In his farewell speech from the Oval Office, Joe Biden warned that “an oligarchy is taking shape in America” and spoke of a rising “tech-industrial complex that could pose real dangers for our country.” Indeed, Trump’s inauguration seemed to symbolise such statements, and flanked by the likes of Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Sintar Pichai and Jeff Bezos, this moment of political history appeared to display alarmingly close-knit state-industry relations, which could prove to have adverse impacts on many, domestically and internationally.
An oligarchy, as defined by political scientist Jonathan Hanson, is when “power is held by a group of people on the basis of their wealth, noble or religious status, military rank, and so forth.” Biden’s statement is therefore perhaps somewhat of a polemical one, a heightened critique of his electoral competitor. With Musk now leading Trump’s new department of Government efficiency (known for short as Doge), and many of the other figures altering their platforms to comply with Trump’s ideology, there’s a case to be made for the validity of Biden’s comment. So how might this oligarchy play out? And what might it mean for democracy as a whole?
Perhaps it is not very surprising that Trump is aligning so much with the tech industry – Silicon Valley has had a culture of masculinism and anti-woke sentiment since the 1990s. Prominent figures from this era, such as George Gilder, spoke of restoring traditional gender roles, fighting political correctness and dismantling welfare state initiatives in the name of good old fashioned American entrepreneurialism. In 1990, the magazine Upside, a San Francisco-based business and technology publication for venture capitalists, published an article entitled: “The pussification of Silicon Valley.” Flashforward 35 years and Zuckerberg is on Joe Rogan’s podcast advocating for the increase in “masculine energy” in corporate culture. Zuckerberg is not carving out a new culture of masculinist ideas, rather revitalising and building on Silicon Valley’s foundations whilst pandering to Trump. That Trump would identify with this aspect of the tech industry should come as no shock. He is a celebrant of the ‘self-made’ American, minimal state regulation, and has now been legally defined as a sexual predator. So too is it not surprising that the tech bros are changing their tune to one which resonates more with the President’s worldviews. Conceivably, there’s an economic benefit to aligning your views with the leader of the world’s largest economy.
So, what has changed since Trump’s election? Starting with Facebook, Zuckerberg has already rid his platform of factcheckers, in an apparent effort to win over the man who he had previously suspended from Meta. In a similar fashion, Bezos has stopped a $10bn fund for a climate group monitoring companies carbon emissions, despite saying in 2020 that “[he] want[s] to … explore new ways of fighting the devastating impact of climate change on this planet we all share.”
Not only has Trump’s election had an effect on the workings of the tech world, but the industry itself seems to be entering political territory, Elon Musk has now been appointed as head of Doge (Department of Government Efficiency), making him an unelected figure operating freely in a position of federal power. Since this appointment, Musk has cut funds to USAid – the country’s main foreign aid organisation, made a buyout offer to two million government employees in a bid to slash the size of the government workforce, and attempted to override the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, set up after the 2007 financial crash to protect buyers. The Doge team has already been granted full access to the United States’s federal payment system. Senator Ron Wyden says this “endangers US cybersecurity and creates conflicts of interest that make [Musk’s] access to these systems a national security risk.” David Lebryk, from the department of the treasury, voiced objection to the advances of Doge and has subsequently been placed on administrative leave over the disagreement.
Musk’s recruitment for his new government department consists largely of young, male engineers, from his own companies- some completely underqualified in their newly appointed positions. Take for example Nikhil Rajpal, Doge’s representative at the Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. With an academic background in computer science and history, and a record of advocacy for minimal government intervention, Rajpal has already begun to take action, using his position in government to dismantle regulatory organisations and labour unions.
Accompanying Musk’s involvement, there have been conjectures that the changes being enacted threaten democracy. The situation is described by Arizona’s attorney general Kris Mayers, as a ‘coup’, which is ‘lacerating the structures of US democracy’. There’s evidence for these claims – Musk spent in excess of $250m on Trump’s election campaign and has been involving himself in German and British politics too, speaking at a rally for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party – also endorsed by JD Vance– and aiming critiques at Keir Starmer. Back in January, Musk seemed to politicise the rape of young girls in Rochdale, framing the Prime Minister as ‘complicit’, and calling for him to go to prison – comments symptomatic of the apparent ‘vendetta’ he has held against Starmer since his election , taking a ‘dim’ view on Starmer’s strong response to the far-right riots in July. It can be argued Musk has launched a ‘political swipe’ at the prime minister, ignoring the plight of the abuse survivors. Furthermore, X is currently under investigation for preferentially pushing right-wing content over posts from other political groups that are thought to pose a threat to democratic elections. An argument has also been made for the Trump-Vance-Musk regime attempting to divide European democracies by empowering the nationalist far-right.
Musk also has his crosshairs aimed at USAid, describing America’s lead foreign aid group as a “criminal organization” that “needs to die”. Doge has halted food supplies and lifesaving medicines to dozens of countries, in addition to causing the layoffs of leading scientists whose research aims to stop the most deadly child killing diseases.
Musk’s double nazi-salute at the inauguration has invited public debate over what the action was and if it has any material significance outside of being a juvenile act of attention seeking. Whilst Musk might have revelled in the outcry his action provoked, managing to steer the spotlight from Trump and onto himself and making the blasé comment that “The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired”, there is strong evidence of fascist societal traits. From political scientist Lawrence Britt’s 14 characteristics of fascism, you would be hard pressed to argue a single one is not present in America to some degree: identification of scapegoats as a unifying cause, controlled mass media, articulated sexism and cronyism, to name a few.
Is there any cause for solace amidst the chaos we have witnessed already and are likely to continue to witness throughout the remainder of the Trump administration? Well, looking over to Hungary where there is arguably the best example of an actual oligarchy in the West, Viktor Orban’s friends contribute 20-30% of the economy, according to one estimate, compared to Amazon, Meta and Tesla contributing 1.8% of American GDP. These figures show that perhaps the tech-bros are too insignificant a portion of the American economy to completely commandeer and reshape the country as they wish. Additionally, we can hope internal rivalries and conflicting interests will prove to be a source of potential conflict and fallings out. It is unclear the legs that the Trump-Musk romance has, some predict an imminent collision, others see the symbiotic relationship here for the long haul.
In any case, the early stages of Trump’s presidency have already impacted the world of technology, and it’s clear that figures like Musk are having seismic impacts. The events of Trump’s presidency so far indicate Biden’s comments to be true and so there is serious cause for concern regarding the immediate future of US democracy, foreign policy and the many that will be adversely affected in the coming weeks, months, and years.
