

Then there's TikTok thanking then President-elect Trump for signaling he'd keep the app around for Americans following its recent blackout (despite the app's ban being initially pushed by Trump himself).

We discuss the significance of these men working so closely with the new administration.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Eric Glass.
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0:47.1	Before he even took office this week, Donald Trump got a thank you from TikTok CEO,
0:56.6	a show Chu, for vowing to save the app.
0:59.7	We are grateful and pleased to have the support of a president who truly understands our platform,
1:05.0	one who has used TikTok to express his own thoughts and perspectives, connecting with the world,
1:10.2	and generating more than 60 billion
1:12.3	views of his content in the process. The TikTok CEO was among a row of tech billionaires who were front and
1:18.6	center at President Donald Trump's inauguration. From Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Apple's Tim Cook to
1:23.9	met as Mark Zuckerberg, the most powerful leaders in tech have embraced the new administration.
1:29.4	The tech titans have spent months cozying up to the 47th president of the United States.
1:34.4	Elon Musk, owner of X and the world's richest man, made campaign appearances with Trump.
	...

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