President Biden’s Farewell Address Warns About A Rising Oligarchy of Techno-Billionaires

In his last address to the nation as President of the United States, Joe Biden described conditions in his country resembling those in 1961, when another retiring President, Dwight D. Eisenhower warned Americans in his farewell speech about the danger in the concentration of power within a rising military-industrial complex.

The United States then was in a Cold War with the Soviet Union. Eisenhower’s military-industrial complex included the U.S. Department of Defense, members of Congress, and companies like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman who were the chief suppliers of military hardware.

Eisenhower feared a runaway nuclear arms race stimulated by the “unwarranted influence” of military contractors and the creation of an arms industry that would dictate American foreign policy. He spoke of vigilance stating that “only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry” could ensure future peace while the global ideological confrontation with the Soviets was ongoing.

Biden’s speech doesn’t sound that different. The outgoing President warned about “the dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultrawealthy people, and the dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked.” 

Biden described an oligarchy taking shape in America. The word oligarchy is one we usually associate with Russian billionaires close to Vladimir Putin, not typically to describe America’s ultrawealthy.

Biden noted the concentration of power and influence “literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.” He pointed to a previous period in American history, the Gilded Age of the late 19th and early 20th century, dominated by robber barons whose concentrated wealth set them above the laws of the land. It wasn’t until Teddy Roosevelt’s presidency that laws were passed to bring the ultrawealthy in line and get them to “play by the rules everybody else had.”

Biden borrowed Eisenhower’s words “the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power” in describing the rising tech-industrial complex and the techno-billionaires that pose “real dangers for our country.” 

He didn’t name names, but I can. He was talking about Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel, Larry Ellison, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Steve Ballmer, Jensen Huang, and other technology titans who collectively are worth trillions of dollars.

Musk alone gave President-Elect Trump’s campaign more than $260 million. This appears to have bought him outsized influence in shaping the incoming administration and future U.S. government policy. Biden described hidden campaign contributions called “dark money” that likely is playing a part in the future makeup of the incoming administration. The proposed cabinet of President-elect Trump is described by the Washington Post as “the wealthiest group of presidential advisers in modern history.”

Near the end of his speech, Biden described the danger that “the concentration of power and wealth” represents, describing it as eroding the country’s “sense of unity and common purpose.” He noted, “It causes distrust and division. Participating in our democracy becomes exhausting and even disillusioning, and people don’t feel like they have a fair shot” and an “even playing field.”

The outgoing President called for safeguards to protect the country from the abuse of power that techno-billionaire oligarchs could unleash. He stated that billionaires in the U.S. need to “pay their fair share” and this can only come to fruition through revisions to the tax code which could serve as the guardrails of democracy. Biden also called for term limits for Supreme Court justices, and banning members of Congress from trading stocks.

Technocracy isn’t limited to the U.S. It very much is alive and well in China but there it is under the firm control of the Communist Party. China uses technology to control every aspect of its citizens’ lives. Techno-billionaires there rise and fall at the behest of the good graces of the Communist Party. The same is true for Russia which although no longer Communist-run, appears to be more like the Soviet Union of the past under Vladimir Putin.

Technocracy run by billionaires in the U.S. is already undermining the country’s democratic processes. Their technological expertise through the apps they have developed that have Americans hooked is exerting influence on the shaping of the country’s future. Unelected, techno-billionaire money speaks for them, suborning the roles of elected representatives to create policy and the laws of the land. This is more than disturbing and goes well beyond the U.S. border in terms of influence.

It is one thing to pull the levers of domestic government. It is quite another to exert influence on the politics of other countries. We accuse China and Russia of political interference in democratic elections. Now, U.S. techno-billionaires like Musk are doing the same by stirring the pot in Britain, the European Union, Canada and elsewhere. They along with their President-elect appear to have little respect for other democracies.

That’s why the threat to American democracy that Biden talked about in his farewell speech is also a threat to democracies elsewhere and the self-determination of nations. The warning does not end at the 49th parallel and the Rio Grande.