It’s 2025, and the United States — or what’s left of it — has entered its latest, gaudiest phase. President Trump (47, if you’re keeping score) sits in the Oval Office once again, this time surrounded by a cabinet of billionaires so ostentatious it makes Louis XIV look like an hole-dwelling ascetic. Elon Musk, having donated a small nation’s GDP to Trump’s campaign, stood on stage with the president-elect, flashing his best visionary disruptor grin and Nazi salutes. Mark Zuckerberg nodded approvingly from the audience, perhaps dreaming up a new algorithm to optimise democracy out of existence. Jeff Bezos arrived in the claws of one of his delivery drones. And while democracy flounders, the wealth of these tech titans has soared to unimaginable heights, leaving the rest of us choking on their methane scented tweets.
How did we get here? Was this dystopian reality some cosmic accident, a glitch in the matrix? Hardly. This is the logical endpoint of a capitalist system that was untethered and unleashed more than four decades ago. It all started with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, the dynamic duo who convinced us that government was the problem and that the free market — an invisible hand apparently guided by the benevolence of billionaires — would save us.
Spoiler alert: it didn’t.
The Reagan-Thatcher blueprint
Reagan and Thatcher weren’t just politicians; they were social wrecking balls. In the late 1970s and early ’80s, they ushered in the neoliberal revolution with the zeal of evangelical preachers. Regulation was slashed, public assets were sold off to private bidders, unions were crushed, and taxes on the wealthy were shaved down to the barest nub. It was all wrapped in the glittering promise of trickle-down economics, the idea that if you make the rich richer, they’ll eventually share the spoils with the rest of us. Forty years later, we’re still waiting for that trickle.
What they really did was build a system where wealth and power could accumulate unchecked. They didn’t just plant the seeds of inequality; they fertilised them with corporate greed and watered them with public bewilderment. And now, we’re living in the jungle that grew.
Enter the tech kings
Fast forward to today, and the billionaires are no longer just donors or lobbyists; they’re running the show. Elon Musk is the most obvious example, a man who somehow convinced the public he’s Tony Stark when he’s really just a wannabe Bond villain.
Quick quiz. Q: Why are Tesla trucks bulletproof? A: Duh!
Musk’s open support for Trump’s campaign, not to mention his staggering financial contributions, makes it clear where his interests lie: maintaining a system where billionaires rule, and the rest of us marvel at their rockets.
And he’s not alone. Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and other tech oligarchs have all, to varying degrees, supported or validated Trump’s return to power. Sure, they’ll throw the occasional philanthropic bone our way — a hospital here, a climate pledge there — but don’t mistake that for altruism. These gestures are PR stunts, distractions from the fact that their wealth and influence have ballooned while the rest of us are left to fight over the crumbs.
The tech bros didn’t emerge in a vacuum. They’re the heirs to the neoliberal legacy, embodying its core principle: that private wealth is inherently superior to public good. They’ve repackaged this ideology for the digital age, cloaking their self-interest in the language of disruption and innovation. But make no mistake: they’re not outsiders challenging the system. They *are* the system.
The cost of the billionaire era
What’s the price of this billionaire takeover? For starters, democracy itself. Trump’s second term has already been marked by policies that blatantly enrich his cabinet of billionaires, from tax breaks for corporations to government contracts handed out like party favours. Meanwhile, public institutions — already weakened by decades of underfunding — are crumbling. Schools, hospitals, infrastructure: all sacrificed at the altar of private profit.
Inequality, of course, continues to spiral out of control. The wealth gap between billionaires and the average citizen has reached obscene levels. It’s no longer just a gap; it’s a chasm, and at the bottom lies a sea of disillusionment, rage, and despair.
Trickle down was always gush-up. As money piles up in Elysium so does power. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Who knew?
With the brake cables cut and all checks and balances broken, there was only one possible outcome.
The Trump cabinet is reported to have a combined wealth of $340 billion.
But hey, at least we can watch billionaires play at Space Race on Twitter, right?
The slightly gilded dystopia
This is the world Reagan and Thatcher built, albeit with shinier gadgets and more charismatic villains. The billionaire class has replaced traditional governance, turning politics into a puppet show where they pull the strings. And let’s not kid ourselves: they’re not doing it for us. They’re doing it for themselves, for their wealth, for their power, for their legacy.
So where does that leave the rest of us? Trapped in a gilded dystopia where democracy is little more than a marketing slogan, where the rich rule with impunity, and where the dream of a fairer society feels more distant than ever. Perhaps we’ll eventually wake up and demand a system that values people over profit. Or perhaps we’ll just keep scrolling, liking, and retweeting while the oligarchs build their empires.
After all, who needs democracy when you’ve got a self-driving car and the promise of a one-way ticket to Mars?