GREED, POWER, MONEY — AND THE PEOPLE WHO GIVE IT FORM On influence, algorithms, and the names we are told not to connect.

GREED, POWER, MONEY — AND THE PEOPLE WHO GIVE IT FORM

On influence, algorithms, and the names we are told not to connect.

France has begun a formal investigation into Elon Musk and his social media platform X, formerly Twitter. As part of that inquiry, French authorities have seized materials from X’s Paris offices to examine whether the platform’s algorithmic systems violate national or European law. Musk has responded publicly, calling the action politically motivated.

At the same time, Spain is moving toward stricter rules governing large data platforms—particularly how algorithms amplify content and shape public discourse.

That is the abbreviated synopsis.
Those are the facts.

What follows is not a claim of guilt, nor a declaration of conspiracy. It is an attempt to sit honestly with what these developments signal—and why they feel less isolated than we are encouraged to believe.

I don’t think I’m the only one trying to make sense of how this presidency feels—not just politically, but viscerally. There is a dissonance that lingers. A sense that events are unfolding in plain sight, yet we are asked to treat them as unrelated, coincidental, or merely administrative.

But they are not abstract.
They have names.

When Donald Trump re-enters power, the guardrails feel thinner—not because of ideology alone, but because of who now stands openly beside him. Billionaires are no longer operating in the background. They are visible—inside the close orbit of ballrooms and donor galas—unapologetic beneficiaries of policy, access, and proximity. Power doesn’t hide them now. It seats them.

Power no longer whispers.
It arranges.

When Jeff Bezos, owner of The Washington Post, authorizes sweeping layoffs that hollow out a historic newsroom, it does not feel like ordinary belt-tightening. It feels like a recalibration of what journalism is allowed to be when its survival is tethered to concentrated wealth. For readers who relied on that institution as a civic counterweight, the loss is not theoretical—it is intimate.

When the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is overtaken, renamed in spirit if not yet by statute, shuttered under the banner of “renovation,” and culturally destabilized, it is not just a building closing. It is a national landmark being repurposed through power rather than consensus. For artists, patrons, and citizens, that rupture lands emotionally.

When Amazon underwrites and streams a glossy documentary centered on Melania Trump—reportedly at an extraordinary price point—it becomes impossible not to notice how culture, commerce, and politics are braided. This is not censorship. It is not propaganda. It is something more subtle: normalization through prestige, distribution, and scale.

And then there is Musk.

Publicly selected. Publicly amplified. Publicly invoked.

During the 2024 campaign, Donald Trump openly referenced Elon Musk in connection with “those vote counting computers,” praising Musk’s technical knowledge in a recorded public appearance—remarks now part of the public record.¹ No authority was formally granted. No role officially assigned. But the signal mattered.

In a state like Pennsylvania, decided by narrow margins and saturated by platform-driven political messaging, such statements blur boundaries that once held. When a candidate elevates a platform owner and algorithmic gatekeeper in the context of electoral mechanics— even rhetorically—it confers legitimacy, proximity, and influence. It tells audiences who is trusted. It tells systems where power is assumed to reside.

That is not evidence of control.
It is evidence of access.

And access, in this era, does not need a title to shape outcomes.

Owner of a dominant social platform.
Architect of an expanding AI ecosystem.
A major political donor.
A government-adjacent actor with influence over discourse itself.

When governments begin to examine whether algorithmic systems under such ownership exert unlawful or disproportionate influence, it is not about temperament or personality. It is because scale, opacity, and proximity to power demand scrutiny.

This is where my unease sharpens.

Algorithms do not exist in a vacuum. They are designed, tuned, and governed by people—people with interests, incentives, and ideologies. They do not tell us what to think; they decide what circulates, what repeats, what fades, and what begins to feel inevitable.

They arrange attention.
They shape norms.
They make persuasion feel like consensus.

And when persuasion replaces governance, power no longer needs to explain itself.

So the question is no longer crude—about votes changed or elections stolen.
It is quieter.
More unsettling.

