The inauguration of the 47th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, was strange for a number of reasons. For one, it was held inside, a break of tradition forced by below-freezing temperatures in the Capital. Donald Trump took the oath of office, with his hand notably not resting on the 172-year-old “Lincoln Bible,” standing just yards from the tunnel where rioters had brutally fought police on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021. The most notable abnormality, however, was the seating arrangement. Seated together in the VIP section at the inauguration alongside Trump’s family and top U.S. officials were the three richest men in the country: Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk. Also present were OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew. It’s clear that tech billionaires will enjoy unprecedented power in the new Trump term. This is highly dangerous both for the American government and people.
Over the past four decades, wealth inequality in America has only increased. According to the Federal Reserve, the top one percent in the country controls about 31 percent of the wealth, and the bottom 50 percent has only 2.4 percent. Additionally, the uber-rich pay exceptionally few taxes. Elon Musk – CEO of Tesla, owner of the social media company X, and world’s richest man – enjoys a uniquely low rate. Between 2014 and 2018 Musk earned $14 billion yet only paid $455 million in taxes, a “true tax rate” of 3.27 percent. For perspective, in 2023 the average American worker’s tax rate was 35 percent. With such exorbitant sums of money, it is all too easy for billionaires to begin to infiltrate the world of politics. This is largely done through donations. In the 2024 presidential election, Musk pumped more than a quarter of a billion dollars into Donald Trump’s campaign. In the end, he alone donated nearly 30 percent of Trump’s outside funding. This is not an equitable system – candidates should not be elected just because they have the backing of a single person. There must be contribution limits that more strictly enforce donations from individuals.
Having donated such a colossal amount of money, Elon Musk, along with Bezos, Zuckerberg, Altman, and the other billionaires who donated to Trump’s campaign or inauguration, has suddenly found himself with an incredible amount of political power. The ultra-wealthy are now closer to Trump than even most of the president’s cabinet. Musk and Trump literally live together. The New York Times reported in December that since election day, Musk has been staying in a cottage at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property just “several hundred feet from the main house.” Over the past months, Elon Musk has frequently attended private dinners with the president and sat in on phone calls with foreign leaders. But why is this a problem? For one, Elon Musk does not have the qualifications to be a government official. He was neither elected nor confirmed by the Senate like Trump’s other appointees. He has engaged in highly alarming behavior, including multiple “high-level” conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin since at least 2022. He has exhibited a long history of sexism, antisemitism, and sympathy towards Nazism. This includes an appearance at a German far-right rally in January, when he told the audience not to “focus on past guilt,” referencing the country’s Nazi history. People with a history like Musk’s must not be allowed to have such sway over the president just because they are billionaires. Make no mistake – there is no other reason.
This is not a Musk-exclusive problem. Billionaires should not hold positions so close to the president without having been elected, especially those devoid of political experience and with troubling pasts. How does America fix this? The truth is that billionaires cannot be kept out of politics entirely. They have extraordinary power and will find ways to do what they want. But their influence must be limited by legislation. For one, conflict of interest laws can and should be written to stop CEOs from lobbying for regulations (or a lack thereof) within their own industries. Through legislation, the government can limit the impact that CEOs have on presidential elections and ensure that they continue to be an untainted and equal process. There must also be limits on political donations to campaigns. Current laws permit the creation of “super political action committees” that essentially allow the rich to circumvent any caps. Through these methods, the United States may be able to step out of the shadow cast by its oligarchs and return to a world in which the people truly have the power and our democracy is entirely restored.