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Money certainly talked at President Trump's inauguration this week, as the combined wealth of the billionaires present at the event soared over $1,350,000,000,000 in total.
If you've been following the news then it'll come as no shock that many of the world's richest individuals congregated at Donald Trump's presidential inauguration on Monday.
The attendance of Elon Musk is certainly not a surprise as the Tesla CEO has become a close ally of Trump's and is currently head of new advisory board titled the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) - although with no wage taken this won't be contributing to his extraordinary wealth.
However, some of the biggest names in tech like Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and Tim Cook have all given their own financial contributions to Trump's administration, and that earned them a front-row seat to see him sworn in for a second term.
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As per Forbes, the combined net worth of the billionaires in attendance stretched beyond $1,350,000,000,000, showing the staggeringly concentrated wealth that just a few people hold in America.
Looking at the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, we can see that many of the richest names on the list were guests, including four of the wealthiest five.
Those four individuals alone, which include Musk ($447bn), Bezos ($249bn), Zuckerberg ($218bn), and Bernard Arnault ($194bn), hold a combined net worth of $1,108,000,000,000 alone, and then you have countless names like Google founder Sergey Brin ($165bn) and Microsoft's Bill Gates ($163bn) shortly after.
Many of these names also experienced a significant boost to their financial fortunes following Trump's November election victory, which saw an increase of around $63 billion to the ten richest on the list immediately after the result came in.
This was likely due to the significant stock bumps in the tech industry, where many of the wealthiest individuals sourced their funds from, as Trump is expected to relax regulations and focus on the industry.
Based off estimates from the US Federal Reserve, the money held by billionaires at the inauguration is at least 0.84% of the total household wealth across America, indicating a significant concentration of funds in the richest few. Data also indicates that the richest 1% of America holds around 23.8% of the total wealth, but those in attendance will be just a fraction of even that top bracket.
Even the president himself has majorly benefitted following his election win, as the release of a Trump-themed cryptocurrency meme coin which he invested around 80% of his net worth in has soared on the market, making over 500 others millionaires overnight.