What if persuasion has replaced governance?
What if power no longer needs to dominate institutions directly because it flows through systems that mediate reality itself?

There is also the matter of Jeffrey Epstein—because any honest examination of greed, power, and influence that spans borders must reckon with what his records revealed.

Not the mythology.
The documentation.

Court filings, financial records, flight logs, settlements, and testimony exposed something more instructive than scandal: a transatlantic infrastructure of access, where wealth functioned as a shadow currency—moving people, favors, silence, and immunity across jurisdictions. Influence did not travel alone; it was escorted by private aircraft, shell entities, non-disclosure agreements, and reputational laundering.

What made Epstein consequential was not merely criminality, but connectivity. He moved through finance, politics, academia, royalty, and technology with ease precisely because money dissolved borders and delayed accountability. Power did not announce itself; it circulated.

As documents surfaced and names entered public record, anonymity thinned. Patterns emerged—not a single cabal, but a system. One where proximity to wealth insulated behavior, where transactions replaced transparency, and where consequences were deferred long enough to become negotiable.

That exposure matters now.

Because when governments scrutinize algorithmic power, political proximity, and privatized influence, they are responding to lessons already learned: unchecked wealth does not merely accumulate. It coordinates. It connects. It protects itself—across continents.

Epstein’s records stripped away the comfort of abstraction. They showed how power behaves when it believes it will never be seen. And once seen, how desperately it relies on silence, distraction, and procedural delay to survive.

That shadow economy did not disappear with him.

Layered over all of this is the quiet enrichment of a political family whose members no longer require visibility to profit. The record is not speculative. It is documented. Corporate filings, real-estate disclosures, and post-office financial statements show a pattern of collateral acquisition and monetization that accelerated after power was exercised, not before. From licensing deals and foreign-backed investments to platform valuations buoyed by political relevance, beneficiaries have names: Donald Trump, Jared Kushner, and close affiliates whose gains did not require public office to compound. The machinery runs efficiently now—less spectacle, more extraction. That, too, is felt. Not envied. Felt.

I am not claiming a hidden cabal or a singular conspiracy.
I am naming a convergence.

Wealth.
Media.
Technology.
Culture.
Governance.

All moving closer together.
All less disguised than before.

What disturbs me is not one decision, one documentary, one closure, or one platform. It is the cumulative effect. It is the sense that power no longer feels compelled to explain itself.

That recognition—the moment when the patterns stop feeling coincidental—is not something I arrived at lightly. It is emotional because it is civic. It is intimate because these institutions, platforms, and norms shaped how many of us learned to trust democracy, culture, and truth.

Which leaves a simple, unresolved question:

When billionaires own the megaphones, fund the narratives, advise the government, and profit alongside it—what does accountability look like now?

France’s inquiry and Spain’s response feel less like intervention and more like acknowledgement—an admission that something fundamental has shifted in how influence moves through the world.

I am still learning how to name this moment.
But I know now that it is not impersonal.

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Endnotes / References

1. Public record — Trump remarks referencing Elon Musk and vote-counting technology
Video excerpt in which Donald Trump states that Elon Musk “knows those vote counting computers.”
https://youtu.be/F9gCyRkpPe8

2. Documented post-office financial activity and collateral gain
Public reporting and financial disclosures document substantial post-presidency and post-administration financial activity involving members of the Trump family and close affiliates, including foreign-backed investment funding, licensing arrangements, and real-estate and asset transactions following tenure in public office. See, for example:

• New York Times — Reporting on Jared Kushner’s post-White House investment fund and foreign sovereign backing (2022–2024 coverage)
• Washington Post — Analysis of Trump family business activity and monetization following presidency
• U.S. Office of Government Ethics and publicly available financial disclosures

France — Investigation into X (formerly Twitter)
BBC News: France investigates Elon Musk’s X over alleged algorithm manipulation
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce3ex92557jo

Spain — Proposed tighter rules for large digital platforms
Reuters: Spain pushes tougher regulation of social media platforms and algorithms
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/
(Note: Reuters link leads to the Europe desk; the specific Spain article appears under current digital-policy coverage.)