On January 20, 2025, Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 47th President of the United States, marking his controversial return to the White House. The ceremony, held inside the US Capitol Rotunda, became a showcase of America's new power brokers. In the front row, a who's who of Silicon Valley sat shoulder to shoulder: Elon Musk, fresh from pumping over $275 million into Trump's victory, Mark Zuckerberg, who had just gutted Meta's fact-checking system at Trump's behest, Jeff Bezos, and other tech titans, their combined net worth exceeding an astonishing $1 trillion.
The irony of this scene was palpable. Trump, who has long positioned himself as a populist champion of the "forgotten" rural Americans struggling with stagnant wages and rising living costs, surrounded himself with the ultra-elite oligarchs of the tech world. The stark contrast between Trump's rhetoric of being the voice of the common people and the reality of his billionaire-studded inauguration highlights the bizarre nature of his populist claims – claims that somehow survived even as Musk doled out million-dollar daily "prizes" to voters in swing states through his PAC, a brazen scheme that distributed $17 million by Election Day.
This gathering of tech moguls at the inauguration reflects a broader shift in our cultural values and the figures we choose to lionize. Nothing illustrates this transformation more clearly than examining who our leading biographers deem worthy of chronicling. When Walter Isaacson, perhaps America's preeminent biographer, looks to history, he finds subjects of profound humanistic impact: Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein – figures who not only innovated but wrestled deeply with the moral implications of their work, contributing to human understanding far beyond their specific fields.
Yet when Isaacson surveys our present era for subjects of similar stature, he finds science and tech titans, and venture capitalists: Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Jennifer Doudna. This absence of contemporary figures whose impact transcends biotech, ai and market disruption speaks volumes about our cultural priorities. That his collection marketed as "The Genius Biographies" places Jobs alongside Einstein, Franklin, and da Vinci reveals how thoroughly we've narrowed our vision of meaningful achievement. Where are today's philosophers? Poets? Composers and artists? Our culture seems to have lost interest in contributions that don't translate directly to big tech and market capitalization.
Isaacson's "The Wise Men" chronicles how figures like Dean Acheson, George Kennan, and Averell Harriman shaped the post-World War II order through careful statecraft and long-term thinking. The absence of such figures in his contemporary works reflects how thoroughly we've replaced patient diplomacy and institution-building with technological disruption and profit-seeking. The architects of the Marshall Plan worked to rebuild and stabilize the world; today's tech titans make grandiose claims about "saving civilization" while spending hundreds of millions to influence elections and erode democratic safeguards. Indeed, on inauguration day itself, Musk declared, "My heart goes out to you. It is thanks to you that the future of civilization is assured. Thanks to you, we're going to have safe cities, finally. Safe cities, secure borders, sensible spending, basic stuff."
The absurdity of this rhetoric – equating campaign donations and voter incentive schemes with "saving civilization" – is matched only by its widespread acceptance. Right-wing activist wing activist Charlie Kirk, citing Isaacson's biography as authority, celebrated Musk's political machinations as equivalent to his business achievements on the PBD podcast: "When you have that kind of focus from obviously the highest capacity person on the planet coupled with Donald Trump, you're talking about a force multiplier that literally, in my opinion, saved civilization."
This new paradigm, which romanticizes rule-breaking and profit-making, has sidelined the importance of patient ethical inquiry, statecraft, and the humanities that have traditionally helped to balance and manage technological innovations. We see this playing out in real time: Meta dismantled its fact-checking system in response to presidential pressure, while Zuckerberg dined at Mar-a-Lago and appointed UFC chief Dana White to Meta's board. These are not mere business decisions but represent a fundamental realignment of power, where tech leaders actively participate in dismantling the very safeguards they once championed.
