One of the things that made President Donald Trump’s inauguration distinctive was the prominence of Silicon Valley elite.
Easily identifiable were the world’s three richest men – Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg. And that’s not to mention some of the billionaires not placed directly in view of the cameras.
When the riches of the billionaire tech founders, millionaire business people and wealthy politicians are totted up there was more than $1trn – over a thousand billion – in the rotunda of the Capitol on Monday morning.
The richest of them all, topping the Forbes real-time billionaires list, was Elon Musk.
The South African serial entrepreneur makes his money through ownership of electric car company Tesla and space exploration company Space X.
His fortune is $433.9bn, according to Forbes.
Next on the rich list is Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, worth $239.4bn through his ownership of company shares.
Mr Bezos’ part-ownership of The Washington Post led to some speculation he played a role in the paper saying it would not endorse a candidate in the US election for the first time in 36 years.
Third-richest on Forbes’ list is Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, worth $211.8bn.
His company owns social networks Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
The influence of changing political winds could be seen in Meta’s recent decision to roll back fact-checking.
While there was no sign of the world’s fourth-richest man – Oracle founder Larry Ellison – the man who occupies the fifth spot, Bernard Arnault, was there with his family.
The Frenchman’s luxury goods giant LVMH owns brands including Dior, Louis Vuitton, Moet & Chandon and Sephora, with his net worth estimated by Forbes at $181.3bn.
Less familiar to a UK audience – but still hugely wealthy – is Miriam Adelson, who along with her family is ranked 55th richest in the world by Forbes.
Their net worth of $31.9bn was garnered through casinos. Her husband Sheldon Adelson founded the Las Vegas Sands casino and resort company.
A supporter of the new president, Ms Adelson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Mr Trump in 2018.
On the lower end of the Forbes rich list – coming in 89th – is media magnate Rupert Murdoch, valued at $22.2bn.
His Fox network is a favourite of the US president but he made a chunk of his wealth in the UK, where he bought The Times and The Sun newspapers.
Aside from Fox, in the US he owns The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
If these six people were the only attendees, there would be more than $1.12trn in the room.
That’s about a third of the entire economic output of the UK. The UK’s gross domestic product (GDP) – the standard measure of an economy’s value and everything it produces – is $3.73trn, according to the International Monetary Fund.
Added to that are the billions and millions owned by tech royalty such as Apple founder Tim Cook, Google chief executive Sundar Pichai and OpenAI founder Sam Altman.
And none of this is to mention the riches of the political dynasties in attendance – the Bushs, Clintons and Trumps.
