Crony Capitalism Isn't New. It's Just More Annoying Now.

Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg: we only notice them because they really, really suck.

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In the past few months, soon-to-be President Donald Trump has assembled an inner circle of some of the biggest figures in technology, business, and media. Some of these advisers, like former renewable energy advocate Elon Musk, have taken central roles in both the political planning and financing of Trump’s campaign and will surely play outside roles in his administration itself. Others, like Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, have made public decisions or statements to clearly communicate to the incoming administration that they are On the Team, and ready to help. All of these men, assumedly, will benefit financially from Trump being in office. We call this crony capitalism.

This trend isn’t new, of course. U.S. presidents have been doing crony capitalism for years. Half of Barack Obama’s State Department set up a consulting firm during the first Trump presidency, racked up millions in chummy contracts, and then folded seamlessly back into the Biden State Department. Trump himself, meanwhile, was doing incredibly un-subtle favor-trading with members of his own family and political or business allies. Dick Cheney, before he masterminded the Iraq War, was the CEO of Halliburton, a major defense contractor, in the interim period between his time as Secretary of Defense for George H.W. Bush and VP for George W. Bush.

None of this is subtle. But there is one enormous, enormous difference between what is going on now and what went on then: the oligarchs in power right now are super annoying.

This blog is filled with examples of Zuckerberg, Musk, Bezos, and others behaving badly, but to drive this point home, let’s look at a recent “scandal” involving the richest man in the world and close adviser to the president.