After Donald Trump won this month’s election, one of the first things he did was appoint two unelected men, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, to lead the new Department of Government Efficiency. It was to appoint a political figure. The acronym for the yet-to-be-created organization, DOGE, is something of a joke, a reference to a cryptocurrency named after an internet meme about Shiba Inu dogs. But the federal government’s mandated mandate to reorganize the federal bureaucracy and cut spending signals the arrival of a new political system in Washington. In Brogarchy, vast amounts of power flow to tech and financial tycoons, some of whom appear indifferent to or even outright hostile to democratic traditions.
The ranks of broligarchs include PayPal and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel (mentor, former employer, and major financial backer of Vice President-elect J.D. Vance), as well as Marc Andreessen and David Sachs. It also included venture capitalists like , both of whom made millions of dollars in profits. Donate dollars to the Trump campaign. Indeed, masks are the prototype. The world’s richest man is present on the president-elect’s phone calls with at least three foreign heads of state: Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Serbia’s Aleksandar Vučić and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. It is reported that. Musk, along with Trump, welcomed Argentine President Javier Millay at Mar-a-Lago and, according to the New York Times, met with Iran’s UN ambassador in New York to “de-escalate tensions” between the country and the United States. He said he had a personal meeting with him. state. Musk’s recent public support for investor Howard Lutnick as Treasury secretary has raised concerns among some in the Trump camp that Musk may be acting as a “co-president.” reported the Washington Post.
Mr. Musk doesn’t always get what he wants. Trump nominated Lutnick to be secretary of commerce instead. Still, the Broligarches’ dominance in both foreign and domestic policy is clear from many observations, including my own, even though I wrote last August about Broligarches’ deepening political alignment with Trump. surprised people. Some of them have previously opposed President Trump’s immigration and customs policies, but Broligulch and others have argued that Trump’s policy of impunity means some men should be above the law. sharing thoughts. This bold rejection of all constraints and obligations imposed by the society that has made them wealthy is common to the world’s ultra-wealthy people whose practices and norms I have studied for nearly 20 years. . Mr. Trump has embodied this spirit to this day. He is currently violating a law (signed into effect during his first term) that requires president-elects to agree to an ethics pledge.
President Trump, who infamously said about sexual assault, “If you become a star, they’ll let you do it,” has cited his popularity as the basis for his status as above the law. Many Broligarches also consider themselves to be exceptional, but they arrived at that view through other channels: science fiction, fantasy literature, and comics. These genre ideas have long permeated Silicon Valley culture. Last year, Mr. Andreessen released a manifesto calling for him to “become a technological superman,” defined by embarking on a “hero’s journey” and “conquering the dragon.”
The superhero story also appears to inform many of Musk’s more outlandish political views, including his belief that superintelligence has a duty to reproduce, and why in September Musk This may help explain why he reposted the claim that “a republic of high-status men” is superior. In our current democracy. Last week, Musk likened Matt Gaetz, then President Trump’s attorney general nominee, to Judge Dredd, a dystopian comic book character who was granted summary executions. Musk appears to have meant this as a compliment. He described Gaetz, who was under investigation by Congress over an alleged sex-trafficking scheme before resigning from Congress, as “our hammer of justice.”
Whatever its source, the broligarchs’ innate sense of superiority has led many of them to positions very similar to President Trump’s on tax policy. In 2016, the Republican presidential candidate boasted that he had avoided paying taxes for years, exclaiming from the debate stage, “That’s what makes me smart.” The broligarchs quietly freed themselves from one of the only certainties in life. As ProPublica reported in 2021, Musk paid zero federal income taxes in 2018, with an effective tax rate of 3.3% from 2014 to 2018, during which time his wealth increased by $13.9 billion. . Mr. Thiel took advantage of a government program designed to boost the retirement savings of middle-class Americans and amassed $5 billion in capital gains income completely tax-free. The pro-Trump political ascendancy of Broly Gulch overturns the Boston Tea Party’s rallying cry, gaining representation with minimal taxes.
In their opposition to taxation and regulation, those who control Wall Street and Silicon Valley resemble previous generations of wealthy capitalists who enjoyed enormous influence over American politics. Even some tech moguls who support Kamala Harris have called for the removal of Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, who supports strong antitrust enforcement. But broligarchs differ from classic American oligarchy in one important way. Their political vision seeks to undermine the nation-state system on a global scale. Musk is particularly targeting the privatization and colonization of space with little or no government involvement. Thiel and Andreessen have invested heavily in creating alternatives to nation-states on Earth, such as libertarian colonies with minimal taxes. One such colony is operating in Honduras. Mr. Thiel has also invested in efforts to create artificial islands and other self-governing communities to serve as new centers of civilian governance. “The nature of government is changing at a very fundamental level,” Thiel said of these efforts in 2008.
Cryptocurrency is the financial engine of the political project of broligarchs. For centuries, nations have been defined by two monopolies. One is the legitimate use of coercive force (such as by the military or police). And secondly, about controlling the money supply. Today’s broligarchs have long sought to weaken government control over global finance. In his 2014 book Zero to One, Thiel writes that when he, Musk and others started PayPal, the company had a “comparably grand mission…to create a new internet currency to replace the U.S. dollar. I wanted to make it,” he said. If Broly Gulch succeeds in making cryptocurrencies a major competitor or alternative to the dollar, the impact could be enormous. The American currency is also the world’s reserve currency and a global medium of exchange. This contributed to 80 years of US economic dominance in the world and gave the US government latitude to use financial and economic coercion as an alternative to military action.
A devaluation of the dollar could enrich the broligates who hold large amounts of wealth in cryptocurrencies, but it could also weaken the United States and destabilize the global economy. But Trump, despite his promise to “Make America Great Again” and previous claims that cryptocurrencies are a “scam” against the dollar, is now fully on board with Broly Gulch’s agenda. It seems so. Trump signaled this alignment during his campaign and gave a keynote speech at a crypto conference last July. He later pledged to make cryptocurrencies central to US monetary policy through the purchase of strategic Bitcoin reserves. The day after the election, one cryptocurrency supporter posted on X, “#Bitcoin has a president.” The incoming administration is reportedly vetting candidates for the role of “cryptocurrency czar.”
If America’s economic and political dominance recedes, the country’s wealthiest people may be well-positioned to fill and profit from the resulting power vacuum. But did voters really want weakened states, increased global instability, and control by a wealthy few when they chose Trump?
Mr. Musk spent millions supporting Mr. Trump’s campaign and promoted it on X. He is now doing everything he can to capitalize on Trump’s victory and maximize his power, going so far as to make Mr. X’s followers uncomfortable with unnamed individual government officials. Some evidence, including a recent focus group survey on floating voters by Axios, suggests that Americans may already be worried about the influence of broligarchs. “I didn’t vote for him,” one participant said of Mr. Musk. “I don’t know what his ultimate purpose would be in gaining that kind of access,” said another voter, “In my opinion, in the history of Elon Musk, he There is no indication that he has the best interests of the country or its people in mind.” Still, as long as President Trump allows, he and his fellow Broly Gulches can be expected to expand their influence as much as possible.
