Sandra Myers

How quickly do the tables turn! Once reviled and persona non grata, oh how President-elect Donald J. Trump is being courted! As in the days of medieval courts, the feudal lords seek to pay homage and obeisance in order to create alliances. Let the groveling and ring-kissing begin.

Left to right: Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, Tim Cook, Marc Benioff, Sundar Pachai all seek feudal alliances with Trump.

Elon Musk (owner of X [formerly Twitter], Tesla and Space X) had the hindsight to see Biden as the tired and weak ruler easily manipulated by invisible handlers while also having the foresight to see the utter lack of substance and leadership in Kamala Harris. After a hefty quarter-billion-dollar investment/bet in Donald J. Trump’s election outcome, I can’t help believe that those in the following list wish they had the insight.

Jeff Bezos (owner of Amazon and The Washington Post) saw the writing on the wall shortly before November 5th and thus blocked The Washington Post’s endorsement of Kamala Harris. Although this caused a number of staff members to resign and the paper lost over 250,000 readers, Bezos hopes his groveling will pay off. Remember, in Trump’s previous administration, Bezos was denied a multi-billion-dollar Pentagon deal for cloud storage in favor of Microsoft. Bezos has stepped up with a $1 million dollar inauguration fund donation and will air the inauguration on his Amazon Prime network.

Mark Zuckerberg (CEO of Meta/Instagram/Facebook) previously banned Trump from his social media platform, FaceBook, for two years. Bezos flew down to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump and is donating $1 million dollars to the inauguration festivities. Zuckerberg is also setting aside his long-time feud with Trump funder and insider, Elon Musk, in hopes to make an alliance between himself and Musk against Sam Altman of OpenAI. Zuckerberg’s public pre-election admiration of Trump being “badass” after the assassination attempt on Trump undoubtedly gained some ego points.

Sam Altman (CEO of OpenAI) has made his pilgramage to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring and make his offering of $1 million dollars for the inauguration fund. Altman is hoping to convince Trump to reverse enacted safety checks on AI, and is prompting Trump to support the big push for AI advancements. Altman said: “President Trump will lead our country into the age of AI, and I am eager to support his efforts to ensure America stays ahead.”

Tim Cook (CEO of Apple) Not to be left out, Cook has visited Mar-a-Lago since Trump won the election. Cook is hoping to gain a sympathetic ear and influence from Donald Trump against a $15 billion dollar tax bill owed to Ireland levied by the courts of the European Union (and the EU also tacked on another $2 billion fine). It hasn’t been reported as of this writing that Cook will be ponying up $1 million for the inauguration fund nor what he’ll do as a token of his allegiance.

Marc Benioff (CEO of Salesforce/Owner of Time magazine) says that he is “turning the page” on his previous rocky relationship with Trump. Previously, Benioff supported Hillary Clinton’s presidential run against Trump and favored hefty business tax increases for his progressive policies in San Francisco. Since Trump’s election, Benioff issued this glowing statement, “It is now clear that Trump will reform government and country like a corporate raider engaging in a hostile takeover of an inefficient company, making huge reforms by changing people, slashing costs, and infusing new technologies.” So out of character for Benioff, his social media followers thought Benioff’s account had been hacked. But, what do you know, the owner of Time magazine has just named Trump his “Person of the Year” for 2024. Ring kissed.

Sundar Pichai (CEO of Google) as of this writing, has an upcoming meeting scheduled with Trump. Trump rightly accused Google’s search engine of being “rigged” to hide positive coverage about Trump. Does Pichai’s pilgramage have anything to do with the antitrust lawsuit currently pending against Google or other regulatory topics? One has to wonder what Pichai will offer Trump as an homage worthy of acceptance.

A few other medieval chieftains flying in to Mar-a-Lago: Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer; David Ricks, CEO of Eli Lilly; Steve Ubl, CEO of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) to meet with Secretary of Health and Human Services nominee, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and to pander the new chief Trump for favor. We don’t have to guess what they want.

Who else is there? Of course world leaders have offered their congratulations and cooperation to Trump, but a few leaders have hightailed it across thousands of miles to seek out a personal audience with his highness including panic-striken Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and tariff-threatened Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau being two of them.

Is Trump merely going through the formalities of respectfully holding court or can Trump’s allegiences be bought and sold like cattle? Will Trump really drain the swamp this time? It’s going to be an interesting 2025 plus 3 years.