In his last address from the White House as president, Biden warned, “Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America—of extreme wealth, power, and influence—that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.”
Sixty-four years to the day that General Eisenhower made his famous speech against the military-industrial complex, President Biden addressed a new kind of threat: a coalition of wealthy technological entrepreneurs who also serve as generous financiers, largely supporting President Trump’s campaign.
Regardless of political affiliation, the influence of tech moguls on the current administration is undeniable. After Trump won the November elections, a flurry of emissaries and tech-funded envoys reportedly went to see Trump at Mar-a-Lago. This culminated in significant amounts of money being donated to his inauguration fund.
One person who has been central to this is Elon Musk. Reports suggest the billionaire donated one million dollars daily from mid-October until election day. This money was reportedly intended to influence swing state voters who signed a petition encouraging the protection of First Amendment rights.
The petition, spearheaded by Musk and members of the Trump campaign, distributed funds to participants, amounting to approximately 21 million dollars. Overall, Musk donated around 270 million dollars to the Republican Party, making him by far their largest individual donor.
In November, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg visited Trump after his electoral win. Meta had previously banned Trump from its platform following the January 6th insurrection. In a surprising turn of events, Zuckerberg made a second visit in January.
Additionally, Meta donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund and added Donald Trump’s close ally, Dana White, the President and CEO of UFC, to Meta’s Board of Directors. Finally, Meta removed fact-checkers from its platform. These key moves appeared to appease Trump—a stark contrast to the company’s earlier stance.
Sam Altman, the co-founder and CEO of OpenAI, also came under scrutiny after a letter written by Senators Elizabeth Warren and Michael Bennett revealed that donations of one million dollars were suggested as a “magic number” to curry favor with the incoming administration. The CEO published the letter publicly on X.
Other major individuals and corporations, including Amazon, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google, Microsoft, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi and Uber, reportedly contributed one million dollars each to Trump’s inaugural fund.
According to the letter, these donations were made to gain favor with the administration. Notably, all these donors are subjects of ongoing investigations and regulatory actions, which may explain their urgency to establish goodwill with Trump.
It is interesting to see what direction the tech moguls, who influenced the appointment of JD Vance as Vice President pick, will have on the future of TikTok. TikTok and its 170 million American users are in limbo after the app was briefly shut down on Sunday then brought back again after a couple of hours, apparently with the help of Donald Trump.
