Beyond Elon Musk, prominent billionaires are all lining up in fealty to Trump. It was revealed that Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos have both forked over a million dollars to Trump’s inauguration, while Google co-founder Sergey Brin dined with Trump at Mar a Lago.

Because he owns The Washington Post, Bezos would know more than anyone that one of the first scandals in the first Trump term was the excess and graft involved in Trump’s inauguration operation, orchestrated by the cast of shady characters who put it all together. The $107 million raised and spent was more than the double what Obama’s inaugurations had cost, even though the Trump festivities were less extensive. Millions of dollars (far beyond the cost of the inauguration) went unaccounted for while millions more ended up in the pockets of cronies, including more than a million in Trump’s own hotel business.

As for those business leaders cozying up to Trump to curry favor, they might want to read “Garden of Beasts” to see the effectiveness of their strategy (or ask Justin Trudeau). As I wrote several weeks ago:

“For….business leaders or journalists or others, who decide to go along with the program, either out of fear or greed or assuming you can ultimately control those leaders; or betting that you will fare better by muting criticisms as opposed to airing them loudly and clearly...know that did NOT work. History is painfully clear about that. In fact, you are often the first targets of retribution.”