José Ignacio Torreblanca
In his leaving speech on January 15th, President Joe Biden warned that an “oligarchy […] of extreme wealth, power, and influence” threatens American democracy. His warning referred to the technology entrepreneurs surrounding president-elect Donald Trump: X’s Elon Musk and, increasingly, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg. The threat is not, however, confined to the United States, but to the European Union as well.
Technology dominance by “saving free speech”
Trump, Musk and the “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) Republicans believe that by buying Twitter (which he rebranded as X), Musk restored free speech and saved American democracy. Musk wants to replicate worldwide what he has done in the US and is already meddling in European politics, setting the stage for an inevitable confrontation between the EU and US. Zuckerberg compounds this challenge. He has joined Musk in urging Trump to protect US tech firms against European regulation, accusing the EU of “institutionalised censorship” on par with China.
The tech oligarchs have the backing of Trump’s Republicans. During the US election campaign, vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance warned the EU that regulating X would be seen as an attack on freedom of expression incompatible with the democratic values of the Atlantic alliance. He added that such actions would lead the US to drop its support for NATO.
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