President Biden warned in his farewell speech of an "ultra-wealthy" "oligarchy" posing a threat to America as big tech CEOs have been warming up to President-elect Trump in recent months — despite his own administration accepting donations from Democratic mega-donors.
Biden spoke Wednesday as reports emerged this week that Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg – the three most wealthy people in the world who collectively are worth more than $850 billion, according to Forbes – will be seated next to Trump’s Cabinet picks and elected officials next Monday at his inauguration.
"I have no doubt that America is in a position to continue to succeed. That's why in my farewell address tonight, I want to warn the country of some things that give me great concern. And that's the dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few, ultra-wealthy people. And the dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked," Biden said from the Oval Office.
"Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights, freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead," Biden continued. "We see the consequences all across America, and we've seen it before, more than a century ago. But the American people stood up to the robber barons back then and busted the trust. They didn't punish the wealthy, they just made the wealthy play by the rules everybody else had to."
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Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, Bezos, the founder of Amazon, and Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, have all met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida following his election victory in November.
During the election cycle, Musk gave at least $277 million in donations to help get Trump and other Republicans elected, according to The Washington Post, which cited filings from the Federal Election Commission.
Tech giants including Amazon, Meta, Apple, Google and Microsoft are reported to have donated $1 million each to Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
In 2023, George Soros and other prominent billionaires bolstered Biden's re-election efforts during the third quarter, filings reviewed by Fox News Digital show.
The deep-pocketed donors each cut six-figure contributions to the Biden Victory Fund — a joint fundraising venture that consists of Biden's campaign, the Democratic National Committee (DNC), all 50 state Democratic parties and Washington, D.C.'s Democratic committee — between July and September.
Later in 2023, Fox News Digital confirmed that a Soros-funded group pushed $15 million to a nonprofit tied to Biden's main outside super PAC for the 2024 elections to evaluate crucial policy matters, records reveal.
Tax documents provided to Fox News Digital showed that the Open Society Policy Center, an advocacy nonprofit in the Soros-bankrolled Open Society Foundations network, funneled $15.18 million to Future Forward USA Action in 2022 for research and "content testing on critical policy issues."
That same year, billionaire Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn co-founder, dropped a massive six-figure donation backing Biden's re-election bid.
As far back as 2020, billionaires Howard Schultz, former Starbucks CEO, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and investor Tom Steyer made substantial donations to the Biden campaign.
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For his part in the incoming Trump administration, Musk has been tasked with heading up the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which will examine issues of government spending, waste, efficiency and operations.
In order to do that, Musk may occupy space in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building right next to the West Wing that houses the bulk of office space for White House staffers, the New York Times reported.
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Biden also said in his farewell speech that American leadership and technology is an "unparalleled source of innovation that can transform lives," but "we see the same dangers, the concentration of technology, power and wealth."
"You know, in his farewell address, President Eisenhower spoke of the dangers of the military industrial complex. He warned us then about, and I quote, the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power, end of quote. Six decades later, I'm equally concerned about the potential rise of a tech industrial complex that could pose real dangers for our country, as well," Biden added.
"Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation, enabling the abuse of power. The free press is crumbling. Editors are disappearing. Social media is giving up on fact checking. The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit," the president continued. "We must hold the social platform accountable to protect our children, our families and our very democracy from the abuse of power.
"Meanwhile, artificial intelligence is the most consequential technology of our time, perhaps of all time. Nothing offers more profound possibilities and risks for our economy and our security, our society, for humanity. Artificial intelligence even has the potential to help us answer my call to end cancer as we know it. But unless safeguards are in place, AI could spawn new threats to our rights, our way of life, to our privacy, how we work and how we protect our nation. We must make sure AI is safe and trustworthy and good for all humankind," Biden said.
Fox News’ Andrew Mark Miller, Joe Schoffstall, Jessica Chasmar and Diana Stancy contributed to this report.
A network of fact-checkers is set to lose a major source of revenue and may even close shop after Facebook parent company Meta announced it would terminate their contracts and move towards a system closer to X's Community Notes.
"We don't have much time left. At this rate, we are done in a few months," Check Your Fact managing editor, Jesse Stiller, told Fox News Digital.
"We were blindsided by this. This was totally unexpected and out of left field for us. We weren't aware this decision was being considered until Mark dropped the video overnight. We have no idea what the future looks like for the website going forward," he added.
On January 7, 2025, Meta revealed that it would end its fact-checking program and lift some content moderation policies to "restore free expression" across its platforms, including Facebook and Instagram.
