At President Donald Trump's inauguration, in attendance were some of the world's richest figures, collectively representing over a trillion dollars in net worth.
These wealthy individuals were not only invited to the inauguration, they were given places of prominence and favour behind Trump and next to his family.
Through their companies and business interests, they already wield outsized influence over our daily lives, and I feel they have no place in our politics.
To put a trillion dollars in perspective, the age of the universe is estimated at about 13.7 billion years, and you could fit the entire span of that time 79 times over into a trillion.
A trillion, a million million million, is an almost unfathomable number that for a very few individuals is not only imaginable, but it is within close reach.
Most notable of the billionaires to attend the inauguration is of course Elon Musk, both due to position of actual power within the new government, and also due to the apparent fascist gesture he made that was broadcast for the world to see.
Musk maintains one of the biggest platforms for speech in the world, X, and with his personal control over it, ensures that his views and opinions are carried more prominently than any other on it.
Almost half of Trump's campaign funds, 44 per cent, was provided by just 10 megadonors, the largest among them Musk's company SpaceX.
Canada has laws that restrict and govern what a third party, such as an individual or private business, can advertise and do in an election. It doesn't have any law on the books that covers someone like Musk or Mark Zuckerberg deciding what they want their algorithms to show people.
Each of these individuals has supported Trump for any number of possible reasons, whether it is for direct power out of concern for being placed under Trump's microscope or simply the promise of cheaper taxes, but inevitably they will see profit from his election and thus be encouraged to interfere elsewhere.
Musk has already weighed in on Germany's upcoming elections with an op-ed and speech favouring the far-right Alternative f眉r Deutschland party.
As these figures acquire more wealth, their voices will only become more amplified as they take over new platforms and leverage them.
Jeff Bezos's purchase of the Washington Post ended up seeing him directly interfere to quash the once independent editorial board from endorsing a president for the first time in over 50 years, and then eliminating its slogan "Democracy Dies in Darkness."
Bezos' company Amazon also abruptly shuttered all of its operations in Quebec after one warehouse unionized, although they claim this was unrelated.
Zuckerburg scrapped fact-checking on Facebook and pulled back on policies over hateful behaviour, such as making an exception to allow people to call others mentally ill as an insult if they are LGBTQ+.
None of these individuals at Trump's inauguration was on their own a trillionaire, with Elon Musk currently the closest with a personal wealth of over $426 million USD.
However, worryingly, that may not be far off in the future.
Oxfam, the collection of 21 NGOs dedicated to eliminating poverty, recently published its 2024 annual report. In that report, it revised its estimates to predict five trillionaires within the next decade, when just a year prior it was expecting only a single trillionaire.
That jump was due to billionaire wealth growing three times faster in 2024 compared to 2023, at a rate of roughly $7.9 billion every day. The wealth of the 10 richest grew by about $140 million each day, and according to Oxfam, even if they lost 99 per cent of their wealth in a day, they'd still be billionaires.
Every individual deserves a voice in how our country is run. Every business can share concerns about things like taxes and regulations. That is healthy in a democracy, and necessary for good governance.
Wealth should not give a greater voice, or silence others.
Timmins - James Bay MP Charlie Angus recently called on Elections Canada to invest Musk and X, formerly Twitter, ahead of the next election. He is concerned that Musk's outspoken politics, his platform, and his wealth, support hateful and extremist politics.
Perhaps it's time that Canada takes this seriously, and starts looking at the ultra-rich with a closer eye before they find a way to get inside our own government.
Brennan Phillips is a reporter with the Keremeos Review and Penticton Western News.
