San Francisco Frontiers - Oligarchs already own much of US - can they buy democracy?

Biden used his farewell speech to the nation to deliver a shockingly dark message: that a nation which has always revered its entrepreneurs may now be at their mercy.

"An oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms," Biden said.

He named no names, but his targets were clear: men like Elon Musk -- the world's richest person -- who surround incoming Republican president Trump.

That "dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultra-wealthy people" will have "dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked," he said.

And echoing president Dwight Eisenhower's own farewell warning in 1961 about the dangers of an out-of-control military industrial complex, Biden flagged the "potential rise of a tech industrial complex" -- referring to the Silicon Valley titans behind transformational advances in AI and robots.

Biden's pulling of the alarm cord as he goes out the door can be chalked up to politics. But there's no disputing the fact that America's uber-wealthy and fantastically ambitious tycoons are swarming around Trump.

- A place on dais -

On Inauguration Day on Monday, several of the biggest will sit feet away from Trump on the presidential dais.

Chief among them is Musk, whose wealth is estimated by Forbes to be $435 billion, and who has been named to a high-profile position in charge of cutting government spending.

After helping to bankroll the campaign against Kamala Harris, Musk has become a fixture in the inner circle, appearing at more public dinners and other events with Trump than the president-elect's wife Melania.

As owner of SpaceX, Musk is already one of the biggest US government contractors, and as owner of Tesla, he's at the forefront of the US push to win the e-vehicle race. As owner of social media site X, he has turned the platform into a bullhorn for voices that favor Trump.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg -- second and third on Forbes' global rich list -- will also be on the dais.

Bezos, vying to rival Musk in the space contracting business, loudly signaled his decision to cozy up to Trump just before the election when he killed an endorsement by his newspaper, The Washington Post, of Harris.

Zuckerberg, who once banned Trump from Facebook because of his role in attempts to overthrow the 2020 election, recently dined with Trump and is reportedly hosting a reception for Republican billionaires at the inauguration -- which he has also helped fund to the tune of $1 million.

More consequentially: Zuckerberg last week announced that Facebook and Instagram will get rid of an army of fact checkers in the United States -- long demonized as liberal censorship by Trump and his allies.

According to US media, Shou Zi Chew, the head of another controversial and massively influential platform -- Chinese-owned TikTok -- has also been invited to the inauguration.

- Oligarchy US-style -

The presence of the super-rich in politics is neither new nor confined to the United States.

In Russia, oligarchs in the wild 1990s first bought up the economy, then the government, before being forced into a more regulated partnership with the Kremlin under Vladimir Putin.

Business figures have also entered deep into politics in countries as varied as India and communist China.

But Lorenzo Castellania, a history professor at Rome's Luiss University, says the US has distinct oligarchical traditions.

"I don't think it is fair to compare Musk to the oligarchs of authoritarian regimes. I think instead he fits into a very American historical typology such as the robber barons who appeared on the political scene in the late 19th and early 20th century," Castellania said.

Although the likes of Andrew Carnegie and JP Morgan wielded enormous influence over US democracy, they also created untold wealth for the economy, leaving legacies ranging from soaring public buildings to entire industries.

But the Gilded Age was almost a century and a half ago. How will it work this time?

Castellania says the seemingly ironbound Trump-Musk partnership may contain two fatal flaws.

First, "both have a huge ego" and "the chances of friction being generated in the long run are high."

Secondly, something deeper: Trump's electoral base wants less immigration and more isolationism, while Musk and the "tech industrial complex" have global -- even inter-planetary -- visions.

"One of the most interesting questions of this new administration," Castellania said, "will be to see whether or not this coexistence will endure."

N.Wilson--SFF