The Trump administration may govern for the billionaire class, but that doesn’t necessarily mean billionaires are enjoying the show. Far more likely is that they don’t have the guts to speak up.
Case in point: late on Saturday night, a group of American tech magnates descended on the White House for a private screening of the first lady’s documentary, “Melania.“
According to the Hollywood Reporter, the intimate gathering included a veritable who’s who of tech industry power players: Apple CEO Tim Cook, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, AMD CEO Lisa Su, and Zoom CEO Eric Yuan.
Vibes-wise, the event was classic Trump 2.0-chic. Guests were handed monogrammed buckets of popcorn, framed screening tickets for their trophy shelves, and a limited-edition copy of Trump’s 2024 book of the same title as her documentary, “Melania.“ Prior to the screening, the black-tie guests were greeted by a taxpayer-funded military band that playing famous movie themes, as well as “Melania’s Waltz,” featured in the documentary and composed by Hollywood’s Tony Neiman.
All of this is to say, it sounds like a galling display of power and fortune, at a time when American wealth inequality is the worst its been in nearly a century. And in a twist of context so extraordinary that it sounds fictional, the screening also came just a few hours after federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse who was attempting to help a woman off of the ground during an immigration raid in Minneapolis.
Yet for all their reach and access — literally — to the president’s palace, tech executives have been oddly reserved after leaving the screening, both in regard to the film as well as the shooting, whose victim Trump smeared as a “domestic terrorist.” Attempts to reach these powerful tech moguls since Saturday have all been ignored, CNN notes.
Maybe they were so overwhelmed by the artistry of the film — the production of which was plagued by extraordinary drama documented by Rolling Stone — that they’re literally speechless.
Far more likely: the documentary, which is already gearing up to be a massive flop, is such a train wreck that they fear that publicly pretending it was any good will subject them to public ridicule. And that’s not to mention the fierce backlash that following the decision to carry on with the screening after Pretti’s death, which tech execs won’t be in any hurry to call attention to.
And in the long-term, for CEOs who paid for front-row seats to this administration, speaking out against the Trump administration now would mean putting ethics ahead of earnings — a calculation nobody in their position would ever make.
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