Evgeny Morozov – The New Legislators of Silicon Valley - The Ideas Letter:

Oligarch-intellectuals have emerged a stable and coherent social entity as a byproduct of this battle for hegemony. And they certainly won’t be retiring even after quashing their woke and ESG-loving enemies. In Trump’s Washington, they arrive not as guests but as architects. Their reality-bending machinery—money hydraulics, platform dominance, bureaucracies kneeling to translate private fantasy into public policy—wields unprecedented force. Carnegie and Rockefeller commanded respect but lacked this lethal arsenal: social media thunderbox, celebrity aura, venture capital chainsaw, West Wing passkey. By rewriting regulations, channeling subsidies, and recalibrating public expectations, oligarch-intellectuals transmute fever dreams—blockchain fiefdoms, Martian homesteads—into seemingly plausible futures.