{"id":22221,"date":"2026-03-08T10:37:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T09:37:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/08\/tech-oligarchs-reshape-humanity-while-billionaires-of-old-seem-quaint\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T10:37:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T09:37:20","slug":"tech-oligarchs-reshape-humanity-while-billionaires-of-old-seem-quaint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/08\/tech-oligarchs-reshape-humanity-while-billionaires-of-old-seem-quaint\/","title":{"rendered":"Tech oligarchs reshape humanity while billionaires of old seem quaint"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Gates to Musk and Altman, today\u2019s ultra-rich steer AI and tech, raising questions about who decides the future<\/p>\n

When Bill Gates<\/a> became the first modern IT mogul to reach the apex of wealth and power in 1992, the world was a very different place. Gates joined the top 10 on Forbes magazine\u2019s billionaires list alongside Japanese, German, Canadian, South Korean and Swedish billionaires, including those with family fortunes from Britain and America. A broad mix of industries was on the list: Retail and media, property management and packaging, an investment firm and a couple of industrial conglomerates. Their fortunes almost added up to $100bn \u2013 equivalent to about 0.4% of the US\u2019s GDP that year.<\/p>\n

The oligarchy has changed drastically since then. Bernard Arnault, of French luxury group LVMH, Amancio Ortega, the Spanish clothing mogul, and Warren Buffett, the US investor, were the only old-school billionaires among the top 10 in 2025. The rest largely made their money from high-tech: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, Steve Ballmer and Google\u2019s Sergey Brin and Larry Page. The top 10 amassed over $16trn, which is about 8% of US GDP.<\/p>\n

Continue reading…<\/a>
\nFrom Gates to Musk and Altman, today\u2019s ultra-rich steer AI and tech, raising questions about who decides the future
\nWhen Bill Gates became the first modern IT mogul to reach the apex of wealth and power in 1992, the world was a very different place. Gates joined the top 10 on Forbes magazine\u2019s billionaires list alongside Japanese, German, Canadian, South Korean and Swedish billionaires, including those with family fortunes from Britain and America. A broad mix of industries was on the list: Retail and media, property management and packaging, an investment firm and a couple of industrial conglomerates. Their fortunes almost added up to $100bn \u2013 equivalent to about 0.4% of the US\u2019s GDP that year.
\nThe oligarchy has changed drastically since then. Bernard Arnault, of French luxury group LVMH, Amancio Ortega, the Spanish clothing mogul, and Warren Buffett, the US investor, were the only old-school billionaires among the top 10 in 2025. The rest largely made their money from high-tech: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, Steve Ballmer and Google\u2019s Sergey Brin and Larry Page. The top 10 amassed over $16trn, which is about 8% of US GDP. Continue reading…Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Gates to Musk and Altman, today\u2019s ultra-rich steer AI and tech, raising questions about who decides the future When Bill Gates became the first modern IT mogul to reach the apex of wealth and power in 1992, the world was a very different place. Gates joined the top 10 on Forbes magazine\u2019s billionaires list …<\/p>\n

Tech oligarchs reshape humanity while billionaires of old seem quaint<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":22222,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22221"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}