There may be not an agreed collective noun for billionaires: an abundance … a bubble … a privilege … an avoidance.
Newly reinstated as president of the US, Donald J Trump has surrounded himself – or finds himself surrounded by – a retinue of among the richest individuals ever to stroll the face of the Earth.
The pictures have been putting. Distinguished at Trump’s intimate indoor inauguration sat the three wealthiest individuals on the planet: X’s Elon Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg.
Flanked by different members of the billionaire’s membership, they sat centre of a single row of individuals value greater than a trillion {dollars}, perched on fold-out chairs.
That is the brand new elite, the brand new president’s praetorian guard. To some, together with former presidents, that is an rising oligarchy.
The billionaires jostling for place in Trump’s interior circle already wield immense energy.
“But I think getting close to Trump is about extending that economic power, that media power up to direct political power, and in a sense, breaking down the traditional boundary between the private and the public sphere,” argues Prof Carl Rhodes, professor of organisation research and dean of the Enterprise Faculty, College of Expertise Sydney. Democracies, he says, have lengthy noticed a distinction between the democratically ruled public sphere, and the private and company realms.
“This is the final big step in erasing that barrier so that private interests can benefit from political power. And that’s why it’s so dangerous.
“Of course, this has been going on for a long time, with lobbying and donations and other forms of direct contributions. But this now, is just so brazen. It’s not even pretending to be covert.”
The Trump presidencies have already proved themselves helpful to the super-rich: Trump’s cuts to company tax in 2017 – from 35% to 21% – added billions to firm income and to the private wealth of America’s richest. Earnings tax cuts skewed to the highest 0.1% of households helped billionaires pay a decrease charge of tax than the working class for the primary time in American historical past.
Had Trump not been re-elected, these tax cuts had been set to run out subsequent yr. However the reinstalled president has promised, as an alternative, extra cuts to company charges, and private cuts for the “highest earners”.
“You’re rich as hell,” he advised a donor dinner on the marketing campaign path. “We’re going to give you tax cuts.”
Enterprise titans wanting the ear of a president is not any new phenomenon in US politics.
What’s categorically totally different about Trump’s cohort is the affect they wield unbiased of the bully pulpit of the presidency.
Many personal and management social media platforms and tech firms that attain billions throughout the planet every day: they’ve an unprecedented capability to sway public opinion. Many of those platforms have been essential in spreading misinformation and disinformation across the globe.
Musk, the world’s richest particular person, has been a conspicuous fixed, omnipresent in conjunction with the president: at Mar-a-Lago, at rallies, and on the inauguration day occasions. He poured 1 / 4 of a billion {dollars} into getting Trump elected.
Maybe much more critically, his social media platform X, was slavish in its help of Trump’s marketing campaign: credited by analysts as a key consider his decisive election win.
Musk has made erratic forays into international politics too: demanding UK prime minister Keir Starmer be jailed, and endorsing Germany’s far-right AfD get together. In Australia, prime minister Anthony Albanese pre-emptively warned Musk off interfering in elections this yr: “Australian elections are a matter for Australians”.
The lead-up to, and the wake of, November’s presidential election noticed a gradual stream of the super-wealthy make the pilgrimage to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, to be granted an viewers to quietly pay obeisance, or a seat on the apparently joyless dinner desk by which to publicly declare fealty.
Zuckerberg and Bezos arrived to kiss the ring, as did Apple’s Tim Prepare dinner, Google’s Sergey Brin, and Microsoft co-founder Invoice Gates.
“Some of the business people who have been cozying up to Trump represent companies that get a lot of government contracts or are worried about government regulation,” Darrell West, senior fellow on the Brookings Establishment, noticed to Reuters.
And searching for a seat on the desk too – actually and figuratively – have been Australian billionaires.
James Packer got here for dinner. Gina Rinehart and Anthony Pratt displayed their loyalty with effusive full-page advertisements in newspapers in Trump’s house city.
Gina Rinehart’s wishlist was strikingly clear.
“To the Outstanding Leader,” she addressed her missive, “who understands that high government tape, regulation and taxes do nothing to encourage investment.”
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She backed it up in interviews with uncritical media in Australia, saying she hoped Australia could be “inspired by Donald Trump” and urging Australian governments to undertake his insurance policies: “We should set up a Doge (department of government efficiency) immediately, reduce government waste, government tape and regulations”. She stated she was “wanting to invest more billions in the US”.
“We see the US will become, under President Trump’s leadership, an outstanding investment opportunity.”
Anthony Pratt was equally oleaginous.
“I’m honored to support your call to Make America Great Again by bringing manufacturing jobs back home,” he advised Trump by means of the pages of the New York Instances.
Pratt, whom Trump notoriously known as “a red-haired weirdo from Australia”, has lengthy sought to domesticate the president: he has invited him to manufacturing unit openings (Pratt’s US firm operates 70 websites throughout the nation), and gave $US10m to MAGA Inc, a super-pac supporting Trump, within the days earlier than the election.
After Trump’s victory, Pratt hosted a celebration for 700 individuals at Mar-a-Lago (Trump wasn’t there). He additionally donated greater than $1m to the president’s inauguration fund.
Joe Biden, in his farewell deal with from the Oval Workplace that’s now Trump’s, warned America of “the dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultra-wealthy people, and the dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked”.
“Today,” Biden stated, “an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms.”
Rhodes, the creator of Stinking Wealthy: the 4 Myths of the Good Billionaire, concurs with Biden’s evaluation of the US, and argues the identical dangers exist for different liberal democracies comparable to Australia.
“The question is: is Australian culture robust enough to see through it? It’s kind of characteristic of Australian culture to question these things, to not be duped by this sort of colonisation. Can Australian culture withstand this new expansion of influence?”
Trump is beneficial too, Rhodes argues, to billionaires searching for to justify their huge wealth in a world of widening inequality.
He describes the parable of the “vigilante billionaire”, one with an admirable disrespect for the legislation and conference and who, confronted with a social in poor health that authorities is unable or unwilling to repair, “comes in and single-handedly fixes it and then rides off into the sunset”.
It’s the ethical case, Rhodes says, the billionaire makes for the billionaire, the demagogue for the demagogue.
“When Trump talks about ‘draining the swamp’ and dismantling government bureaucracy: it’s him and only him who can save America.
“If you listen to Elon Musk, when he bought X, it wasn’t because it was a good business deal, it was because he wanted to be this messianic saviour of democracy.”
Rhodes argues the parable is used as a self-justification for actions and insurance policies that entrench inequality.
“That’s why I say it moralises billionaires because it makes them look good: they’re the heroes.
“But what this myth does is mask the fact that they’re sequestering increasingly large proportions of the world’s wealth when many others are going hungry. It’s a means of preventing moves towards a more equal and fair society.”
