The election of President Donald Trump, with financial, influential, and political backing from Elon Musk in November 2024, marks a new age for humanity.
If that wasn’t already apparent enough, President Joe Biden’s just stated, in his farewell address that: “Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead”. He’s “concerned about the potential rise of a tech-industrial complex that could pose real dangers for our country as well…”. He sees these trends and elites, as holding the potential to take hold of America, as we know it.
While Musk has been working on getting humanity to Mars, other parallel events, such as the advent of AI, and wars in Gaza and Ukraine are all tipping points towards a new epoch in our existence.
This is a new phenomenon which I identified in 2017, and which will come to fruition in 2025. It’s the era of tech oligarchy and libertarian tech leaders intertwining themselves with government. Back in 2017 I predicted a battle for the soul of humanity between three competing interests. The battle is now closer than ever. There will be three sides to this battle.
The first is citizens, or the citizenry. The second is democratically elected states. Finally, the third comprises large Big Tech firms and their leaders and owners. I believe this will end in a new type of warfare – some of which we are seeing being practised in the Ukraine and Israel / Gaza wars, and some types of warfare we are yet to see. I don’t know what the outcome of such a conflict will be. It will have echoes of the revolutions we have seen over the centuries, and I’m reminded of Bane’s attempt to bring revolution to Gotham in Christopher Nolan’s third and final Batman film. What I do know is we are remarkable and resilient beings. The right thing will prevail, and we will get the leadership we deserve.
What I will say is that the protagonist in this state of affairs and the actor likely to benefit from all the battles, and eventual fallout is Big Tech firms.
I believe while Big Tech has transformed the way we communicate and connect for the better, sometimes for the worse, but Big Tech has now taken on the role of the Catholic Church before the Eastern Orthodox split, the Protestant Reformation and Henry VIII’s split from the Church in England. Big tech is seeking to become the ultimate authority to Nation States again and have a direct, and brainwashed style relationship with States’ Citizenry through the use of its products (cheap cabs, cheap food, content, social media, click bait, etc), while acquiring and deploying its huge wealth to protect its financial position with the largest financial moat mankind has ever seen. I think this is manifesting itself in three ways that mirrors the Church when it had its greatest stranglehold on Europe at its peak (early 1500’s).
First, the Church used to have a direct / hypnotic style relationship with citizens. We were all God’s children once, the same way today we are all Thatcher’s and Reagan’s children in some way. In the West Christianity ruled us and we empowered the Church to lead us. In the East it was Islam. Whole empires were predicated on the Church – particularly those who stayed loyal to Catholicism, such as Spain and Portugal. We paid our dues. We prayed for forgiveness. We killed non-believers. However, with Henry VIII and his break from the Catholic Church to marry Anne Boleyn and divorce Catherine of Aragon after Pope Clement VII refused to grant his divorce in 1533 – states began to decouple from the Church, alongside the Protestant Reformation. While the English Church was born and reigns to this day, its influence, wealth and power over us, once so strong in this post Catholic Church’s era, has reduced too. Despite its roots, Christianity remains a significant part of the American identity. In fact today the MAGA movement cites the attack on western Christian values from immigrants (typically from the Middle East and Africa) as its key calling card to secure supporters. Today big tech and its leaders / owners have adopted this role of the Church, even though it’s their products that have allowed the World to see the benefits of living in the West and thus want to risk life and limb to cross sea and land to get to Europe and America – they’ve created the problem, then blamed Governments for not being able to deal with the consequences. As citizens our mesmerising relationship with big tech means that instead of praying at the altar or with our Bible, we are on our (or their!) smartphones / sites / hitting or looking for likes / videos or at home streaming Netflix or ordering from Amazon. We silently worship what they have created and they have quietly gone about acquiring and retaining some of our smartest humans to build their businesses – big tech is now the most popular graduate job in the USA and UK. Many of us are living off the tit of big tech whether directly or indirectly by; working for them, servicing them or benefitting from the reduced cost-to-consume they have created for us thanks to things like Uber cabs, Amazon deliveries and cheap content on Netflix. Just like 500 years ago we also deep down trust them, akin to, maybe even more than, our own governments. Our relationship with Tech just like our relationship with God before trumps all else, maybe even Trump himself, let’s see what happens.
Second, the Church used to inform and even dictate who led Nation states. They appointed Kings and rulers. They influenced the outcomes of wars and sometimes even started them. In the UK the role of the King is now ceremonial – they simply give blessing to an elected govt. Across Europe it’s the same. It’s been very different over the centuries. Between 1208 and 1213 Pope Innocent III excommunicated King John of England and placed England under an interdict because John refused to accept the Pope’s choice of Archbishop of Canterbury. The King eventually gave in and paid annual dues, and recognised England as a fiefdom of the Papal Supremacy. After Columbus discovered America in 1492 Pope Alexander VI issued the Inter caetera bull, supporting Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain and granting them control over newly discovered lands in the Americas. However, by 1804 their strength was weakening substantially; Pope Pius VII attended Napoleon Bonaparte’s coronation as Emperor of the French. However, Napoleon famously crowned himself, symbolizing his assertion of independence from the Papal Supremacy.
Somehow the Church has survived plagues, fires, wars, the emergence of communism and more. Today the church and in fact all three Abrahamic religions find themselves intertwined with the running of states – whether it’s Islam in Iran, Judaism in Israel or the Church in the UK. Today we are seeing big tech play this role in America and seeking to play it elsewhere – particularly Europe. Elon Musk has fast tracked the enmeshment. One will see whether the Civil Service in the USA will resist. However, what’s clear from Musk’s current behaviour is that this new potential World Order sees it has a four year window to proliferate so is pushing to influence for more MAGA-esque governments in the UK, Germany, France and more. Today Musk has more than informed the election of Trump. He’s invested $250M of his own money, he moved to Pennsylvania in the run up to the election and ran the ground game. He’s emboldened his fellow Silicon Valley allies to pursue and allocate their resources accordingly. As I write this he’s using X as a so called public commons to challenge the Starmer Govt in the UK, and show support for the AfD in Germany.
Third, the Church used to be richer than Nation states and States even paid their dues. Does anyone even know how much money the Vatican has? It’s probably Billions. In the past people and nations paid their dues, donating for God to forgive them. Over the last 200-300 years that has begun to wane, and with it, the Church’s power. Today big tech are trillion dollar companies and their owners like Musk are worth $400BN or Jeff Bezos at $200BN. These companies and these individuals are both richer and probably more liquid than Nation States. While Govts are not paying dues like they did with Churches, rather, we’ve failed to develop an appropriate international tax regime to manage what they do – with companies realising transactions off shore and not paying their fair tax in countries they sell to. The advent of de-globalisation means America has found it hard to reign in what are primarily American companies, and for the next four years they just won’t. The companies have also turned Cities, States and Places into Oliver Twist-style beggars – with Cities pitching to Amazon to open their newest office in a place or in the case of AI using their scale and cash to simply own the category. The upshot is that Nations are on the back foot. Growth is stagnant, debts are high, and progressive thinking has failed to keep up.
As an entrepreneur I believe all three actors are important and critical parts of our society. Fundamentally, when the chips are down I am on the side of humanity, democratic states and then Big Tech firms – in that order. What say you?
Stephen Bediako OBE