Who Really Rules the World: American Oligarchy in Plain Sight

 

WHO REALLY RULES THE WORLD: AMERICAN OLIGARCHY
AND EMPIRE IN PLAIN SIGHT

How Wealth, Policy, War, Algorithms, and Power Interlock Under Trump

 

 

By Vic Gerami

 

What follows is not hyperbole or fringe speculation. It is the synthesis of widely reported facts, public statements by officials, mainstream investigative reporting, and documented financial outcomes. What emerges is a pattern: a cycle in which public power, geopolitical violence, national security narratives, and private capital increasingly converge to create a de facto oligarchic structure.

 

THE PEOPLE

 

LARRY ELLISON

 

Information Control, TikTok, and Pro-Israel Influence

 

Oracle’s billionaire co-founder Larry Ellison didn’t just sit front row at Trump’s 2025 inauguration — he positioned his company at the center of the U.S. campaign against TikTok. Oracle led the consortium poised to take control of TikTok’s U.S. operations after Congress mandated a ban or divestiture over “national security” concerns. Critics argued that the move was significantly influenced by lawmakers who explicitly linked TikTok’s content to criticism of Israel and youth mobilization against the Israel–Hamas war, saying the platform exposed millions to footage of Israeli airstrikes that Washington found politically inconvenient, independent legal observers noted that those motives were part of the public legislative debate.

 

Inside Oracle, numerous employees alleged that pro-Palestinian voices were suppressed and that the company exhibited a pro-Israel bias — even removing Palestinian aid charities from lists of supported groups — as part of its internal social media moderation culture. This aligned with broader corporate posture and deep technical collaboration with government surveillance infrastructure.

 

The result? A platform once globally known for grassroots expression was reshaped under U.S. corporate control, raising eyebrows among free-speech advocates who say the ban was less about China and more about who gets to control narrative power in an era of contested war coverage.

 

Larry Ellison

ELON MUSK

 

State Power, Corporate Benefit, and Strategic Alignment

 

Elon Musk’s various enterprises — from SpaceX to Neuralink and other defense-adjacent technologies — have enjoyed regulatory contexts and government contracts during Trump’s second administration that critics say reflect a broader alignment between corporate and national strategies. Although Musk is famous for promoting himself as a free-speech absolutist, his companies have benefited materially from Trump-era policies, including relaxed regulatory scrutiny and prioritization of private space and defense partnerships.

 

Analysts have noted that Musk’s access to state power coincides with expanded wealth and influence, embedded within the broader network of elite benefactors and technological infrastructure shaping U.S. strategic priorities.

 

Elon Musk

DONALD TRUMP JR.

 

Pentagon Cash and Rare Earths

 

Vulcan Elements, a rare-earth magnet manufacturer backed by 1789 Capital — a venture firm where Trump’s eldest son is a partner — secured a $620 million loan from the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital as part of a roughly $1.4 billion public-private investment deal. Rare earth magnets are central to military hardware, from drones to submarines.

 

While Pentagon and company officials insist the award was merit-based, the timing — three months after 1789’s investment — and similar windfalls for related firms have drawn questions from ethics experts about blurred lines between political proximity and private advantage.

 

Donald Trump Jr

JARED KUSHNER

 

From Public Office to a $2 Billion Payoff

 

Perhaps the starkest example of the fusion of public service and private enrichment is Jared Kushner. After serving as a senior adviser shaping Middle East policy, Kushner’s private investment firm received a $2 billion commitment from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.

 

Members of the U.S. Congress publicly questioned why a sovereign fund would extend such a massive investment to a former adviser whose portfolio encompassed U.S.–Saudi relations. Critics argue this sequence — public influence followed closely by private reward — exemplifies how U.S. policy landscapes can transition into personal financial opportunity without transparency or scrutiny.

 

There is no public finding of illegality. But the optics are unmistakable: Kushner’s work as a civil servant preceded one of the largest publicly noted foreign investments in private capital history.

 

Jared Kushner

PAUL SINGER

 

Venezuela, Citgo, and Financial Warfare

 

Hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer, founder of Elliott Management, has emerged as one of the most consequential private beneficiaries of U.S. actions against Venezuela. Through a court-mandated process enabled by U.S. sanctions and legal pressure, an Elliott-affiliated entity acquired Citgo, Venezuela’s U.S.-based refining subsidiary, in a forced sale designed to satisfy creditor claims.

