In the late 19^th and early 20th centuries, industrialist “Robber Barons” controlled much of America’s wealth and harnessed the power of government to build and sustain their dominance. Ronald W. Pruessen writes that today’s tech barons can be considered to be modern versions of these “Gilded Age” Robber Barons, who see Donald Trump’s program of deregulation and shrinking of government authority as a potential goldmine to gain new wealth and power.

They had front row seats at Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20^th: Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Google’s Sundar Pichai, and Tesla/Space X/X’s Elon Musk. Since Cabinet appointees were in the second row, the seating plan was quickly seen as signaling a new Washington power ranking. But was it an old one?

The Gilded Age 

An American historical analogy certainly comes to mind. Inauguration day photos suggest an unfolding tale in which powerful actors are seeking to travel back in time to the comfy political and economic climate of the late 19^th century’s Gilded Age. “Gilded Age” was author Mark Twain’s label, conjuring his sense that vast economic growth and wealth was a veneer covering an even vaster and shameful American swamp. He saw crocodiles and quicksand bogs aplenty.

“Robber Barons” like John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, and J.P. Morgan led – brilliantly in many ways – in building an oligopolistic industrial and financial structure of unparalleled power. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil controlled 90 percent of the oil industry by the 1890s, for example – and Morgan’s ocean-straddling banking operations were an important forerunner of 20^th century globalization. Robber Barons and the upper “1 percent” of American society they sat atop of enjoyed – and flaunted – historically unique riches, owning more than 50 percent of America’s burgeoning wealth.

Gross inequity was only one swamp ill identified by Twain (and many later historians). Harnessing government power and money, for example, became an important tool for building and sustaining Robber Baron dominance. American railroad empires relied heavily on government largesse to fund construction: 175 million acres of public lands were given to them by federal, state, and local governments. The military and police resources of governments were also tapped: for seizing land from Native Americans, controlling upstart workers, and acquiring colonies and protectorates. Pennsylvania authorized a “Coal and Iron Police” that routinely brought strike breaking force into volatile terrain – and Colorado militia turned a 1914 Ludlow mining protest into a bloody disaster.

Against the backdrop of such uses of government, only the determination of business and financial interests to avoid regulation by political authorities meshes with the notion of the Gilded Age being a “laissez-faire” era. State legislatures and Congress were intensely lobbied to keep government eyes and hands out of business affairs. Bribes and campaign contributions were part of the mix. A quip had it that Standard Oil had done everything with the Pennsylvania legislature but refine it.

Re-gilding 

Today’s tech barons could serve as avatars of Robber Baron instincts and behavior. They have also performed dazzling economic (and technological) feats, yielding comparable structural resonance. The six largest tech companies, for example, make up one-third of the total value of the S&P 500 index – and decisions by companies like Facebook and X (e.g., regarding monitoring procedures – or the lack thereof) affect the day-to-day lives of hundreds of millions of people. Overall societal inequalities also remain a dramatic surrounding characteristic of American society. The vast wealth of Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg et al is thoroughly recognized and current Federal Reserve statistics confirm that the top 1 percent possess 30 percent of national wealth – in contrast to the two percent of the bottom 50 percent.

Government as goldmine 

Nor are the ambitions of tech and many other corporate magnates any less ferociously open-ended than the Robber Barons of the past. Now as then, “compound appetite” dynamics often drive behavior – with stunning previous successes creating ever-greater ambitions. Now as then, for example, government still offers an especially rich vein worth mining for new wealth and power – even if the specific natures of federal, state, and local governments are very different from what they were in the 19^th century.

At the federal level alone, consider the value of contracts for goods (e.g., military equipment from defense contractors) and services (e.g., IT hardware, software, and support prominently on offer from the tech barons). Elon Musk is well-versed on this front, given Tesla’s $15 billion in government aid and orders and Space X’s $22 billion. Google and Microsoft have likewise been energetically tapping federal funds, intensively competing for contracts across the years.

Consider too the pre-paid value of lower corporate tax rates – for tech giants and many others. Trump’s determination to sustain his 2017 reduction of the 21 percent cap on corporate taxes (as opposed to the previous 35 percent) is a glittering prize.

President Trump Views Teslas with Elon Musk at The White House – March 11, 2025 by The White House is United States government work

Reducing 

Consider (yet again) an especially key concern for the tech barons – the dazzling appeal of Trump’s crusade for deregulation. Along with re-gilding, that is, Trump’s policies look to reduce the powers of government in the economic and social realms to what they were in the 19^th century. Slash employees from the Food and Drug Administration. Give cryptocurrency expanded roaming rights in the financial arena and liberate oil, gas, and coal operations from suspiciously woke-akin “green” restrictions. Add in an end to anti-trust investigations of Google and Apple – and a countermanding of Biden’s executive order establishing testing requirements for AI development.

Consequences of turning back the clock 

Both the stellar achievements and the striking flaws of the Gilded Age are relevant to weighing policy options in the 2020s. The vast expansion of the American economy that took place in the late 19^th century deserves admiration – but so do the grievous prices paid as the country became more intensively unequal, unsafe, and undemocratic. The 20^th century’s liberal reform efforts (including Progressivism, the New Deal, and the Great Society) rebalanced economic, social, and political scales. Many millions of citizens gradually moved Americans toward better lives and greater opportunities as a result – even if more needed doing.

Of crucial importance as we survey the 2020s, we should note that government actions involving economic management and social welfare did not prevent the US’s stunning expansion of wealth and power. GDP has risen from $22 billion in 1900 to $29 trillion, for example – and there is no question that the United States has the largest and most technologically sophisticated armed forces in the world today. If re-gilding and reducing government have glittering appeal to Trump and other members of the economic elite, their vision is dangerous for the rest of the country. Looking back at the Gilded Age makes that clear. As technology journalist Kara Swisher wrote in Vox in 2016, the world desired by the tech barons is neither brave nor new.

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• Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of USAPP – American Politics and Policy, nor the London School of Economics.