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As a correspondent in Russia in the 1990s, I covered the ways in which a handful of oligarchs were behaving like bandits in the post-Soviet chaos of the time. Following the agreement reached in Davos, they intervened forcefully to help secure the re-election of President Boris Yeltsin in 1996. This led to what was called the “presidential election.” com. semibankirshchina – or the rule of the Seven Bankers – until some oligarchs fell out among themselves and, more seriously, with Yeltsin's successor, Vladimir Putin.
As it is sometimes said, history does not repeat itself, but it often repeats itself. There are contradictory echoes of the rise of oligarchy in the United States today, which revolve around some of… The Magnificent Seven Technology companies. “Today, America is being shaped by an oligarchy of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy,” Joe Biden warned this week in his speech. Farewell speech As president. He said it was up to politicians, lawyers and the American people to confront this “tech-industrial complex.”
Led by Elon Musk, who spent more than… 250 million dollars To help reelect Donald Trump, tech heads have been coming to Mar-a-Lago to trade favors with the incoming president and donate to his inauguration fund. What can we learn from the rules of the game and the experience of their Russian predecessors?
Above all, business owners, as cold-headed entrepreneurs, expect a return on their investment. In Russia, they profited greatly from the notorious loan-for-share scheme, a rigged privatization scheme that enabled them to take over some of the country's most valuable oil and metals companies, including Yukos, Sibneft, and Norilsk Nickel, at rock-bottom prices.
Nothing similar will happen in the United States. But Musk has already enjoyed an impressive return on his political investment. In the days following Trump's re-election, Musk's Tesla stock price soared, adding more than $300 billion to its market value. She was there too Reports That Musk could end up as owner of TikTok's US business if the Chinese-owned parent company is forced to divest this month.
Musk's fellow tech giants also expect looser regulation — especially around antitrust and cryptocurrency rules — and more support for their businesses. Mark Zuckerberg, the liberal former CEO of Meta, who turned as fast as gymnast Simone Biles by scrapping Facebook's fact-checking, is now urging Trump to defend the US tech industry from interference by regulators abroad.
Lacking institutional power, oligarchs attempt to influence policy by deploying mass information weapons. This was the case in Russia, where Vladimir Gusinsky ran NTV and the newspaper Sevodnya, while Boris Berezovsky ran ORT and Kommersant. In the US, Musk has turned X into his personal political platform, while Zuckerberg runs Facebook and Amazon co-founder Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post.
Russia's oligarchs went so far as to attempt to seize control of the government by joining the government themselves. After Yeltsin's re-election, Vladimir Potanin briefly served as First Deputy Prime Minister. Berezovsky was appointed Vice-President of the Security Council. As Trump's newly imagined co-president Government Efficiency DepartmentMusk is no ordinary government employee. But Dougie is looking to deploy recruiters across federal agencies in Washington to recommend ways to cut costs. Given Musk's sprawling business activities, the potential conflict of interest is glaring.
Perhaps the biggest lesson to be drawn from Russia's era of oligarchs is that oligarchs are often poor at understanding politics. In Russia, Mikhail Khodorkovsky overstepped his bounds, antagonizing Putin and spending the next ten years in prison. Now Putin only tolerates oligarchs trained in his household who carry out the Kremlin's orders.
As a master narcissist, Trump would not want to be outdone by others. But the biggest danger facing the oligarch in the United States may be a backlash from his agitated MAGA base. After his disagreement with Musk over immigration policy. Steve BannonTrump's former rabble-rousing advisor denounced the richest man in the world, describing him as a “truly evil man” and vowed to bring him down.
There is no doubt that America today differs from Russia in the 1990s in countless aspects. Moreover, stock market investors seem to believe that injecting capitalist rigor into the government would boost the economy, not distort it. But oligarchs in the United States may discover that the dynamics of power and politics, whatever their differences with their Russian counterparts, are universal. Those who ride the political tiger – and slip – end up mashing it.