 

Citgo is not a marginal asset. It is a strategically vital refining network capable of processing Venezuela’s heavy crude and supplying fuel across the United States. Critics argue that the seizure of Citgo represents not merely debt collection, but the culmination of financial warfare against a sovereign state that attempted to exit the U.S.-dollar oil system.

 

At the same time, Chevron — the only major U.S. oil company permitted to remain in Venezuela during the sanctions regime — has been positioned as the primary operational beneficiary of new U.S.-backed agreements. Under Trump administration policies, Chevron retained a foothold while competitors were forced out, allowing it to expand operations once restrictions eased.

 

U.S. officials have openly discussed controlling Venezuelan oil sales to “stabilize” the economy and compensate American companies, a framework that critics say opens the door for firms such as ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Valero, PBF Energy, and Phillips 66 to receive heavy crude under favorable terms. Together, these arrangements would redistribute Venezuelan oil wealth toward U.S. corporations and financial institutions following years of sanctions-induced economic collapse.

 

Singer’s role exemplifies how legal mechanisms, sanctions policy, and financial leverage can succeed where military intervention is politically costly — transferring sovereign assets into private hands without deploying troops. In this view, Venezuela’s punishment was not only political but monetary, enforcing compliance with U.S. financial dominance while rewarding those positioned to capitalize on the fallout.

 

Paul Singer

RONALD LAUDER

 

Resource Imperial Logic, Greenland, and Ukraine’s Lithium

 

Billionaire Ronald Lauder, heir to the Estée Lauder fortune and a longtime associate of Donald Trump, is a recurring figure in the resource-driven foreign policy logic that has defined the Trump orbit. Former National Security Adviser John Bolton stated that it was Lauder who floated the idea of acquiring Greenland, a proposal often framed as absurd but rooted in a clear strategic rationale: Greenland’s vast deposits of rare earths and critical minerals essential to defense and energy systems.

 

That same pattern reappears in Ukraine. According to reporting, a consortium linked to Lauder won development rights to Ukraine’s Dobra lithium deposit, one of the largest known lithium reserves in Europe. Lithium is central to modern batteries, defense technology, and industrial power. Critics view the timing and structure of these deals as emblematic of a broader convergence between U.S. geopolitical leverage and private capital, with resource access emerging as a parallel track to diplomacy and security commitments.

 

In this view, the real story is not whether a billionaire suggested buying an Arctic territory. It is that the mineral map increasingly drives the policy map, and Lauder is positioned where those lines intersect.

 

Ronald Lauder

 

GEOPOLITICS OF RESOURCES AND WAR

 

GREENLAND’S SHADOW

 

The idea of acquiring Greenland — once dismissed as absurd — was proposed by Ronald Lauder, a billionaire ally of Trump, as a resource play, not a nostalgic throwback to colonialism. Greenland sits atop vast strategic minerals and rare earths, critical to defense and energy systems. The proposal — highlighted by former National Security Adviser John Bolton — was rooted in elite resource logic. While rejected diplomatically by Copenhagen, the attempt signaled a broader pattern in which territorial leverage and access to minerals become intertwined with state power and corporate diplomacy across the Arctic.

 

UKRAINE’S LITHIUM

 

The Ukrainian government awarded development rights to its massive Dobra lithium field — containing tens of millions of tons of a mineral classified by the U.S. as critical — to a consortium including Ronald Lauder and U.S. government-backed firms. Critics view this as economic tie-ins to secure influence while military aid remains politically constrained — a geopolitical bargain with palpable benefits for U.S. investors.

 

VENEZUELA AND THE PETRODOLLAR

 

Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves and has attempted to trade oil outside the U.S. dollar — championing yuan and euro pricing and exploring BRICS integration. This posed a direct challenge to the petrodollar system that underpins U.S. financial power globally. Historical precedent is stark:

 

Iraq shifted to euros before the 2003 invasion;

 

Libya proposed a gold-backed dinar before its 2011 bombardment.

