The Billionaires Will Rule Down Through the Generations

Llewellyn King
Wed, 26 Nov 2025 21:00:00 -0800
Opinion

Sarah Wynn-Williams' book "Careless People" takes aim at Facebook (parent company Meta) and tells a tale of its potentate, Mark Zuckerberg, as a man who is sought after by the great and the powerful and who lacks social consciousness or real interest in anything beyond himself and his company.

Wynn-Williams is the New Zealander who went to lengths to get hired at Facebook because she believed in its ability to do good. She ended up in the company's inner circle of management as director of global public policy.

Zuckerberg was of keen interest to heads of state because of Facebook's influence in their countries. A meeting with Zuckerberg would confer status on them, even if they were the heads of quite important nations.
Updated: Thu Nov 27, 2025

Sarah Wynn-Williams' book "Careless People" takes aim at Facebook (parent company Meta) and tells a tale of its potentate, Mark Zuckerberg, as a man who is sought after by the great and the powerful and who lacks social consciousness or real interest in anything beyond himself and his company.

Wynn-Williams is the New Zealander who went to lengths to get hired at Facebook because she believed in its ability to do good. She ended up in the company's inner circle of management as director of global public policy.

Zuckerberg was of keen interest to heads of state because of Facebook's influence in their countries. A meeting with Zuckerberg would confer status on them, even if they were the heads of quite important nations.

Additionally, they were paying homage to wealth, something that happens throughout society. If you are rich enough, you get the bended-knee treatment.

It occurs to Wynn-Williams, while once looking at these leaders, sitting around a table, waiting for Zuckerberg (he doesn't get out of bed before noon for anyone), that none of them will be in power in a decade, but Zuckerberg will still be there.

That is sobering.

We live in a time of billionaires, and their impact shouldn't be minimized. Nor should the impact of their billions down through the generations.

The heirs to today's billions will shape the future for decades, possibly centuries.

Money has staying power. In the 1700s, the Grosvenor family began developing property in what is now the West End of London, the most exclusive area which includes Mayfair and Belgravia. The duke of Westminster, heir to the Grosvenor fortune, still owns large amounts of some of the most expensive real estate in the world.

In the last century, some very wealthy people lost their money, but none of them had the kind of wealth we are talking about today.

Huntington Hartford, heir to the A&P grocery chain fortune, and Barbara Hutton, who inherited part of the Woolworth five-and-dime store fortune, both squandered enormous amounts and ended up nearly broke.

Today's fortunes are so much larger that even if the same mistakes were made with inflation-adjusted dollars, large fortunes would remain, fortunes that will be heard from as the heirs take charge.

Wynn-Williams, in her very readable book — which The Economist listed as one of the best reads of 2025 — paints a picture of the extraordinary power of Zuckerberg and his money: power that seeks only extension and self-perpetuation. Zuckerberg emerges as shallow, self-centered and self-regarding.

My take is that the inherited wealth story this time is different. It is different, say, from the railroad oligarchs.

They sought control of the railway technology which had made them rich. The new tech giants seek to control new technology as it is invented: to scoop up startups, so long as they promise tech dominance. Think of Facebook and WhatsApp.

The current attempt by Zuckerberg to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on AI is an attempt to secure for himself and his family the same status in the future as he has in the present.

Leaders come and go, but money goes on forever.

There are over 1,100 American billionaires today who accumulated their wealth in their lifetimes, although some may have had a running start from family, such as Rupert Murdoch.

As this wealth — more money than the world has ever seen — moves down through the generations, it will have an ever-present impact on how we live and how we are governed.

The Washington Post has done some revelatory reporting on the impact of the richest people in politics. Mostly they support Republicans, in the belief that that will be the best way of protecting their wealth, according to the Post.

To the left of the political stage, there is always talk of wealth taxes or, as might be said in private, "soaking the rich." This is easy to say and hard to do.

Punitive taxation sends money flooding overseas and its owners changing their abodes. Switzerland, Monaco, the Channel Islands and other offshore destinations make billions and their owners feel welcome.

Benjamin Disraeli, who was to become prime minister as a Conservative, said in his 1845 novel "Sybil" that Britain had become two nations: the rich and the poor.

In the United States, we are becoming three nations: the ultra-rich, the comfortable and the lamentably poor. Is this the American dream or the beginning of a long, sleepless, distorted night?