At Donald Trump’s inauguration earlier this year, the returning president made a striking break from tradition. The seats closest to the president – typically reserved for family – went instead to the most powerful tech CEOs in the world: Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Sundar Pichai. Between them, these men run some of the most profitable companies in history. And over the past two decades, they’ve used that wealth to reshape our public sphere.

But this felt different. This wasn’t discreet backdoor lobbying or a furtive effort to curry favour with an incoming administration. These were some of the most influential men in the world quite literally aligning themselves with the world’s most powerful politician – and his increasingly illiberal ideology.

Carole Cadwalladr has been tracking the collision of technology and politics for years. She’s the investigative journalist who broke the Cambridge Analytica story, exposing how Facebook data may have been used to manipulate elections. Now, she’s arguing that what we’re witnessing goes beyond monopoly power or even traditional oligarchy. She calls it techno-authoritarianism – a fusion of Trump’s authoritarian political project with the technological might of Silicon Valley.

So I wanted to have her on to make the case for why she believes Big Tech isn’t just complicit in authoritarianism, but is actively enabling it.

Mentioned:

The First Great Disruption 2016-2024, by Carole Cadwalladr

Trump Taps Palantir to Compile Data on Americans, by Sheera Frenkel and Aaron Krolik (New York Times)

This is What a Digital Coup Looks Like, by Carole Cadwalladr (TED)

The Nerve News

Machines Like Us is produced by Mitchell Stuart. Our theme song is by Chris Kelly. Video editing by Emily Graves. Our executive producer is James Milward. Special thanks to Angela Pacienza and the team at The Globe and Mail.

Support for Machines Like Us is provided by CIFAR and the Max Bell School of Public Policy at McGill University.

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