Prior to the announcement, Meta repeatedly stressed they were committed to supporting a long-term independent fact-checking industry to address "misinformation" online.
In an April 2022 blog post, Meta claimed it had built the "largest global fact-checking network of any platform" and contributed more than $100 million to fact-checking programs since 2016.
Meta did not reply when asked how much money it had given to third-party fact-checkers before announcing the end of the program in early January 2025.
According to the company's website, Meta began prioritizing "additional support and resources" for fact-checkers in early 2020 to combat health "misinformation."
As part of this initiative, Meta launched a $1 million emergency grant program in partnership with the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) to tackle information about the COVID-19 pandemic.
IFCN created the CoronaVirusFacts Alliance, in which nearly 100 fact-checking organizations in more than 70 countries produced over 11,000 fact-checks about COVID-19 across 40 languages. Seven fact-checking organization projects specifically focused on vaccine "misinformation."
In August, Zuckerberg admitted that the Biden White House had pressured Meta to censor some health information during the pandemic.
Zuckerberg told podcast host Joe Rogan in January that members of the Biden administration would "scream" and "curse" at his employees, demanding they take down information, especially during the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine program.
Meta later gave the IFCN a $1 million "Climate Misinformation Grant." The grant, in part, provided funding to organizations working to combat "climate misinformation" and supported collaborative partnerships between fact-checkers and "climate experts."
The company also provided funding for fact-checkers to "increase their capacity to promote reliable information" ahead of the 2022 elections in various countries, including the U.S., Australia, France and India.
In the United States, Meta worked with the following third-party fact-checkers: AFP – Hub, Check Your Fact, Factcheck.org, Lead Stories, PolitiFact, Science Feedback, Reuters Fact Check, TelevisaUnivision, The Dispatch and USA Today.
All 10 of these partners are expected to lose their funding. It is unclear when or if Meta's changes will affect overseas fact-checkers.
In a recent interview with Fox News Digital, Meta's chief global affairs officer, Joel Kaplan, claimed that these fact-checkers failed to remain neutral.
"We went to independent, third-party fact-checkers," Kaplan said. "It has become clear there is too much political bias in what they choose to fact-check because, basically, they get to fact-check whatever they see on the platform."
Since the pivot away from third-party fact-checking, several of these fact-checking organizations with financial ties to the tech conglomerate have issued statements critical of Zuckerberg and Meta's claims of political bias.
Previously, these groups were often paid for each published fact-check using Meta's platforms and tools.
For example, PolitiFact, according to its financial disclosures, earned over five percent of its 2024 revenue from the partnership.
PolitiFact told Fox News Digital that the organization, one of the original participants in Meta's third-party fact-checking program, will be affected by the company's decision to discontinue it.
META ISSUES SWEEPING CHANGES TO RESTORE FREE SPEECH ON FACEBOOK, INSTAGRAM
They also pointed Fox News Digital to comments made by PolitiFact parent Poynter Institute President Neil Brown, who called Meta's decision a "disappointing cop-out" that "perpetuates a misunderstanding of its own program."
"Facts are not censorship. Fact-checkers never censored anything. And Meta always held the cards. It's time to quit invoking inflammatory and false language in describing the role of journalists and fact-checking," Brown said.
Lead Stories, a Facebook fact-checker employing several former CNN alumni, told The New York Times that it is now doing a large chunk of its work for TikTok's parent company, Bytedance. Meta was previously the fact-checker's primary client.
The company was shocked by Zuckerberg's announcement, considering Lead Stories signed a new yearlong contract with Meta just three weeks ago. Lead Stories admitted that it would see a drop in revenue after severing ties with Meta—a reality that will result in a "staffing reduction," according to co-founder Alan Duke.
"Cutting fact-checkers from social platforms is like disbanding your fire department," he told CNN in early January.
META ISSUES SWEEPING CHANGES TO RESTORE FREE SPEECH ON FACEBOOK, INSTAGRAM
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Kristin Roberts, the chief content officer of Gannet Media (USA Today's parent company), said, "Fact-based journalism is what USA Today does best."
"We are the nation's trusted news source because we provide unbiased and essential content for all people. Truth and facts serve everyone — not the right or the left — and that's what we will continue to deliver," she continued.
The company did not provide information on its financial relationship with Meta.
TelevisaUnivision, Lead Stories, Factcheck.org, AFP – Hub, The Dispatch and Science Feedback did not return Fox News Digital's request for comment.
Reuters declined to comment.
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