The super-wealthy have always held sway over U.S. politics, but they haven't always been quite as brazen as Donald Trump's billionaire backers, according to a new report.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Trump's campaign and now serves as one of his closest advisers, while venture capitalist Marc Andreessen will help the tech mogul and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy recommend federal spending cuts for the Department of Government Efficiency after dumping millions of his own money into the race, reported The Atlantic.
"Of course, the hyperwealthy have always found ways to bend the political system," wrote staff writer Ali Breland. "In a 2014 study, the political scientists Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page reviewed thousands of polls and surveys spanning more than 20 years and found that the preferences of the wealthiest Americans were much more likely than those of average citizens to affect policy changes."
"But influence machines were once subterranean: Few people would have known about the political influence machine that the Koch brothers built in the past several decades if not for the work of investigative journalists," Breland added. "The hedge-fund billionaire George Soros has long bankrolled liberal nonprofits. In 2016, Rupert Murdoch made it a point to say that he had 'never asked any prime minister for anything,' after The Evening Standard reported that he had boasted about being able to tell the British government what to do: The media magnate wanted to at least partially conceal his influence.
"Until recently, elites and politicians who worked together feared the scandal of the sausage-making process being revealed, and the public backlash that could come with it."
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But that public reticence seems almost quaint after watching Musk leaping around on Trump's rally stages or publicly stumping for him on the X platform he bought to manipulate political coverage to his preference, and experts say part of that shift in vibes is based on the culture of Silicon Valley.
“Brazenness has been a big piece of Silicon Valley entrepreneurship that’s been celebrated for a long time,” Becca Lewis, a researcher at Stanford who focuses on the politics of the technology industry, told Breland. “You’re supposed to be a disruptor or heterodox thinker.”
Tech leaders had long positioned themselves as above politics, but technologies like cryptocurrency have become politicized – and the ultrarich have become richer than ever, according to Rob Larson, an economics professor who has written about the new ultrarich and Silicon Valley’s influence on politics.
"Having more money means exposure to fewer consequences," Breland wrote. "The last time elites were this vocal in their influence, Larson said, was during the Gilded Age, when multimillionaires such as William Randolph Hearst and Jay Gould worked to shape American politics."
"Regardless of its provenance, the practical impact of this behavior is a less equal system," Breland added. "Many people are worried about President-Elect Donald Trump’s forthcoming administration’s corrosive effects on democracy. The corrosion is already happening, though. A particularly vocal subset of the ultrarich is steering the ship, and doesn’t care who knows."
