Three of the nation's most infamous billionaire competitors are set to share a seat at Trump's inauguration.
For a long time, the leading tech companies have been in fierce competition with one another (who could forget the time Zuckerberg and Musk were rumored to face off in a cage fight?). Now, however, they are uniting in support of the president — as well as their own agendas, writes
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Your backing truly matters.On January 20, the three wealthiest individuals on the planet will gather in a space smaller than a Mini Cooper.
That is according to NBC News, which reported on Tuesday that "first buddy" Elon Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and Facebook and Instagram boss Mark Zuckerberg will be seated together on the platform at Donald Trump's inauguration in Washington D.C.
These three individuals, boasting a collective estimated net worth of $860 billion, are hardly the best of friends. They have frequently engaged in public disputes, both in their professional dealings and personal lives.
However, authoritarian leaders often align with unexpected partners, and in the past few months, all three individuals have submitted to Trump's influence.
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Consider Musk and Bezos, who have dedicated years to a covert competition in the realm of space exploration. Their companies, SpaceX and Blue Origin, have consistently vied for federal contracts related to space launches.
The two men reportedly clashed as early as 2004, when they met over dinner to discuss the space industry. "[I told him,] 'dude, we tried that and that turned out to be really dumb, so don't do the dumb thing we did'," Musk later recalled. "I actually did my best to give good advice, which he largely ignored.”
In 2013, Blue Origin filed a lawsuit aimed at stopping SpaceX from utilizing one of NASA's launchpads, a move that Musk criticized as a "fake obstruction strategy."
The competition intensified in 2019, with both individuals escalating their jabs at one another through public remarks and social media interactions. Bezos ridiculed Musk's ambitions to establish a colony on Mars, whereas Musk labeled Bezos a "copycat" for his intentions to create a network of low Earth orbit satellites that resembled Musk's Starlink initiative.
The two companies continued to battle in court, while Musk accused Bezos of "taking himself a bit too serious
