Donald Trump Inauguration Guest List: Who’s Invited, Who’s Not And Are VIP Passes Running Out?

By Reuters

US President-elect Donald Trump has invited several world leaders to his swearing-in ceremony in a bid to turn his inauguration into a political spectacle.

US President-elect Donald Trump has invited world leaders to his inauguration breaking with traditional US foreign policy where it is not customary for world leaders to attend the US President’s formal ascension ceremony to the Oval Office.

Trump invited Chinese President Xi Jinping who is not attending but is likely to send a highly placed envoy which could either be Han Zheng, Vice President and foreign minister Wang Yi. It is yet to be confirmed who shall attend.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will be representing the Indian government. The Trump-Vance inaugural committee, which is organising the swearing-in ceremony for Donald Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance, had sent the invite.

Also on the list of invitees are people who share similar political beliefs like Donald Trump. He has invited Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Argentinian President Javier Milei, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele and Hungarian President Viktor Orban.

Ousted leaders like former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro are also on the list of invitees and are willing to attend. French far-right politician Eric Zemmour will attend Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony.

Meta, Amazon and Open AI chief Sam Altman are all reportedly donating $1 million to the fund for Trump’s inauguration on January 20. The New York Times reports that the inaugural committee has already raised over $170 million and is on track to surpass $200 million.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi are among the high-profile attendees at the inauguration. Uber, along with Elon Musk’s X and media company The Free Press, plans to host an inauguration party in Washington. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong is also invited to events around the inauguration and Elon Musk, a strong Trump ally, is expected to be present in most of the events.

The New York Times reports that due to overwhelming demand, many major donors to the inauguration fund have been informed that VIP tickets are no longer available.

Donation links shared by fundraisers for high-value contributions stopped functioning earlier this week, even though packages were initially advertised as open until Friday. The limited availability forced organizers to cut short the sales. Marketing materials for the donor packages had emphasized the phrase “Space is limited”.

As a result, individuals seeking to attend the event will now need to secure general admission tickets through congressional offices. Top-tier contributors who donated $1 million or more were originally promised six premium tickets for different inaugural events.

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