Mr Cook goes to Washington and other tales from Trump’s inauguration

Image of the week: Tech-industrial lunch

Although Apple chief executive Tim Cook has not exactly been leading the public tech-boss kowtowing to Donald Trump, he was present and correct in the line-up of billionaires with a front-row seat at his inauguration.

At one point, he even seemed happy to be there – that point being when he ran into Barack Obama.

The man labelled “Mr Cook” on the table placenames was seated next to Donald Trump jnr at the inauguration lunch. It could have been worse. Meta chief executive Mark “masculine energy” Zuckerberg wound up at the same table as beer-loving supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, meanwhile, got to hang out with Barron Trump.

The tech turnout – which also included TikTok chief executive Shou Zi Chew, Alphabet/Google boss Sundar Pichai and, of course, Elon Musk – came just days after Joe Biden warned in his farewell address of a “tech-industrial complex” in which the free press is “crumbling”, social media has given up on fact-checking and there’s a “dangerous concentration of power” among a handful of extremely wealthy people. Godspeed, America.

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In numbers: Trump TV

24.6 million

Estimated US television viewership for coverage of Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday, according to audience measurement firm Nielsen. There was no number for how many of them were cringing when Carrie Underwood’s backing track failed.

33.8 million

The thrill of watching Trump vowing to “take back” the Panama Canal and plant a flag on Mars did not lure quite as many people to their TV screens as Joe Biden did when he was inaugurated in January 2021.

30.6 million

Trump’s second time being sworn in as president was also markedly less popular in televisual terms than his first in 2017, though this year’s viewing average may have been lower because the programme of events went on for so long.

Getting to know: Eric Javits

The real star of Trump’s inauguration was not Elon Musk, nor was it enthusiastic pastor Lorenzo Sewell, nor was it George W Bush, though his wink is unparalleled. It wasn’t Trump himself, obviously. It was Melania Trump’s hat. The hand-sewed navy boater with white band was the creation of Florida-based designed Eric Javits, who – having been contracted for the occasion by Melania’s stylist Herve Pierre and deemed it “one of the greatest honours” of his career – had a bit of a mare in the run-up.

When the hat arrived for the incoming first lady’s final fitting, the carton was “wet and crushed”, with the hat “irreparably damaged” inside, Javits told Vanity Fair. He then had to create a second hat in less than four days. Still, the panic was worth it. The hat looked great. But, best of all, its broad brim meant that when Trump greeted his wife at the ceremony, he was defeated by it and had to settle for an awkward air kiss.

The list: First week catch-up

Within hours of taking control of the White House, Trump signed more executive orders this week than you can shake a stick at and proclaimed a whole raft of other stuff. Here’s a mere fraction of his administration’s business-related manoeuvres.

1. AI investment: Accompanied by SoftBank chief executive Masayoshi Son, Sam Altman of OpenAI and Larry Ellison of Oracle, Trump announced a $500 billion joint investment in AI called Stargate. Elon Musk mocked the plan afterwards. What a start.

2. Tax pact withdrawal: In one executive order, Trump withdrew US support for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) tax pact and ominously said he would retaliate against countries applying “extraterritorial” levies to US multinationals.

3. Administrative leave: All federal government staff working on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) schemes were placed on paid administrative leave ahead of a shutdown of all DEI initiatives – anti-discrimination correction measures that Trump and his friends consider discriminatory in themselves.

4. Anti-wind policies: “Old man yells at cloud” is The Simpsons-derived meme, but it’s wind that really rails Trump. He’s already halted or reversed a number of wind-energy projects as part of the “drill, baby, drill” agenda.

5. Intentionally blank: The mind-melting pace of White House/Truth Social announcements isn’t entirely compatible with the gap between deadline and publication, so please fill in your own wild new Trump policy here:

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