Google CEO Sundar Pichai will join the growing list of tech executives sitting on the dais as President-elect Donald Trump is sworn into office on Monday, according to a person familiar with the company’s plans who was not authorized to speak publicly.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a close confidant of the incoming president, is expected to attend the inauguration ceremony, along with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Apple CEO Tim Cook, according to media reports.
Silicon Valley has spent the months since Trump’s election victory courting favor with the incoming administration, following years of tension over accusations that the major social media and internet platforms are too powerful and biased against conservatives.
Google, Meta and Amazon, along with Cook and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, previously donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund. The executives have also traveled to Mar-a-Lago for meetings with the president-elect in recent months.
Many tech companies have cozied up to Trump and Republicans recently, but Google may still be in for a rough ride in a GOP-controlled Washington. Some Republicans have taken specific aim at the content moderation policies of Google and YouTube, both owned by Alphabet. Sen. Ted Cruz, new chair of the Commerce Committee, told POLITICO that in the political fight over political speech online, “Google is far and away the biggest player, and their impact on censoring speech is dramatic.”
The company is also fending off two high-profile antitrust lawsuits brought by the Justice Department.