So now Biden’s worried about the tech oligarchy?

Outgoing US president Joe Biden used his farewell speech yesterday to deliver an ominous warning. ‘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 said.

It’s not hard to work out who Biden is trying to warn us about. There’s the ‘first buddy’, Elon Musk, who donated vast sums to Donald Trump’s campaign and whose platform, X, has become a critical tool for spreading the MAGA message. There’s also Mark Zuckerberg of Meta and Jeff Bezos of Amazon who, while late to board the Trump train, have both been eager to kiss the president-elect’s ring since the November election. Musk, Zuckerberg and Bezos are set to appear alongside Trump’s cabinet in next week’s inauguration.

Of course, Biden is right that the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few Big Tech billionaires should alarm any democrat. The fact that a small coterie of companies can exercise so much control over the flow of information has terrifying implications for free speech, too. But Biden has some serious brass neck to start complaining about this now. After all, the Democrats were only too happy to weaponise this immense power until about five minutes ago.

It’s worth recalling that the oligarchs overwhelmingly supported Kamala Harris in the November presidential election. The Democratic nominee outraised her rival by three-to-one, with vast sums coming from the same Silicon Valley oligarchs who Biden now decries. Musk was the renegade exception in backing Trump, not the rule.

Worse, social-media firms often acted as agents of the Democratic elite, censoring stories on the Biden administration’s behalf. Mark Zuckerberg recently recalled how, during the pandemic, the White House pressured Facebook into censoring health claims that were actually true under the guise of tackling ‘misinformation’. Even humorous memes were a target of Joe Biden’s Ministry of Truth, he said.

Even before Biden’s election in 2020, both Facebook and Twitter agreed to censor the New York Post’s reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop, which alleged that Biden Sr was involved in his son’s influence-peddling in Ukraine. Social-media firms were warned by the FBI to be ‘on guard’ for ‘disinformation’ like this and so they duly suppressed the story. It later transpired it was accurate all along. Censoring the laptop scoop was a blatant abuse of the power of Big Tech to spare the blushes of a favoured candidate.

So yes, we do need a reckoning with Big Tech and the oligarchs’ power over politics. But Joe Biden’s crocodile tears should fool precisely no one.

Fraser Myers is deputy editor at spiked and host of the spiked podcast. Follow him on X: @FraserMyers.