Guests including Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai and Elon Musk, arrive before the 60th Presidential Inauguration in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Monday, 20 January, 2025. Photo: JULIA DEMAREE NIKHINSON / AFP
As Donald Trump was last month sworn in for a second time as US President, he had some extremely high profile guests.
Among those sitting on the dais in seats usually reserved for political dignitaries and family members were the world's powerful tech bosses - who also happen to be among the world's richest men.
There was Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
But of them all, Tesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk stood closest.
After ploughing quarter of a billion US dollars to help get Donald Trump elected, he's now the head of the Department of Government Efficiency with a mandate to slash US government spending.
So is there an information oligarchy emerging in America? A frat-riarchy? A bro-ocrasy? Someone watching closely is UK-based technology journalist James Ball.
He's the author of several books, including 'The System: who owns the internet and how it owns us', 'Post-Truth: How Bullshit Conquered the World' and 'The Other Pandemic: How QAnon Contaminated the World'.
