Big bosses, representatives of the media and tech, foreign leaders… After his surprise victory in 2016, many had shunned Donald Trump, but this time, personalities from the economic and media world are flocking to the president-elect.
“During my first term, everyone was fighting against me. For this mandate, everyone wants to be my friend,” noted the main person concerned, Monday during a press conference from his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.
“For the moment, people say to themselves that it is better to be in his good graces, the problem for them being that the good graces in question often vary,” already warns Wendy Schiller, professor of political science at the Brown University.
Since the election of November 5, and with the exception of a few quick trips, for example for the reopening of Notre-Dame, Donald Trump has held a lounge in this vast complex on the water’s edge, surrounded by palm trees, with loaded interior.
It is a private club whose annual entry fee was, according to the press, significantly increased last summer, and has now reached $1 million per year.
Tech bosses
This is where Donald Trump auditioned his future ministers, between a gala evening and a short trip to the nearby golf course.
It is also in Florida that the president-elect, who will be sworn in on January 20, received for dinner Mark Zuckerberg, the boss of Meta, parent company of Facebook, a social network which had banned him after the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
On Monday, the 78-year-old billionaire was happy to complete the list, saying he had also seen Google boss Sundar Pichai and Apple CEO Tim Cook.
“And we will have Jeff Bezos, from Amazon, coming this week (…). We have a lot of big bosses, the biggest bosses, the biggest bankers, everyone calls,” assured the Republican, repeating that it was “completely the opposite” of what he had experienced before his first visit at the White House, from 2017 to 2021.
This first mandate left an impression of permanent improvisation. If high-ranking visitors follow one another to Florida, it is because they expect, rightly or wrongly, a more structured and determined “Trump 2.0” presidency, in particular to attack the targets that the Republican will designate, These are entrepreneurs, journalists or political opponents.
Orban and Trudeau
Donald Trump “has made it known that he would use every power attached to the presidency to go after anyone who challenges him, and now he seems to have a better understanding of how to do it, and he has been granted immunity by the Supreme Court that protects him” as long as he is in the White House, explains Wendy Schiller.
The boss of the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, Albert Bourla, made a trip to Mar-a-Lago and when Donald Trump was recently invited to ring the bell marking the start of stock trading on Wall Street, other big names in the business world were present.
Foreign dignitaries also visited the Florida residence, the true epicenter of the new power.
Some are republican sympathizers, such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, or Argentinian President Javier Milei.
But we also saw Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the new head of NATO, Mark Rutte, who each have reasons to be concerned about the future decisions of the elected president.
Concerned media
One of the most commented upon visits was that of two presenters from the MSNBC channel, who were nevertheless virulent critics of Donald Trump.
Their trip illustrates the apprehension of the American media world in the face of an elected president who makes journalists, according to him “enemies of the people,” boo during his meetings.
The Republican filed suit Monday against a respected Iowa newspaper for publishing a poll before the election showing him losing in the state, which he ultimately won.
The American television channel ABC has agreed to pay US$15 million to end defamation proceedings launched by the Republican billionaire.
Donald Trump also has the CBS News show 60 Minutes in his sights, which he accuses of having manipulated a response from Kamala Harris, his opponent during the presidential election, in favor of the Democrat.
