There is nothing new in the problem of money in politics. We have been warned for decades that America is or is becoming an oligarchy. But something seemed different at the beginning of President Trump’s second term, and I think it is the following: attention, and not money, is the form of power that interests him the most.
Many of its billionaire supports were not retained during its inauguration. The Catbird seats were occupied instead by the titans of attention. It was the leaders of Facebook, Instagram, X, Tiktok, Amazon and Google that Trump was so looking forward to seeing himself in front of him.
Washington is full of lobbying offices and fundraising collectors because powerful interests believe that something is earned when you spend money. They are right. We have come to expect and accept a grotesque level of daily corruption in American policy – encouraged by a series of decisions of the Supreme Court which grant money the protection of speech and by republicans of the congress which are opposed to reforms to finance electoral campaigns, even modest. But we have at least a few rules to limit the power of money in politics and follow its movements.
The same cannot be said about attention. If Trump saves Tiktok and, in return, Tiktok strengthens pro-Trump content before the 2026 elections to help him become viral, would that be illegal? Maybe. But would we only know that it happened? If Elon Musk turns the dial on X to tip the conversation in favor of the Republican Party before the 2028 elections, which will stop it?
Attention, and not money, is now the engine of American policy. It seemed clear in 2022 that Musk had paid too much when he had bought Twitter for $ 44 billion. And if this is considered a commercial transaction, it has probably paid too much. X revenues are far from justifying its purchase price. But we did not know at the time, and we do not know today, how to assess the attention he had aroused. In terms of attention, the purchase of Twitter by Musk made him the most powerful person in the world, with the exception of Trump. What is it worth?
The oligarchy is not a simple corruption. He describes what happens when wealth is associated with domination. Musk is not only looking for contracts or favors; He seeks influence and centrality. He offers Trump not only money but also attention. And Trump has been happy, at least so far, to conclude this exchange. The previous presidents had rich supporters, and these supporters obtained access and even booty, but we had not seen an exchange of power so clear in the modern era. And by making this trade as public, Musk and Trump opened a path that other attention oligarchs could be kind.
In Trump’s world, everything is for sale. Most presidents and parties negotiate under a circumscribed area: they are somewhat linked by the existing interests, ideologies and promises. Part of what separated the leaders of the Silicon Valley of the Democrats is that the Federal Trade Commission of Lina Khan has tracked them down tirelessly, which led many CEOs in the technological sector which had long supported the liberal causes to feel betrayal. In Washington, money is a hand on the steering wheel, but it is rarely the only hand on the steering wheel.
Trump’s negotiation area is wider. It was Trump who initially proposed to ban Tiktok – as part of his broader campaign against Chinese influence and power, one of the few political areas that seemed to be deeply interested. Then he met Jeff Yass, a billionaire investor whose company holds a major participation in Tiktok, and Trump’s position changed. He is now looking to be the Savior of Tiktok.
Trump explained his change as being motivated by his hatred of Facebook. “They are real enemies of the people!” He wrote on Truth Social. He partially attributed his defeat of 2020 to the expenses of Mark Zuckerberg devoted to electoral integrity, and his response was partly to help the main competitor of Meta. Elsewhere, he said about Zuckerberg: “We are watching him closely, and if he does something illegal this time, he will spend the rest of his life in prison. »»
Now, after having made peace with Trump in Mar-A-Lago and oriented Meta’s policy in a Trumpian direction, not to mention the fact that Meta made a donation to her inauguration fund, Zuckerberg was seated a few steps from Trump during the inauguration. Trump is a better investment than your average president: the benefits of his favor and the consequences of his enmity are more extreme.
I don’t want to exaggerate my case. The motivations, interests and philosophies of the titans of attention deployed before Trump differ. Gathering them is to erase obvious differences. Sundar Pichai is not Musk. Jeff Bezos is not Shou Chew. The statement that Trump wanted by placing them so well during his inauguration may not reflect the role they wish to play. It is possible that in a year or two, Musk and Trump have scrambled and, for the rest, everything will have been as usual: a mixture of cooperation and irritation, supplication and disdain. Trump’s alliances have always been short -lived, especially when its allies have real power.
Let it be so. I will be happy to be able to come back to this column and read it, with a certain discomfort, like an artifact of a displaced alarm. But I am not willing to see Trump give merchants of the most powerful attention in America some of the best seats during his inauguration and claim that he wants nothing of them or that they are not waiting enough to conclude an agreement.
And the problem will persist beyond Trump. The right has spent years believing that social networks were biased against it, and the left is about to spend the same thing. As absurdly concentrated as wealth in America is, attention is even more so. As powerful as money in politics is, attention is even more so. We have largely failed to regulate the role of money in politics. Please note, the problem is worse – and we did not even start to try to find solutions.