THE NEW AMERICAN TECHNOCRACY

Traduzione di Elena Ciullo

THE NEW AMERICAN TECHNOCRACY

Trump’s term has represented a clear departure from the presidential standard that preceded it. Perhaps the most striking difference is the number of faces of controversial figures and well-known billionaire entrepreneurs surrounding the President, many of whom coming from California’s Silicon Valley. During his inauguration ceremony, for example, Zuckerberg, Musk and Bezos were just some of the names of the entrepreneurial elite to whom Trump had reserved a place in the front rows, even having them sit in front of members of his own cabinet. Since the beginning of his mandate, then, the New York magnate has never hidden the close proximity to tech moguls, even granting one of them, Elon Musk, the leadership of a temporary department of the US government. The following question arises: what effects may the political legitimization by Washington of billionaires who run billion-dollar monopolies have on American democracy? May it lead to a technological oligarchy, a so-called technocracy?

THE FIRST TECHNOCRACY

The United States is not new to this term: in fact, in the '30s of the 20th century, while dictatorial regimes were consolidating in Europe and the world was slowly preparing for a war that would represent one of the most traumatic events in its history, in America a group called "Technocracy Inc." was becoming popular, which had the declared goal of radically reorganizing Washington’s style of governance. This movement, also active in Canada and born from the ideas of engineer Howard Scott, not only proposed a third way to the American two-party system, but it also wanted to replace the entire US political and economic establishment with a society governed instead by an elite of technical experts, such as scientists and engineers, seen as much more effective and rational agents than traditional politicians. The technocrats were great supporters of continentalism, seen from the point of view of national self-sufficiency. As one of their publications of 1983 states: "Tecnato will cover the entire American continent, from Panama to the North Pole, because the natural resources and the natural boundary of this area make it an independent and self-sufficient geographical unit" [1]. In this case, too, it is an idea that does not sound so new for the stars and stripes country: as it is known, in fact, at the beginning of his mandate, Trump insisted a lot on US territorial claims from Panama to Greenland, even proposing Canada as the 51st state of the Union. Around the mid-1930s, the technocrats, accused of using questionable data and evidence to support their beliefs, began to lose appeal and be treated with condescension and hostility by public opinion and the leadership elite. The movement was declared illegal and its members arrested on the charge of trying to attack the United States in order to change its government structure. Among them there was Joshua Norman Aldeman, a leading figure of the Canadian wing of the movement, who fled to South Africa, where he became a great supporter of apartheid and anti-democratic ideas. Aldeman built his family in the African country, and for two generations no one of his descendants came back to settle overseas. Only in 1989 his grandson moved to Canada to study in college: he was Elon Musk.

THE LINK BETWEEN BIG TECH AND THE GOVERNMENT

During the second half of the twentieth century, under the aegis of the USA, who understood that investing large sums in scientific research would bring great technological benefits, the so-called "computer age" began and led to a highly competitive market. First IBM, then Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Ebay and Google, to Facebook and Twitter, the United States has thus become leaders in the tech sector, thanks to large companies, often led by an eccentric and influential personality, and even more often characterized by a total and complete devotion to profit. This lack of scruples is also what has repeatedly led these companies to deal with major scandals, such as when Facebook contributed to the genocide of an entire ethnic group in Myanmar [2]. Later in 2013 the Snowden case broke out: an IT contractor of the US government revealed how the NSA (National Security Agency), the American intelligence, had transformed technology, at this point an integral part of all US citizens lives, in a mass surveillance program. The American services had indeed managed to access all the data that the big tech companies collected about their users with the declared purpose of personalizing their online experience, and had started to systematically monitor the entire population. Not only that, the same data that Washington had been able to obtain was also used for war purposes, as in the case of Palantir, whose information was used to identify specific targets that would then have been shot down by American drones in war zones. Instead of weakening, as it would have been logical to expect after the disclosure about the spying conducted by the Department of Defense against big tech, the ties between Washington and Silicon Valley strengthened further, with an increasing number of government contracts and strategic partnerships between the two worlds. On the one hand, institutions were starting to use large digital platforms as new direct channels of communication and social control; on the other, technology companies ceased the opportunity to consolidate their role, gaining prestige, influence and increasing political legitimacy. Over the last fifteen years, Silicon Valley has fully sprouted, consolidated its role through multi-billion dollar monopolies with huge global influence, also thanks to the inertia of Washington. The establishment has now understood that the utility, once represented by media magnates, is now represented by technology gurus, in part because the technologies they control are the same ones that have taken the wind out of traditional media sails, drawing media attention to other issues, much more dear to the moguls of Silicon Valley. The turning point in Silicon Valley’s strategy to reach the palaces of power is the 2022 acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk. Musk buys the social completely dismantling the previous structure, firing employees and bringing only trusted people on board , then starting to use the platform as a mere propaganda tool. The Muskian model of the social media has become a real prototype to follow for many other tech moguls: a case that perfectly mirrors the idea that what can be done by acquiring a large company can also be applied to a government. Technology has never been democratic, no one votes for it, but it can be bought. [3]

