$884 billion – a GDP that would make a country the 20th richest in the world. But this figure isn’t a country’s GDP. It is the total net worth of the three people standing behind President Donald Trump at his inauguration.
Three people — Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos — make up a country-sized level of wealth. But why were they there behind Trump? As former president Joe Biden warned in his final speech as former president, they are forming an oligarchy to conserve wealth at a level higher than that of the gilded age.
Seventy-one percent of Americans feel that wealth inequality is a serious national issue. And they are right.
The top 10 percent in our country owns 60 percent of our wealth, with the bottom 50 percent having only 6 percent of the wealth. A staggering amount of our nation’s wealth is held by a small group, one that can use it to keep power and influence for themselves. And that group is backing the president.
Musk is a contemporary example of this. As a foreign-born citizen of the U.S., Musk is unable to hold office as president. Yet, he spent nearly $300 million on Trump’s and other Republicans’ campaigns. What did he get in return? A position within the Trump administration in a new department he and Trump created.
As head of the Department of Government Efficiency, Musk has already caused major headaches, including trying to get rid of USAID and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Notably, however, he has not cut the billions given to his own companies, SpaceX and Tesla.
Bezos, who used to be anti-Trump, seemed to pull a 180 with his attendance at the inauguration. He owns The Washington Post, which was marked by scandal when it refused to endorse either candidate — a move headed by the CEO himself. This led to many writers and the editor to resign from the paper.
This incident exemplifies how wealthy people in corrupt positions of power can buy media and use it to control the narrative and protect their own interests. For the first few years under Bezos ownership, The Washington Post was against Trump — and so was Bezos. But when it seemed a second Trump term was a possibility and relations between Bezos and Trump softened, Bezos used his platform to silence the media in support of Trump.
Last is Mark Zuckerberg, who owns the most dominant form of media in the 21st century: Meta. Facebook is a hot bed for fake news for its older user base, led by AI and Russian counter intelligence. This news helps to divide Americans and create strife in our country to the benefit of Trump and his campaign strategy, and Zuckerberg’s lack of trying to remove this fake news from Facebook further implicates him.
With so much of our nation’s wealth in a few individual hands, it makes sense why Americans are starting to fear the elite. Their use of the media to push their narratives and agendas and their abilities to buy their way into office is worrying.
An oligarchy has already formed through regulations in media, campaign finance, and poor wealth distribution. Biden said we must break up trusts and raise taxes in higher sectors of wealth. While this is a good start, preventing an oligarchy from gaining more power will require a full examination of the system we have in place.