Donald J Trump was inaugurated as the 47th President of the United States of America on January 20, 2025. It was not just another traditional ceremony for the transfer of power to a President-elect in the US. It was different on many counts. For the first time in US history, the ceremony was held indoors due to freezing weather. Additionally, it was attended by the smallest number of people ever because of the limited accommodation inside the Capitol building.
Above all, it was unique because the incoming President was Donald Trump – the consistent newsmaker. His campaign promises included launching mass deportation of illegal immigrants, closing borders, ending birthright citizenship, imposing a 25% tariff on imports from neighboring Canada and Mexico, changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, taking over the Panama Canal, and acquiring Greenland. Consequently, the entire world watched his inauguration ceremony on TV with anxious apprehension. Indeed, he reiterated those promises in his inauguration speech and issued a flurry of Executive Orders on his first day in office, putting many of them into action.
But in this writing, we are not going to discuss those topics. Instead, we will focus on another intriguing aspect of the ceremony. Those who watched it live on TV couldn’t miss the sight of the spectacular presence of all the tech giants of America sitting together behind President Trump. Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk; Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos; Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg; Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook; and Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai were all there.
According to the BBC, Elon Musk spent about $300 million on Trump’s election campaign. It is only reasonable to assume that other billionaires also followed suit. Veteran US Senator Bernie Sanders stated that nearly 150 billionaires spent close to $2 billion in the 2024 US elections to support politicians aligned with their agendas. Naturally, these billionaires will have a strong influence on the politicians elected with their backing. Sanders observes that the US is moving toward an oligarchy.
We may recall that after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, there were numerous media reports about “Russian oligarchs”. They were a group of extremely wealthy Russian business leaders who gained their wealth during the privatization of state assets following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. They had close ties to the Russian government and they wielded significant influence over Russia’s economy and politics. By definition, a government is considered an oligarchy when actual power is held by a small group of people, often wealthy or powerful individuals. Oligarchy can exist within the structure of a democratic system.
On New Year’s Eve 2024, Bernie Sanders delivered a video message wishing his fellow Americans a happy new year. In his message, he shared some truly eye-opening facts and figures. Sanders mentioned that just three individuals—Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg—possess more wealth than the bottom half of US society combined. He went on to highlight that a handful of massive corporations dominate key sectors of the US economy, including healthcare, agriculture, financial services, energy, and transportation. These conglomerates dictate what is produced and set the prices consumers pay. Even more astonishingly, just three Wall Street firms—BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street—manage assets exceeding $22 trillion. These firms are the largest shareholders in 95% of S&P 500 companies, having immense influence over the world’s biggest corporations.
As the US is the top economic and military power in the world, the state and events of its politics and economy significantly impact the rest of the world. If the super-rich in the US steer the country toward oligarchy, the consequences will extend far beyond its borders. It is particularly worrying when the oligarchs are tech giants. Because the technology they control has far more clout than their financial power.
Consider Elon Musk. His SpaceX company has 6,912 satellites orbiting the Earth. The number is set to increase to 42,000. SpaceX has sent crews to the International Space Station and its Starship is the most powerful rocket ever built in the world. It aims to carry humans and cargo to Mars and beyond. In the same way, Mark Zuckerberg with his Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp wields significant clout in controlling global communication and social interactions with more than 3 billion users worldwide.
An oligarchy of such technology titans cannot be ruled out, given their enormous clout and capabilities on a global scale. Their collective presence at Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony was so strikingly noticeable that it sparked speculation about the extent of their influence on the President or the government. If a tech oligarchy were to emerge in the USA, it could transcend national boundaries, with a few tech giants potentially dictating the world order.
This article was published in the Daily Sun on January 28, 2025. Here is the link: https://www.daily-sun.com/printversion/details/788842