 

The petrodollar system, established in the 1970s through agreements between the United States and Saudi Arabia, requires that global oil transactions be conducted in U.S. dollars in exchange for American military protection. This structure creates artificial and permanent global demand for the dollar, allowing the United States to finance deficits, sustain military expansion, and exert outsized economic influence. When Venezuela announced its intent to sell oil in non-dollar currencies, build payment systems outside SWIFT, and formally pursue BRICS membership, it threatened not merely U.S. policy preferences but the monetary architecture itself.

 

With approximately 303 billion barrels of proven oil reserves — more than Saudi Arabia — Venezuela’s departure from the dollar-based oil trade represented a scale of defiance unmatched by previous targets. Critics argue that the ensuing sanctions regime, asset freezes, and economic isolation were less about governance or human rights than about enforcing currency compliance and deterring other nations from following a similar path.

 

In Venezuela’s case, U.S. sanctions and legal mechanisms culminated in the transfer of Citgo, a sovereign oil asset, to private investors including hedge funds. Critics argue that the strategic response was not accidental but tied to preserving dollar hegemony and advantaging U.S. capital, albeit through indirect mechanisms.

 

Donald Trump


INFORMATION AND THE WAR OF NARRATIVE

 

The legal case TikTok, Inc. v. Garland shows that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a ban on TikTok under a law designating certain foreign-controlled platforms as national security threats. But civil liberties advocates and several commentators have explicitly linked some legislative support for the ban to content debate around the Israel–Hamas conflict — arguing that TikTok’s widespread coverage of protests and strikes tilted political discourse in ways certain lawmakers found threatening.

 

Whether driven by genuine data security concerns, geopolitical alignment, or content moderation aims, the outcome was the same: an American-controlled version of TikTok under Oracle and allied investors replaced what was once one of the most diverse global speech platforms.

 

IRAN: THE SHADOW GAME

 

Amid widespread protests triggered by economic collapse, Iranian authorities have accused foreign intelligence services, including Mossad, of being present and active in the country. Israeli officials have publicly acknowledged operational activity inside Iran aimed at preventing threats to Israel, though not explicitly regime change — signaling how intelligence conflict now integrates into broader regional unrest.

 

In January 2026, Israeli cabinet ministers publicly stated that Israeli agents were operating inside Iran during the unrest, framing their activities as necessary countermeasures against Iranian military and nuclear capabilities. Analysts note that such admissions are rare and underscore how covert intelligence operations increasingly intersect with domestic protest movements. Iranian officials contend that these operations are designed not only to sabotage infrastructure but to inflame internal instability, continuing a pattern of foreign intervention dating back to the CIA- and MI6-backed overthrow of Iran’s elected government in 1953 following the nationalization of oil resources.

 

Analysts note that covert actions by foreign agencies have long been part of the Iran–Israel landscape, particularly since coordinated operations against Iranian missile infrastructure in 2025.

 

CONCLUSION — HOW EMPIRE MAKES PROFIT

 

This is not a conspiracy. It is a system.

 

Public office becomes capital, as in Kushner’s $2 billion Saudi investment;

 

War and sanctions become conduits for private gain, as in Venezuela and Citgo;

 

Information platforms become strategic assets, as in TikTok’s forced sale and content influence;

 

Crucial minerals become seats of geopolitical leverage, as in Greenland and Ukrainian lithium;

 

Defense contracts and technological infrastructure reward insiders, as in Trump Jr.-backed rare-earth deals.

 

Not one of these outcomes on its own is proof of corruption. But the pattern — recurring, self-reinforcing, and overwhelmingly favorable to the same networks — is the architecture of modern oligarchy.

 

This is not democracy under strain.

 

This is empire managed by elites, in plain sight, with the tools of war, narrative control, and economic leverage.

 

 

SOURCES

 

Trump, Oligarchy, and Elite Capture

 

 

Larry Ellison, TikTok, and Information Control

 

 

Elon Musk and Trump-Era Benefits

 

 

Donald Trump Jr. and Pentagon Contracts

 

 

Jared Kushner and the $2 Billion Saudi Investment

 

 

Ronald Lauder, Greenland, and Ukrainian Lithium

 

 

Venezuela, Citgo, Paul Singer, and the Petrodollar

 

 

Iran, Protests, and Mossad Operations

 

 

Legal and Narrative Control