TRUMP AS MEETING POINT

If the metamorphosis of Twitter in X is the turning point, the break of a normal link between democratic institutions and billionaire tech companies is instead represented by Trump’s decision to run for the White House. His candidacy was the perfect opportunity for the tech magnates, who had already established themselves in the eyes of the public scene through demented videos [4] and appearances by Joe Rogan or similar, to take the even more important step to influence the government: to be themselves. Musk was the first to support the electoral campaign of the then New York candidate by donating almost 300 million dollars, but it was already clear that Trump would be interested in Silicon Valley. The choice of its vice-presidential candidate was the icing on the cake for the digital oligarchy. J.D. Vance, in fact, was the only one, or at least the most suitable, to bring prestige and huge public funds in that part of California. Vance’s professional career was practically built on the finances of Peter Thiel, founder of the aforementioned Palantir. Peter Thiel, among other things, has an estimated capital of 22 billion dollars, is part of the so-called "Paypal Mafia", has a history of very controversial statements and has direct access to the White House. After graduating from Yale, Vance had been hired by one of his companies in San Francisco, and when Vance decided to run for the Capitol in Ohio in 2023, Thiel supported him through amounts never seen before in the history of Senate campaigns. When Vance’s statements comparing Trump to Hitler came out again [5], it was Thiel himself who mediated between the two for a reconciliation that led to JD’s appointment as Deputy. Once Vance reached the White House, Trump appointed Musk as head of the DOGE, allowing him great autonomy when it comes to decisions in the fiscal sector and, before the break between the two in June 2025, rumours had just emerged about Musk’s ability to install his AI Grok chatbot on the US government servers [6], despite clear conflicts of interest. Although since the beginning of his term many entrepreneurs have lost several billions of dollars due to Trump’s economic policies [7], their support for the President does not seem to weaken, both by virtue of the attachment that the White House tenant seems to have to AI and cryptocurrencies, tools much loved by tech leaders, and because aligning with the current administration means mitigating regulatory risks and being able to benefit from tax incentives and market expansion opportunities.

THE AMERICAN PARTY AND FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS

In the middle of this great mosaic of mutual favors, however, a piece seems to have broken off to find its own life. The break between Donald Trump and Elon Musk occurred after great differences regarding the new tax reform proposed by the first, the so-called "Big Beautiful Bill". Musk has thus decided to move away from the one who gave him political life and add an additional level of affinity between big tech and the White House, investigating a territory already explored by Trump himself, going from being an entrepreneur to becoming a real politician by announcing on 4 July [8] on X the founding of his party, the American Party. This may be the beginning of a new era, started by legitimizing the presence of tech billionaires in the front row at the inauguration ceremony of an elected president and that may end with large companies that completely rely on technological innovation, to the detriment of environment and social crises, and that would merge more and more with institutions until becoming a single whole and creating a private oligarchy that pursues interests completely separated from the popular will.

Throughout history there have been movements that had the intention of radically changing a nation’s public system. But what distinguishes this phenomenon, and which could prove decisive, is the convergence of a small group of ultra-billionaires with the interest, declared or not, to enter the White House and the highest governmental institution, also represented by a billionaire, ready to welcome this elite and give them the keys of political power.

“I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible”.

                                                                                                        - Peter Thiel, 2009[9]

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