OPINION
Well, folks, he’s back.
Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 47th President of the USA on Monday inside the Capitol Rotunda in Washington DC.
The understated ceremony, which Trump, in a moment of empathy we didn’t know he could muster, moved indoors to protect attendees from the cold (and/or bullets), was attended by outgoing president Joe Biden, his deputy, Kamala Harris, former presidents Barack Obama (suspiciously without Michelle Obama) and George W. Bush.
The event featured some of the world’s wealthiest people, including Trump’s new lapdog, Twitter owner Elon Musk. More on his antics in a bit. He was joined by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg, Apple leader Tim Cook, and Google chief Sundar Pichai, all given prime seats and high visibility. According to a Forbes article, the collective net worth of the billionaires in attendance was $1.3 trillion. For context, that is almost the equivalent of the combined GDP of The ‘Big Five’ African economies—South Africa, Egypt, Algeria, Nigeria, and Ethiopia in 2024.
Remember a time when that proximity to so many billionaires would’ve raised eyebrows? It’s giving state capture by billionaires.
Maybe we should loan them South African State Capture inquiry head Judge Raymond Zondo after Trump’s four years are done.
We’re not joking. Musk holds billions of dollars in federal contracts with the US government. The South African-born Musk (we apologise) will head Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which will focus on curbing government overspending. It’s already at the centre of a lawsuit launched moments after Trump was sworn in. He will effectively be put in charge of the regulators that oversee him, the New York Times has reported. Bezos is gunning for government business, too, looking to land lucrative NASA contracts.
Their closeness to Trump is calculated. As the BBC noted, most of their firms still have serious outstanding matters before the US government, including anti-monopoly lawsuits, investigations, regulatory fights and tariffs.
Leaders in Trump’s political opposition, Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren and Michael Bennet, have accused them of trying to “cosy up to the incoming Trump administration in an effort to avoid scrutiny, limit regulation and buy favour”.
While our resident billionaire (albeit not in dollars) and current president, Cyril Ramaphosa, didn’t attend the inauguration, he sent his well wishes to Trump for his reelection.
More from the inauguration
Trump, who served as the 45th US President before losing in 2020, won the US Presidential Election on 5 November 2024, beating Democratic hopeful Harris.
In his inaugural speech, Trump tore apart the Biden administration for what he called “a horrible betrayal.” He said he had been tested more than any president in the country’s 250-year history. “The journey to reclaim our Republic has not been an easy one, that I can tell you. Those who wish to stop our cause have tried to take my freedom and, indeed to take my life. Just a few months ago, in a beautiful Pennsylvania field, an assassin’s bullet ripped through my ear. But I felt then, and believe even more so now, that my life was saved for a reason. I was saved by God to make America great again,” he said.
He also wasted no time showing everyone who’s boss by signing a bevy of executive orders, some of which will have devastating consequences for Americans and the world.
An executive order is a directive signed, written, and published by the President of the United States that manages the federal government’s operations. It carries the weight of law but can be overturned by subsequent presidents or the courts.
Some of these orders Trump has signed or plans to sign include:
- Declaring a national emergency at the country’s Southern border with Mexico.
- Declaring a national energy emergency and a return to fossil fuels.
- Ending the Green New Deal was a collection of the Biden administration’s measures aimed at boosting green jobs, regulating the fossil fuel industry and limiting pollution.
He also continued spewing the bigotry that his constituents no doubt voted for by proclaiming that “As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female.” He also signed an order pardoning 1500 of his supporters who were part of the attack on the Capitol on 6 January 2021 in a bid to overturn the result of the 2020 election, which Trump lost to Biden.
Heil… Trump?
Speaking of bigotry, Musk, who we mentioned earlier, appeared to give not one but two Nazi-style salutes after addressing crowds gathered at the Capital One Arena for celebrations after the inauguration. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), one of the leading groups against antisemitism, said in a statement on Monday that this was a delicate time in American politics, adding that while Musk’s hand gestures were “awkward”, they were not Nazi salutes. But an Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, said what we’re all thinking and described the gesture as a “Roman salute,” a fascist salute most commonly associated with Nazi Germany.”
We’ve told you before about how a Trump presidency would affect the world, and now, it’s happening. One of the executive orders signed is pausing all foreign development assistance for 90 days. He’s also withdrawing the US from the World Health Organisation and the Paris Climate Agreement.
As Trump flexes his muscles and comes for his opponents, and by extension, those his side doesn’t believe are worth protecting (read: anyone who isn’t a rich white man), the world will definitely feel the repercussions of Trump and his cronies’ policies. His reelection will embolden fascists around the world (we all saw that salute). Our heart goes out to all those affected in the US, and we urge them to remain resilient. For the rest of us, we wait to see how a second Trump presidency will affect us. And it’s not looking good.
Tshego is a writer and law student from Pretoria. A keen follower of social media trends, his interests include high fantasy media, politics, science, talk radio, reading and listening to music.
He is also probably one of the only people left who still play Pokemon Go.
