The progressive movement rebels against the tech oligarchs who funded it

The $16.7 billion multi-year agreement reached by Meta this month to settle youth social media addiction lawsuits may be a minor blow to the company’s vast earnings — $60 billion in profit last year alone — but the decision also reflects a nationwide backlash against the tech oligarchy.Today, according to Forbes, the tech oligarchs make up a remarkable nine of the world’s 10 richest people, most of them in California.

But for all their money and technical skills, our state’s ultra-rich are peculiarly naïve about politics and public relations.Tech entities like Meta — which owns Facebook and Instagram — can expect mounting legal assaults from other states, as well as individuals. Worse yet, from Silicon Valley’s point of view, is the growing opposition to artificial intelligence among both the public and the political class.Pew notes that the number of Americans who see AI as positive has shrunk from 18% to 10% since 2021, while the number of those worried about its effects has jumped from 37% to 50%.This can be seen in the widespread reaction against AI data centers, not only in deep blue California but across the country, including among Republicans.

As energy analyst Robert Bryce points out, local rejections of data center plans have risen from nine in 2024 to 48 last year, and 70 in the first quarter of this year. People worry about AI taking jobs, violating personal freedom, and the future of humanity.These worries are not just cooked up by luddites or radicals; they also come from reasonable doubts about AI’s potentially disastrous ramifications, as Bill Gates recently noted. It’s hard to see the evolving tech economy — judging from the statements of the leading developers of AI — as a place friendly for the middle class.

Silicon Valley, once a bastion of upward mobility, has become increasingly unequal, according to a recent report by Joint Venture Silicon Valley.The top .001% of Valley residents have twelve times the wealth o...