Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
The Billionaires Surrender
One of the key questions in the authoritarian future of America is what will the billionaires do? Men with more wealth than the GDP of many nations are used to setting their own agendas and getting their way. Mr. Trump taking office is different from other chief executives starting their term. Mr. Trump, like any head of a mafia family, wants his share of what they have. Normally, the alleged masters of the universe would lawyer up and either go to trial or settle after extended negotiations. This time, they simply surrendered before the first shot was fired.
Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon and the second richest person in the world, had his Washington Post spike an endorsement of Kamala Harris during the election campaign. While owners of papers are entitled to print or not print anything they choose, it undermines the integrity of the paper to have the owner stopping the editorial board from doing the job. It clearly shows a willingness to change content to please the man in power.
Elon Musk, the only person richer than Mr. Bezon, was an earlier convert. He decided to invest $250,000,000 in the Trump campaign and won. He is worth $150 billion more today than he was before the campaign. A pretty fair return on investment, but Mr. Musk will likely find Mr. Trump a tiger he is holding by the tail.
Yesterday, Mark Zuckerberg (owner of Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram etc.) announced he was dispensing with his fact-checkers. From now on, the content will be subject to community notes, which is the readers doing their own checking. The arguent is that it allows for freer expression of ideas, and fact-checking was a cause of censorship.
This is, of course, bullshit. Freer expression does not include misinformation and lies. Fact-checking cuts down on propaganda. Having the readers weigh in on accuracy is an opening to propagandists and liars. It is as if the manager of a baseball team calls balls and strikes rather than the impartial umpire.
The Associated Press stated, “Zuckerberg this week also appointed a key Trump ally, Ultimate Fighting Championship chief executive Dana White, to Meta’s board. Amazon announced a documentary on incoming first lady Melania Trump. ABC News, which is owned by Disney, last month settled a libel suit filed by Trump with a $15 million payment to Trump’s presidential library foundation.
“Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth College, called the Meta changes part of 'a pattern of powerful people and institutions kowtowing to the president in a way that suggests they're fearful of being targeted'."
The biggest fear these bandits have is losing their wealth. Mr. Bezos controls 50% of e-commerce according to Scott Galloway of Stern Business School at New York University. Mr. Zuckerberg's little enterprise accounts for 2/3 of social media, and Mr. Musk depends on government contracts for his SpaceX project and subsidies for his Tesla car company. Regulations or even breaking up businesses are the correct response to protect economic competitiveness, and therefore, the greater economy. That is also exactly what they do not want
So, they send Mr. Trump some money for his inauguration. They remove checks on his propaganda capacity. They cease resisting. They can keep their money and their status. They just need to tug their forelocks when the felon/president demands it.
© Copyright 2025 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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