As I correctly predicted in 2021-2022, Elon’s brand is bigger than ever. With his endorsement and sharing the stage with Trump last week, has catapulted himself front in center of the 2024 election, even upstaging the Donald himself. He and other billionaires impart greater cultural and political influence now than ever before, and this trend will only continue as politicians and the political-class continues to shrink in relative importance. In short, America has outsourced its leadership and moral guidance to billionaires, and to a lesser extent, e-celebrities.
Three years ago, the Elon-Trump bromance seemed like an impossibility. Trump was banned from Twitter, and Elon was still mostly focused on his flagship businesses, those being Tesla and Space-X. Additionally, they were not even on talking terms and otherwise didn’t have much common ground in terms of temperament or personality. Elon is a technocrat obsessed with merit and details; Trump the product of a privileged upbringing who enjoys the idea of power more than having to lead. A combination of backlash to the Covid lockdowns and suppression of free speech under under the pretense of ‘fighting misinformation’, combined with Trump’s ban from Twitter, saw the apolitical Elon defect to the right, and finally form an alliance with the former president. Their differences were minor compared to what was at stake, and naturally their huge fan bases overlapped and complemented each other.
Other tech billionaires such as Bezos, Jensen Huang of Nvidia, and of course, Zuckerberg, have seen their wealth and influence explode over the past two years too, although they haven’t yet thrown their hat into the political ring as Elon has. The option still exists for Bezos, Cuban, and Zuckerberg to pivot as neoliberal centrists as Musk had done, by rejecting Kamala and even endorsing Trump. Zuckerberg will easily become the wealthiest person in the world and can create a political coalition or brand of his own if he so chooses, but he’s preoccupied with Meta.
The tier below the billionaires are e-celebs, whose also saw a massive post-Covid surge in popularity and rode the woke backlash to continued cultural status and influence, examples being Mr. Beast, Andrew Tate, Matt Walsh, Trump Jr., Jack Posobiec, and Joe Rogan. Except for Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and SCOTUS, policy elites are more diminutive than ever. Yes, Biden is still technically in charge, whose role is more symbolic than consequential. Congress hardly seems to do anything either. Regardless of who wins in 2024, this trend will continue. Trump or Kamala will enter office and then basically not do much, or at least not as much as feared or hoped.
This continues with what I predicted of the private sector’s rise being inversely correlated with the decline of the public sector and the decline of institutions–whether political, cultural, academic, or religious (top-20 colleges are an exception though, being more important and influential than ever). So you basically have a two-tier government, the first being the judiciary (e.g. SCOTUS, attorney generals, district attorneys) and then tech billionaires, whose power limited by the former, such as anti-trust law. And then some miscellany of e-celebs, academic elites, pundits/influencers, and so on as part of the second or third tiers. Politicians do not even enter the picture unless they are needed, like during crisis.
You’d have to go as far back to Obamacare the last time Congress passed some sort of sweeping social policy. Unlike 911, which saw the creation of multiple federal agencies and a massive homeland security outlay that persists to this day, the national response to Covid was limited to the vaccines and stimulus spending, and it was left up to the states to decide how few or many restrictions to enact, whereas the post-911 restrictions were federally mandated (e.g. the Homeland Security Act of 2002).
‘Printing money’ or transfers in the form of stimulus spending (like during Covid), tax cuts, or student loan forgiveness is more politically viable, as it’s popular on both sides of the aisle, and more popular with voters than trying to force social change through comprehensive policy/reform. Rather than having to deal with the long-standing problem of excessive credentialism and out-of-control tuition, the alternative approach is to try to forgive student loans. These are just Band-Aid solutions, but are the best that can be done given the lack of political capital or will to do more.
In trying to answer how or why billionaires rose to such prominence, the huge post-2009 bull market in stocks and economic expansion made the wealthiest even more more wealthy on a nominal and real basis, increasing their political power and influence overall on society, relatively speaking. At the same time extant, mainstream cultural, religious, and political leaders and institutions saw a decline due to scandal (e.g. #metoo) and perceived hypocrisy (e.g. Hillsong Church), like the BLM riots and during Covid (e.g. social justice activists being allowed to protest despite lockdowns for everyone else, or the suppression of debate on social media in the name of ‘trust the science’). Although Taylor Swift is a notable exception–album, book, and Hollywood sales and influence has declined over the past couple decades especially.
For example, declining annual per-person movie ticket sales:
And declining congregational job approval ratings:
And declining church attendance:
By comparison, the economic stagnation, high inflation, and weak stock market performance of the ’60s and ’70s saw political activists and Congress gain a lot of power relative to the weakening private sector, which led to major reforms that still are felt to this day, such as Medicare and the ironically-named ‘Great Society’ reforms. A similar pattern was noted in the ’30s and early ’40s too during the Great Depression and its aftermath, which also saw major government reforms and programs that also persist to this day, notably the Social Security Administration.
I think also billionaires are simply more effective at getting things done compared to policy elites. Becoming a billionaire is hard; it means having to rise to the top of crowded businesses and industries through sheer competence, and some luck. You typically don’t become that wealthy unless you are competent. E-celebs and social media influencers are perceived as more relatable and less nepotistic compared to mainstream/Hollywood celebrities and elites. They also help provide moral guidance, for example the lectures of Jordan Peterson, that may be lacking in schools and elsewhere in society.