Article co-authored with Johan Farkas, first published in the Byline Times
At Donald Trump’s inauguration, they were all there. Elon Musk as expected, but also Meta’s Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Bezos, Google’s Pichai, OpenAI’s Altman and Apple’s Cook. Even TikTok’s Shou Zi Chew was present. Each worth one or more billions of dollars, each impacting billions of users.
Surrounded by Trump’s family and far-right celebrities, the tech moguls witnessed a presidential speech laced with fascist tropes: promises of a prophetic “golden age”, attacks on minorities, the expansion of “our” territory through colonisation, and a new era of “law and order”, meaning pardons and protection for supporters and military force against proclaimed inner and outer “enemies”. No doubt his turn towards fossil fuel and promises to cut taxes was music to their ears.
Colossal investments in the AI bubble and the deregulation of crypto was another win for the tech billionaires with potentially disastrous implications for the climate and humanity more broadly.
Keep reading on: