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US President Joe Biden has warned that an “oligarchy is taking shape in America” that threatens to harm American democracy, while condemning the emerging “tech industrial complex” for the country’s dangerous concentration of wealth and power.
Biden’s comments during his farewell address to Americans from the Oval Office on Wednesday night amounted to a veiled attack on Donald Trump’s closest allies in corporate America, including tech billionaire Elon Musk, just five days before he hands power to the Republican.
Biden he said he wanted to warn the country of the “dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultra-rich people” and the danger of their “abuse of power going unchecked”.
He quoted the late President Dwight Eisenhower’s warning in his 1961 farewell address about the military-industrial complex and said that the interaction between government and technology risked being equally disastrous.
“I am equally concerned about the potential rise of the technological-industrial complex, which could pose a real danger to our country as well. Americans are inundated with an avalanche of disinformation and disinformation, enabling the abuse of power. The free press is crumbling. Editors disappear. Social media is giving up on fact-checking,” Biden said.
Biden’s words were a reference to the world’s richest man, Musk, owner of the social media platform X and founder of the electric vehicle maker Tesla, who gave a huge financial support to the Trump campaign and became one of his closest allies during the transition to the new Trump administration.
Some of Silicon Valley’s top executives, from Amazon’s Jeff Bezos to Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, are too hugged Trump since his election victory and is expected to have prime seats at the inauguration ceremony in Washington on Monday.
Biden also used his remarks to shine a positive light on his one-year presidency, which ended in a major political setback as he dropped out late in late July to run for re-election, passing the torch of the anti-Trump campaign to Vice President Kamala Harris — an effort that ended in bitter defeat.
Biden’s approval rating fell to a new low after he stepped down from the presidency and a political career in Washington that spanned more than five decades. Only 36.7 percent of Americans approve of his job performance, and 55.8 percent disapprove, according to the FiveThirtyEight polling average.
Biden said he hopes his accomplishments will be better evaluated in the future.
“It will take time to feel the full effect of everything we’ve done together, but the seed has been planted, and it will grow and flourish for decades,” he said.
Biden faced not only fierce criticism from Republicans, but also reproaches from Democrats who blame him for seeking re-election despite his advanced age. He is now 82 years old.
Biden’s presidency has been defined by a record labor market and a strong recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as a series of legislative achievements in the economy. But the pain of high inflation has become a huge political vulnerability for him.
On foreign affairs, he has been credited with Western support for Ukraine following Russia’s 2022 invasion of the country, but his response to the Middle East conflict, including unwavering support for Israel’s war in Gaza, has drawn a strong backlash from progressive Democrats, undermining the unity of his political coalitions.
Only on Wednesday, with five days before leaving office, Biden – with the help of Trump associates – managed to mediate in ceasefire agreement release the hostages held by Hamas.
“This plan was drafted and agreed upon by my team, and the new administration will largely implement it. That’s why I told my team to fully inform the future administration, because that’s how it should be, to work together as Americans,” he said at the beginning of his address.