(Bloomberg Opinion) — The impending U.S. presidential inauguration casts a long shadow. The most important uncertainty that worries many people concerns the role of Donald Trump, who is close to the world’s richest man, Elon Musk.
Mr. Musk is more notorious than the next president for his reckless comments, especially about the United Kingdom, towards which he seems to harbor a strangely violent hostility. He characterizes our country as a “tyrannical police state” and believes that our country is becoming “completely Stalinized,” while predicting that “civil war is inevitable.”
Money is always a hot topic on both sides of the Atlantic. For centuries, wealthy people have bought politicians and their stocks. Rupert Murdoch does not bribe the rulers, but through fear of his vast media empire he secures the slavish obedience of many. What will be notable in 2025 is that the super-rich will emerge from the closet, or at least from the gilded towers in which they run their companies, and exercise power as members of government, or attempt to do so. .
Mr Musk appears to have discussed the possibility of donating 100 million pounds ($125 million) to the far-right British Reform Party, which would be the unfathomable biggest political aid in British history and could buy elections. This is a blatant attempt. Such an outcome was made unlikely after Mr Musk sent a disparaging email about reform leader Nigel Farage. But even that speculation shook many cages and stimulated debate about the role of the wealthy in politics. Mask is the wildest card in the pack, which will begin being distributed on January 20th.
Mr. Musk, who is photographed daily next to the next CEO, has made no secret of his eagerness to turn his multibillion-dollar holdings into a force that controls the destiny of nations, especially the United States.
It’s impossible to doubt his insane genius, which is reflected not only in his automotive accomplishments at Tesla, but also in the SpaceX project. But unlike Trump, Musk has never run for office on anything. He never sought to dictate to the American people, let alone other countries, beyond his own pocketbook.
As the owner of X (formerly Twitter), Musk wields even more power. Among the motivations for supporting Mr. Trump is an apparent determination to fight any attempts, often claimed by Democrats, to break up the powerful social media giants. Not only X, but also Google, Apple Inc., and Amazon.com Inc. have more influence than most national governments. In many jurisdictions, this can be used to avoid large amounts of tax.
Their bosses are less politically prominent than Mr. Musk, but their control is undisputed. For more than a decade after Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post, he was seen as a shrewd, hands-off executive. But in this recent US election, he surprised the media world by ordering the Post not to endorse candidates.
Few doubted that his motive was to protect Amazon from a vengeful President Trump. Similarly, since the election, processions of the wealthiest Americans have gathered at Mar-a-Lago and Trump Tower to kiss the winner’s ring, and many have made campaign contributions.
I’ve been searching through the history archives to think about how unprecedented what’s happening is. The influence of business on democratic politics has been influential for centuries. Many experts lament the government’s willingness to grab wealth, whether or not it was earned honestly. In 1873, the British novelist Anthony Trollope wrote a brilliant, furious denunciation of the cult of money entitled “The Way We Now Live.”
A kind of dishonesty, a dishonesty so grand and lofty in its scale, has become at once so rampant and so spectacular that men and women are taught to feel it. There appears to be reason to be concerned that this may be the case. It will cease to be wonderful and abominable.
A rogue lives in a luxurious palace with paintings on every wall, jewels in every cupboard, marble and ivory in every corner, holds great banquets, enters the parliament, and does what he wants. There’s no shame in cheating when you can make a million dollar deal. And a man who is dishonest in such a way is no lowly scoundrel.
Any reader of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Bullying Pulpit, an excellent 2014 study of the Theodore Roosevelt era, will be familiar with the Carnegies, Rockefellers, and others of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. You know the power wielded by the ruthless American monopolies.
Such characters are comparable to today’s moguls. But while Teddy Roosevelt showed the courage as president to curtail the power of the barons, it is doubtful that the modern U.S. government would take similar action. Mr. Trump himself has accomplished the previously undreamed-of feat of turning a presidential candidate into a profit center.
Meanwhile, the old newspaper magnates, especially William Randolph Hearst in the United States and Lord Northcliffe, Lord Beaverbook, and Lord Rothermere in England, used their titles ruthlessly to promote political causes, including included fascism in the Rothermere affair of the 1930s.
Beaverbrook was once asked during a government inquiry why he owned a newspaper, and he shamelessly replied: “To do propaganda.” It is said that the Canadian power broker never supported a cause that combined honor and success.
But neither that generation nor the radio and television moguls who followed them wielded a tenth of the power of modern social media bosses. A characteristic of many wealthy people with political ambitions is that they use their wealth as a cudgel to defeat those who oppose their wishes, to a greater or lesser degree.
One of the people who tried to distort British politics, although he lives overseas and is not a significant UK taxpayer, founded the Referendum Party, which ran a pioneering campaign to drive Britain out of Europe. It was Sir James Goldsmith.
Goldsmith was a shameless bully. During the 1997 general election campaign, while I, as a newspaper editor, continued to disparage himself and his candidates, a lawyer called me to deliver the following message: To destroy you. ” Goldsmith did try to fire me, but he failed.
This kind of barbarity is what makes many of us uncomfortable with billionaires trying to take advantage of our government. It seems unlikely for now that Mr Musk will follow through on his threat to give Britain’s Reform Party a devastating £100m, but that he will continue to use his vast wealth to influence political outcomes. There is little room for doubt. It is in the best interest of all democracies for Mr. Musk, and indeed all wealthy people, to focus on making money and leaving the governance to professional politicians and voters. A big chance.
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This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Max Hastings is a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. His books include “Overlord: D-Day and the Battle of Normandy.”
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