In the US and around the world, an ultra-wealthy few and corporations have rigged the system in their favor, enriching themselves on the backs of ordinary families. The wealth of the very richest has now surpassed Gilded Age heights, and with that obscene wealth also comes extreme power, especially over our politics. This new oligarchy boasts members across major industries, but few have emerged more prominent than those in the tech industry. For years, tech billionaires have quietly influenced the elected leaders whose campaigns they’ve funded. Now, they are center stage dismantling the very bodies of government tasked with regulating their companies—all in service of an economic agenda whose aim is to further redistribute wealth and power upward, from ordinary Americans to corporations and the ultra-rich.

In light of these recent developments, Oxfam is launching a blog series to explore the growing role of tech oligarchs (and the billion-dollar companies they control) in driving our public policy in a direction that serves only those companies’ (and their billionaire owners’) bottom lines, at the expense of ordinary people.

Coopting the Digital Civic Space

The phenomenon of corporate oligarchs driving US policy is toxic to the preservation of American democracy, and nowhere is this more pronounced than across the digital civic space. In our Rights and Responsibilities briefing note, Oxfam explored how the so-called democratizing influence of digital spaces via social media platforms like X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and Instagram – though hailed by many at their origin as transformative – is being corrupted, co-opted and exploited for political and financial gain. Both state and nonstate actors have now leveraged these platforms to opportunistically undermine government institutions and prop up self-serving politicians.

At the same time, the space for people to freely speak out, organize, and hold their elected officials to account is shrinking. The growing prevalence of mis- and disinformation and dangerous speech designed to exclude, intimidate, and silence people, especially women and members of other traditionally marginalized and oppressed groups, is particularly toxic to the preservation of that space.

Politicians and tech billionaires alike rail about alleged “censorship” of particular viewpoints and political bias on social media platforms. The reality is, however, that the tech companies are utilizing complex and opaque algorithms to ensure that the most incendiary, polarizing, and often false online speech is not just accessible, but promoted and amplified, all in pursuit of maximizing readership clicks and advertising revenues to pad their pockets.

The manipulative and highly intentional use of these powerful algorithms has real-life consequences for the US political climate and everyday people’s lives. As a Meta whistleblower famously said, “Facebook’s products harm children, stoke division, and weaken our democracy.” They do this by utilizing algorithms that favor more controversy, misinformation, extremism, and outrageous content.

Dangerous online speech does not just threaten to erode democracy . It also contributes to real-life violence. Meta’s social media platform Facebook, for example, has been used to amplify dangerous speech that has been linked to offline violence. Its algorithms are alleged to have contributed to the escalation of ethnic violence and conflict in Ethiopia due to the promotion of posted misinformation.

Hello Trump 2.0, Goodbye Content Moderation

In the wake of President Trump’s election, Silicon Valley’s billionaire figureheads raced to get in line behind the new administration and its policies, rallying around its calls to effectively dismantle the industry’s decades-in-the-making Trust and Safety initiatives intended for the safety of online users and others.

Seemingly taking their cues from the administration’s outspoken position, some tech companies have now not only ceased most of their content moderation initiatives, but also intentionally and deliberately relinquished oversight and regulation of the key fundamental aspects of social media design: “Personalization, engagement and speed.” According to Nicole Wong, former VP and deputy general counsel at Google:

“They are releasing their hold on that personalization. They explicitly say we're going to allow more personalized political content so you can be safe in your own bubble. We're going to speed it up. [They’re saying] we're not going to stop the false statements and other vitriolic statements that we have in the past…. They are picking on all three of those pillars for what we know is rocket fuel for the worst type of content. You cannot believe that that's not deliberate.”

Soon after acquiring X, Elon Musk began paving the way for disinformation campaigns on the platform before Donald Trump even announced his run for a second term, almost single-handedly dismantling the company’s Trust and Safety and Human Rights Departments in the first weeks after his take-over. And Musk wasted no time taking full advantage of the new online environment he had helped to create: just weeks before the US election, the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that “False or misleading claims by billionaire Elon Musk about the U.S. election ha[d] amassed 2 billion views on social media platform X.” US election mis- and disinformation, it would appear, has been a direct byproduct of Musk’s so-called efforts to advance free speech online.

Mark Zuckerberg, for his part, surprised industry analysts when he announced a complete content moderation and fact-checking overhaul at Meta just days after President Trump’s inauguration (but ahead of the administration’s Executive Order attacking content moderation on social media platforms). He gave the justification that Trump’s electoral victory demonstrated that “Americans prioritize free speech over combating misinformation,” even while acknowledging that these changes will allow more “bad stuff” on the platforms.

According to an independent analysis from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, this will mean that, for the average user:

“When scrolling through Facebook, Instagram, or Threads, they are more likely to experience a chaotic blend of facts, opinion, and lies once Meta’s proactive systems of detection of hate speech and misinformation are removed and its global fact-checking program is replaced by a copy of X’s flawed Community Notes. Users are also far more likely to come across dehumanizing, hate-filled lies once prohibited by Meta.”

Most perplexing, then, is why Meta would have chosen this route and made such a complete and nonsensical pivot after investing so many resources in their Community Standards and Oversight Board over the last seven years. The question is not why, but why now, at the start of the second Trump administration. One possible explanation could be that it is simply a blatant/transactional attempt to curry favor with this administration.

In addition to the changes in platform management and the millions of dollars in political and inaugural funds contributed, the tech oligarchy’s front-row seats at President Trump’s inauguration laid bare Silicon Valley’s role in the White House. Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk (richest man in the world, Trump advisor, and businessman with ownership interests in X—formerly Twitter—SpaceX, and Tesla) Google's Sundar Pichai, and Amazon's Jeff Bezos lined up behind President Donald Trump as he was sworn in for his second term.

Every Quid Comes with a Quo: What does the Political Loyalty of a Few Tech Billionaires Cost our Democracy?

Make no mistake, billion-dollar industries don’t engage in the political arena without expecting a return on those investments. The administration has already publicly demonstrated its opposition to the EU’s landmark legislation regulating tech platforms, including the Digital Services and Digital Markets Acts. And like most industries, the tech sector has spent heavily on lobbying for beneficial tax treatment and lower tax liability.

For his part, Musk’s business aspirations reach far beyond the platform formerly known as Twitter,:

“The federal government is the most important customer for Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. and its satellite subsidiary, Starlink. Musk’s empire could also benefit from a permissive approach to self-driving cars, which would benefit Tesla Inc.; the FCC enabling and funding Starlink’s growth; and reduced regulatory burden on SpaceX, the Musk-owned tunnel-building operation Boring Co., and his latest startup, xAI.”

Zuckerberg too seems less interested in lofty, ideological goals like free speech and global democratization than in maximizing Meta’s profit margin. Most immediately, with an FTC trial coming up – the outcome of which could be a forced sale of WhatsApp and Instagram – Meta has a significant interest in de-clawing the FTC and bringing it back down to pre-Biden era enforcement levels.

Political horse trading isn’t new to 2025, but the eagerness and enthusiasm with which the tech industry and its billionaire owners have jumped in line to support the sweeping rollbacks of consumer and digital protections should alarm and alert us all, in the US and beyond. The days of the internet as a tool for global democracy are far behind us. As the Trump administration embarks on an agenda that will remake the federal government and prioritize the power and pockets of the ultra-wealthy, these billionaire tech titans are allowing their platforms to be used as a medium to spread misinformation and meddle in politics.