Trump Vs Musk Reveals the Power of the United States Oligarchy

The feud between President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk not only impacts social media businesses but also serves as free entertainment for the public. This incident further reveals how the United States, as a democratic nation, is increasingly eroded as governance becomes a game for the oligarchs.

The United States has always proclaimed itself as the largest and most influential democracy in the world. However, evidence from the last decade reinforces that the country is not driven by the will of the people. The United States is driven by the interests of large-scale business owners.

Criticism of the US as an oligarchy, not a democracy, has been around since September 2014, when researchers Martin Gilens of Princeton University and Benjamin Page of Northwestern University published a joint paper. The gist of it was that democracy was dominated by economic elites.

The Gilens and Page survey involved 1,779 respondents who were asked to evaluate the policies of the U.S. Government from 1981 to 2002. The respondents were divided into several groups based on their income levels and were asked to assess policies that represented their respective social, political, and economic situations.

From the survey, researchers found that the policies of the US government are driven by the interests of economic elites or organized groups representing certain businesses. In contrast, the common people and grassroots movements have almost no influence in policy-making.

Andrea Berstein, a senior journalist, wrote a book titled American Oligarchs in 2020. She discusses the capital owners who are the driving forces of US politics. Some of the names of businessmen who are part of the US oligarchy in the 21st century include David and Charles Koch and Harold Hamm.

Bernstein writes that Trump and his in-laws, the Kushner family, are also part of the U.S. oligarchy. Since before taking office as president, the Trump and Kushner families have significantly influenced U.S. government policies.

During Trump's second term as the head of state of the United States, oligarchs entered the cabinet. Take, for example, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick; until January 2025, they are entrepreneurs representing large corporations in the country.

Indeed, there is a shift in this second term of the Trump administration. This was evident during his inauguration ceremony on January 20, 2025. In addition to being attended by members of the old generation oligarchy, the front row was actually filled by members of the new generation oligarchy. They are the power players in the technology industry.

Standing in an exclusive line at the inauguration ceremony were, among others, owner of X, SpaceX, and Tesla Elon Musk; owner of Meta Mark Zuckerberg; owner of Amazon and Blue Origin Jeff Bezos; and Google Leader Sundar Pichai. The types of industries have changed and many are disrupting conventional industries, yet the oligarchic system continues to operate.

The technology leaders who were initially regarded as progressive and liberal by the public are now rallying around Trump to protect their business interests. One of their actions includes undermining the plans of U.S. President 2021-2025 Joe Biden from the Democratic Party, who aims to implement an additional tax on the super-rich.

The US Congressional Fund Management Office (CBO) reported in 2021 that two-thirds of the wealth in the US is controlled by 745 billionaires. Among the people, the social gap is widening and is now increasingly influenced by racial and ethnic backgrounds.

According to the CBO, in 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic, the average income of white families was 6.5 times higher than that of black families. The income of white families was also 5.5 times above that of Hispanic families, and 2.7 times compared to Asian families.

Trump implemented a cross-generational oligarchy in his administration by appointing Elon Musk as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Similar to Musk's pattern as a disruptor, DOGE is not included in Washington's budget.

Musk was not appointed through legislative approval, though all federal government officials must go through that procedure.

Trump and Musk's ambition is to disrupt the government budget. The pretext is to save 2 trillion US dollars.

However, the disruption caused by DOGE is different from that in online payment systems like Paypal or electric vehicles like Tesla, which undergo market studies and impact assessments. The disruption of DOGE involves the dismissal of government employees, the closure of work units, and the cessation of various projects.

A total of 216,670 government employees were dismissed by DOGE, but without clear reasons or a work plan regarding the streamlining of units and future steps. As a result, ministries/agencies are in disarray, working to meet obligations and targets without sufficient personnel or budget.

Not only that, disruption has also been carried out by halting funding for various community empowerment programs, social security, and health guarantees. The American people have already been battered by rising prices of basic necessities due to the avian flu outbreak and the imposition of unilateral import tariffs by Trump. They are now losing their retirement savings as well as their health safety nets.

Now, Trump and Musk are at odds over Trump’s omnibus bill to lower taxes and increase deportations of illegal immigrants, a bill Musk says is a waste of money and goes against DOGE’s mission.

It is worth noting that Trump's intention to lower taxes is not for the benefit of the public, but rather to protect the interests of large business owners, fellow members of the U.S. oligarchy. The deportation of immigrants under the pretext of illegality is also ambiguous in practice, as many legal immigrants are expelled from the U.S., resulting in numerous families losing their breadwinners.