The problem of money in politics is nothing new. For decades we have been warned that America is or is becoming an oligarchy. But something felt different about the early days of President Trump’s second term, and I think it’s this: Attention, not cash, is the form of power he’s most interested in.
A lot of his billionaire backers didn’t make the cut at his inauguration. The cat seats were occupied by the Attention Titans instead. Trump was so eager to see the leaders of Facebook and Instagram and X and Tiktok and Amazon and Google appear before him.
Washington is full of lobbying offices and fundraisers because powerful interests believe there is something to be gained when dollars are spent. They are right. We’ve come to expect and accept a grotesque level of everyday corruption in American politics — anchored by a series of Supreme Court decisions that give money to protect speech and congressional Republicans who have fought even modest campaign finance reforms. However, we at least have some rules to limit the power of money in politics and monitor its movements.
The same cannot be said for attention. If Trump saves Tiktok and in return Tiktok boosts pro-Trump content before the 2026 election to help him go viral, would that be illegal? Maybe. But would we know it happened? If Elon Musk turns the dials on X to tilt the conversation in the GOP direction before the 2028 election, who’s going to stop him?
Attention, not money, is now the fuel of American politics. In 2022, it seemed clear that Musk had overpaid when he bought Twitter for $44 billion. And if it’s considered a business transaction, he probably overpaid. X’s income is far from justifying its purchase price. But we didn’t know it then, and we don’t know now how to appreciate the attention it bought. In terms of attention, Musk’s purchase of Twitter has turned him into the most powerful person in the world, possibly Trump. What is it worth?
Oligarchy is not just corruption. It describes what happens when wealth connects with a ruler. Musk isn’t just looking for contracts or favors; It seeks influence and centrality. He offers Trump not only money, but also attention. And Trump was at least happy to make the deal. Past presidents had their rich backers and those backers got access and even spoils, but in modern times we haven’t seen a clear trade for power. And by working out the deal so publicly, Musk and Trump have opened up a path that the oligarchs may want to walk in terms of.
In Trump’s world, everything is for sale. Most presidents and parties negotiate in a circumscribed zone: they are somewhat bound by existing interests and ideologies and promises. Part of what has split Silicon Valley executives from Democrats is that FTC Lina Khan has relentlessly pursued them, leading many tech CEOs who have long championed liberal causes to feel betrayed. Money in Washington is a hand on the wheel, but it’s rarely the only hand on the wheel.
Trump’s trade zone is wider. It was Trump who originally proposed banning Tiktok in the first place — part of his broader campaign against Chinese influence and power, one of the few policy areas he seemed to care deeply about. Then he met with Jeff Yass, a billionaire investor whose firm has a large stake in Tiktok, and Trump’s position flipped. Now he’s trying to be Tiktok’s savior.
Trump explained his shift as motivated by his hatred of Facebook. “They are the real enemy of the people!” He wrote about social truth. He partly blamed Mark Zuckerberg’s election integrity spending for his 2020 loss, and his response was partly to help arch-rival Meta. Elsewhere, he said of 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 making peace with Trump at Mar-a-Lago and moving Meta’s policies in a Trumpian direction, not to mention the meta donating to his inaugural fund, Zuckerberg sat feet away from Trump at the inauguration. Trump is a better investment than your average president: both the blessings of his kindness and the consequences of his hostility are more extreme.
I don’t want to overstate my case. The motivations, interests, and philosophies of attention Titans arranged before Trump differ. Grouping them together means erasing obvious differences. Sundar Pichai is no musk. Jeff Bezos is not a chewer. The statement Trump wanted to make by sitting them so prominently at his inauguration may not reflect the role they want to play. It’s possible that in a year or two Musk and Trump will be out, and for the rest it will be business as usual: a combination of cooperation and irritation, pleas and denials. Trump’s alliances have historically been short-lived, especially when his allies hold real power.
It may be so. I will be pleased if I can look back on this column and read it, with some embarrassment, as an artifact of a false alarm. But I’m not willing to watch Trump give America’s most powerful businessmen who are in his inauguration and pretend he doesn’t want anything from them or that there’s nothing they want from him to cut a deal.
And the problem will persist beyond Trump. The right spent years believing that social media platforms were biased against them, and the left is about to spend years believing the same. Because it has been absurdly concentrated as wealth in America, the attention is even greater. As powerful as money is in politics, attention is even more so. We have largely failed to regulate the role of money in politics. For attention, the problem is worse – and we haven’t even begun to try a solution.
