Biden warns of oligarchy in America in farewell speech

//

Lerato Khumalo

Change of power in the USA

Biden warns of oligarchy in America in farewell speech

Updated on 01/16/2025 – 03:37 amReading time: 2 minutes

Enlarge the image

US President Joe Biden gives his compatriots a lot of warnings as they say goodbye. (Source: Mandel Ngan/Pool AFP/AP/dpa/dpa-bilder)

US President Joe Biden will leave office in a few days. He uses his big farewell address to the nation to give his compatriots urgent warnings.

As he left office, US President Joe Biden warned Americans about the emergence of a threatening oligarchy in the country. Biden said in an address to the nation from his White House office: “I want to warn the country about a few things that worry me deeply: the dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a few extremely wealthy people – and the dangerous consequences if you do Abuse of power remains unchecked.”

The 82-year-old complained: “Today an oligarchy is emerging in America with extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights, freedoms and the fair opportunity for everyone to move forward.”

“Americans are being bombarded with misinformation and disinformation, which enables the abuse of power,” warned the Democrat. “The free press is crumbling, editors are disappearing, fact-checking is being abandoned on social media. The truth is being suppressed by lies spread for reasons of power and profit.” Biden called for social platforms to be held accountable to protect children, families and democracy itself from abuse of power.

Biden was probably alluding to the US entrepreneurs and billionaires Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, among others, without mentioning them by name. Tesla and SpaceX boss Musk has a particularly close relationship with Biden’s successor Donald Trump, who will be sworn in as president next week. Musk, who also owns Platform

Zuckerberg, in turn, as head of the Facebook group Meta, recently initiated a change of course by moving away from the previous moderation model on his social platforms and thus also a clear rapprochement with Trump and the Republican Party. In doing so, he followed Musk’s line, who largely removed restrictions on statements on the platform after taking over Twitter. Researchers and many users accuse the renamed successor platform X of allowing unbridled hate speech since then. X rejects this. Both Musk and Zuckerberg are said to be hoping that their proximity to Trump will benefit their companies.