Donald Trump’s inauguration was a bacchanal of wealth and power attended by the first-, second-, third-, fifth-, and seventh-richest men on the planet. And the celebration displayed Trump’s uncomfortable mingling of his business and political empires, for among the VIPs rubbing shoulders with Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sergey Brin were a cadre of Trump’s foreign business partners who have paid Trump millions to use his name and, once again, the reputation of the American presidency to make money at their properties around the globe.
His business partners and their families—some of whom attended his first inauguration—eagerly showcased their access on social media, and their role in Trump’s inaugural festivities highlighted the thicket of conflicts of interest we can expect from Trump’s second Oval Office stint.
Last week, Hary Tanoesoedibjo, an Indonesian magnate and politician who has built two luxury golf courses with Trump in that country (and bought a mansion from Trump in Los Angeles), flew to Florida with his family and mingled with the Trump family at one of their resorts there.
The Tanoesoedibjos got souvenirs signed and chatted with the president. They also got to meet New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat who is facing charges that he took bribes and solicited illegal donations from foreign business interests but whom Trump has suggested he might pardon.
During the first Trump administration, Tanoesoedibjo touted his level of access to the US president.
“If other people have difficulty getting to him, I can do it easily,” he bragged.
On Saturday night, the Tanoesoedibjo family—Hary, his wife Liliana, and two of their adult children—attended a posh preinaugural celebration at Trump’s Virginia golf course, where they mingled with other global elites and wealthy Trump supporters. In addition to being singled out by Trump for a handshake, Tanoesoedibjo posed for souvenir photos with Mukesh Ambani—the wealthiest man in Asia, estimated to be worth nearly $100 billion, who lives in a 27-story mansion in Mumbai—and Masayoshi Son, a Japanese tycoon who runs SoftBank.
The Tanoesoedibjo family documented their trip in Instagram posts, showing they spent time at the former Trump hotel in downtown Washington (now a Hilton-run Waldorf Astoria) and turned up at the Starlight Ball, an official inaugural celebration designated for big-spending Trump donors. According to reports, donors had to contribute a minimum of $250,000 to receive two tickets. But based on a photo posted by Tanoesoedibjo’s youngest child, Warren, showing off their entry passes, the family’s access was thanks to Eric Trump.
The photo also suggests that if not for the last-minute decision to move the inauguration indoors, the Tanoesoedibjos would have had even more access. Warren Tanoesoedibjo’s stack of access passes included entry to the west front of the Capitol for an outdoor ceremony and prime inaugural parade viewing spots. In 2017, Liliana Tanoesoedibjo posted a video to Instagram showing the couple riding down the inaugural parade route, passing crowds lined up waiting for Trump to follow.
Hussain Sajwani, a billionaire from Dubai who has built several projects with Trump, also enjoyed VIP access over the inaugural weekend. Sajwani, who Trump recently touted for his promise to invest $20 billion in US data centers, turned up at the Saturday mixer for elites at the Trump golf course in Virginia, where he posed for a picture with Amazon’s Bezos.
In 2017, just days before his first inauguration, Trump said he had turned down a $2 billion offer from Sajwani to expand their partnership before taking office. This year, during his Sunday night preinaugural rally, Trump called out Sajwani’s company, DAMAC, by name, as an example of how he was already attracting new business to the United States.
Sajwani rounded out the weekend at the Starlight Ball, where he and his son, Abbas, posed with Google founder Brin.
Ziad El Chaar, CEO of a Saudi real estate development company that has signed a deal with Trump to build Trump-branded properties in Jeddah, also attended the inaugural festivities, snagging a luxury box for the preinaugural rally and enjoying the Starlight Ball, where he posted a photo with Larry Glick, executive vice president of strategic development at the Trump Organization. He captioned the photo, in an unintentional nod to the tangled worlds of Trump’s business and political interests: “The power behind the power.”
