WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden on Wednesday cautioned Americans about an oligarchy of the superrich taking over the country in a farewell address from the Oval Office, the warning underscored by several tech mega-billionaires heading to Washington DC to attend the Trump inauguration on January 20.
“Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy,” Biden said three days before he demits office, in an ominous warning about dangerous consequences if they are left unchecked.
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The outgoing President did not take any names but it was a clear reference to the so-called tech bros who are lining up to attend what some critics see as a Trump “coronation” — among them Tesla/x’s Elon Musk, Meta/Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Alphabet/Google’s Sundar Pichar, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Apple’s Tim Cook, Venture Capitalist Marc Andreesen, and Tik-Tok’s Shou Zi Chew.
In echoes of President Dwight Eisenhower’s unheeded warning about the “military-industrial complex” in his 1961 farewell address, Biden spoke of a “tech-industrial complex that could pose real dangers to our country” resulting from the erosion of truth on unchecked social media platforms.
“Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation enabling the abuse of power,” Biden said in an oblique reference to Zuckerberg’s Meta doing away with fact-checkers this week on the lines of X, whose boss Elon Musk has led the tech-bros march into the Trump world, with critics alleging they are literally pawing the ground before the MAGA supremo to enrich themselves.
“The free press is crumbling, editors are disappearing. Social media is giving up on fact-checking. The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit,” Biden warned in a dark address that some critics described as a “carnage speech” of the kind Trump delivered during his Presidential campaign. Trump and his MAGA acolytes maintain they are only righting the legacy media’s liberal narratives that have long held sway.
Several tech honchos, including Apple’s Tim Cook and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, have made a bee-line to Mar-a-Lago in recent days after bank-rolling the Trump inauguration fund, which has raked in a record $ 170 million to unfurl what is expected to be a lavish event unprecedented in US history.
The inauguration will also seat several foreign leaders and dignitaries for the first time, among them India’s External Affairs Minister S.Jaishankar.
Biden also cautioned Americans about other consequences from the concentration of power in the tech elites, including on the fight against climate change and managing artificial intelligence.
“Powerful forces want to wield their unchecked influence to eliminate the steps we’ve taken to tackle the climate crisis, to serve their own interest for power and profit. We must not be bullied to sacrifice in the future, the future of our children and our grandchildren,” Biden said.
Describing artificial intelligence as the “most consequential technology of our time, perhaps of all time,” he also warned about the technology’s potential dangers without adequate safeguards in place. “AI could spawn new threats to our rights, our way of life, to our privacy, how we work and how we protect our nation,” he warned.
Even Democrats despaired at the 82-year old President’s tone, coming at a time when the party is in disarray with no sign of any new leadership emerging from the wreckage of the 2024 elections. “I’m stunned. I’m no historian, but, I don’t recall a more dark Presidential farewell address,” former Democratic adviser Dan Turrentine said on X.
Former President Barack Obama was among the few who praised Biden’s farewell, reminding Americans that “at a time when our economy was reeling, he drove what would become the world’s strongest recovery – with 17 million new jobs, historic wage gains, and lower health care costs. “
