Oligarchy in overdrive
Two months into his second term, Trump is making mere plutocracy seem quaint.
The stock market has had a horrible few weeks as businesses and investors struggle to make sense of President Trump’s economic plans. Elon Musk’s bottom line, too, has taken a major hit as sales of Tesla vehicles have dropped around the world. So last week, Trump responded like any good politician would: by insisting that his policies are having a “tremendously positive impact” and inviting America’s richest car salesman to join him for an infomercial on the White House lawn.
Standing next to Musk, Trump complained that his budget-cutting czar had “been treated very unfairly by a very small group of people,” adding that it was important for Americans to “know that he can’t be penalized for being a patriot.” The president marvelled at a set of Tesla vehicles arrayed before him as he read from what appeared to be talking points for a sales pitch, complete with a reminder that the cars could be purchased for as little as $299 per month. The stunt—and Trump’s promise to buy a Tesla of his own—helped pull the company’s stock out of a free fall that had zapped $800 billion from its market cap since December. Meanwhile, Musk is considering giving an additional $100 million to Trump-controlled political groups, according to the New York Times, which describes the potential donations as “unheard-of for a White House staffer.”
This, uh, synergistic exchange is the latest evidence that, in his second term, Trump is working hard to erase many pesky distinctions between his personal and professional interests—and between the personal and professional interests of any wealthy patrons willing to stand with him. In the process, the president is offering a lesson in how to turn a plutocracy into a full-blown oligarchy.
The US has arguably been a plutocracy—a system of government run by the wealthy—for some time now. Political scientists have found little correlation between American popular opinion and public policy decisions, and, in an era of super PACs, mega donors have been allowed to spend remarkable sums in order to get their preferred candidates elected. But Trump is taking things further. In an oligarchy, the privileged few wield more than just economic power; tools like social media sites, newspapers, and perhaps even the military are at the leaders’ disposal, and elites aren’t afraid to use power in manifestly corrupt ways. Or perhaps corrupt is the wrong word. When a system is restructured to obscure any distinction between the public interest and the private desires of a tiny elite, then “corruption” is just how the new game works. If you work with Trump, you get an ad for your cars. If you oppose him, you get retribution. Just ask the lawyers at Perkins Coie, a powerful law firm that went on the attack against Trump back in 2016 and is now facing an all-out assault from the White House.
Musk occupies a position of honor in this new system, not least because his interests now seem to align completely with those of Trump. The world’s richest man has energetically pursued those interests in the first two months of the new administration, as he simultaneously runs several private and public companies as well as a government department with widespread authority over the agencies that regulate those companies. Musk’s success has already started to breed copycats—a growing group of eager billionaires who hope to reap the benefits of membership in the MAGA oligarchy.