One of the names that deserves our attention today is Larry Ellison, the second richest man in the world, with an estimated fortune of around $400 billion. He is a close friend of U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and — according to Trump’s plan — a candidate for membership in the governing council of the Gaza Strip.

Ellison is also the author of the famous statement made exactly a year ago that “citizens will be on their best behavior amid constant recording” — a real quote, not a joke. Ellison has long been one of the staunchest defenders of the U.S. National Security Agency’s (NSA) right to spy on citizens, responding to Edward Snowden’s revelations by asking, “Did anyone actually get hurt by this spying?” — without any reference to, or acknowledgment of, the 1974 Privacy Act, which has gradually been eroded in practice.

Ellison is the founder and CEO of Oracle, established in 1977, which operates in the field of information technology. About a month ago, OpenAI — currently the most prominent company in artificial intelligence and the developer of ChatGPT — signed a $300 billion, five-year deal with Oracle, under which Oracle will provide the cloud infrastructure necessary to run OpenAI’s AI projects.

Artificial intelligence is not just software, but a massive infrastructure of processors and data centers that consume enormous amounts of energy to provide the computing power that this software operates on. Control over this infrastructure is no less important — indeed, sometimes even more important — than control over the software itself. The major players in this field include NVIDIA (led by Jensen Huang, the sixth richest man in the world with a fortune of about $200 billion), the leader in manufacturing the microchips that power AI processors; Amazon Web Services (founded by Jeff Bezos, the third richest man in the world with about $220 billion), and Microsoft — both of which provide cloud computing services to companies producing AI software.

Parallel to this immense presence in IT infrastructure, Larry Ellison has also extended his influence into mass media through his son David Ellison, who successfully acquired the U.S. media and entertainment giant Paramount, which owns CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon, Showtime, and other networks, as well as Paramount Studios, one of Hollywood’s major production houses. After concluding the deal, the new entity sought acquisition over Warner Bros. Discovery, but the latter rejected citing low offer per share.

Recently, Bari Weiss — a journalist known for her hostility to the principles of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) and for describing herself as “staunchly” pro-Israel — was appointed as editor-in-chief of CBS News.

Alongside its control over AI, Oracle, backed by the U.S. administration, is now moving to acquire TikTok’s U.S. operations and already effectively controls the data collected by the platform during its current operations under the ownership of China’s ByteDance.

The Ellison case is neither exceptional nor unique; it is rather fits the model the global media expert Anya Schiffrin described as “media capture”, which she views as a precursor to state capture. Jeff Bezos has already acquired The Washington Post, the most influential newspaper in the United States alongside The New York Times, while Warren Buffett (with a fortune of about $160 billion) owns 63 newspapers across the country.

Schiffrin also adds that capture does not necessarily take the form of direct ownership, but can occur through advertising policies in different media outlets — the classic image of an editor-in-chief who, in hopes of securing an advertising campaign from a certain company, rejects reports that might criticize that company or its owner. This comes in addition to state capture of media, not just capture by private capital.

The dominance of private corporations and wealthy businessmen over media raises a genuine question about the very possibility of distinguishing between information and misinformation. In recent years, there has been enormous global attention to combating misinformation, through policy frameworks, monitoring by tech giants, and support for fact-checking organizations and media projects. Yet, in reality, we must now question this distinction itself, if the very production of information is concentrated in the hands of a small number of Silicon Valley billionaires whose wealth is staggering.

Michel Foucault suggested that truth-making is at the foundation of power: if I am the one who possesses the truth, then I undoubtedly possess enormous power over people and an exceptional ability to direct them. This is precisely what is happening today — through, first, the mass collection of data; second, control over the production of information; and later, a third phase: targeting users and distributing information in ways aligned with desired behavioral outcomes.

The dilemma of media in the modern capitalist society have been a recurrent theme of notable theorists from Walter Lippmann to Naom Chomsky and Edward Herman through Jurgen Habermas. Lippmann was the one who coined the concept of “public opinion” to highlight the role of media in making the public’s interpretation of the complexities of modern reality. Drawing upon Lippmann, Habermas regarded mass communication or “public relations” as models of instrumental rationality that seeks to manipulate the people into an inauthentic consensus.

Early to Schiffrin, Chomsky and Herman suggested the so-called propaganda model of modern mass media that depends on five filters similar to Schiffrin’s media capture; ownership, advertising, sourcing, flak and anti-ideology. They borrow Lippmann’s term “manufacturing consent” to describe the political economy of modern mass media.

The question, therefore, is no longer merely about the distribution of wealth or the right to private ownership, but about the rationality of allowing so few people to own so many resources and to exercise such immense control — or potential control — over humanity. This is a form of power that erases any real meaning of democracy at the political level, with no guarantees for its regulation other than the integrity and goodwill of those who wield it. We thus face a genuine threat of regression toward what Yanis Varoufakis, in his latest book, calls a new kind of digital feudalism.