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Episode 228 - Billionaires as Insta-Experts: How Our Media Conflates Extreme Wealth with Expertise

Added 2025-09-24 19:18:26 +0000 UTC

Citations Needed is back! Today, we begin our ninth season, which is both hard to believe and easily attributable to the ongoing support of this amazing community — especially those who go beyond listening and sharing to become patrons. Your generosity is so appreciated!

Thanks for sticking with us through our short summer break. And now, onto the show.

"Tesla just got snubbed by Biden’s electric vehicle summit," lamented CNN in 2021. "Bill Gates is optimistic about the global future," trumpeted NPR in February 2025. "Mamdani Prepares to Meet With the City’s Wary Business Leaders," announced The New York Times just this past July.

Seeming all the time our media assert that the country’s — and world’s — richest people are somehow experts on a wide range of political, social, and economic topics. Whether education, public health, or "the economy," it’s assumed that multimillionaire and billionaire business owners, investors, and executives possess a specialized knowledge on all sorts of matters, and are entitled to proximity to the highest levels of the government, simply by virtue of their being ultra-rich.

But why is this assumption made? How is it that someone who made billions in software, or finance, or real estate or electric cars is assumed to, per se, be a trusted source on education, foreign policy, public health, or agriculture? And whose voices are being silenced so that the richest among us can be heard?

On this episode, our Season 9 premiere, we examine how elite media systematically frame the world’s wealthiest people as indispensable authorities on some of the highest-stakes political issues for literally no other than they’re extremely rich, when in reality, those rich people are Just Some Guys who happen to have a ton of money — who have, of course, no one’s interests in mind but their own.

Our guest is Professor Rob Larson.

Guest

Rob Larson (@ironicprofessor) is Professor of Economics at Tacoma Community College in Tacoma, Washington. His analysis has appeared in outlets like Jacobin, In These Times and Current Affairs. He is also author of the books, “Bit Tyrants: The Political Economy of Silicon Valley,” and “Mastering the Universe: The Obscene Wealth of the Ruling Class, What They Do with Their Money, and Why You Should Hate Them Even More,” both published by Haymarket Books.

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Show Notes

The Billionaires’ Election

Rob Larson | December 19, 2024 | In These Times

Elon Musk and Silicon Valley Don’t Know How to Fix the Transportation System

Rob Larson | August 1, 2022 | Jacobin

Philanthropists and the White House: Who's the Boss?

Maribel Morey | May 14, 2014 | The Atlantic

Including the Young and the Rich

Jamie Johnson | April 18, 2014 | The New York Times

If You Can Make It Here

Joshua Freeman | October 3, 2014 | Jacobin

Study: Politicians listen to rich people, not you

Andrew Prokop | January 28, 2015 | Vox

David Rockefeller: An Alternative Obituary

Erik Wallenberg | March 31, 2017 | Jacobin

Bill Gates’s Philanthropic Giving Is a Racket

Rob Larson | April 5, 2020 | Jacobin

Bill Gates: ‘We’re in a Worse Place Than I Expected’

David Wallace-Wells | September 13, 2022 | The New York Times

An Open Letter to Bill Gates on Food, Farming, and Africa

Community Alliance for Global Justice | November 11, 2022 | Common Dreams

Open Letter to Bill Gates

Peter Zucker | December 10, 2010 | Huffington Post

Humanity Does Not Need Bill Gates

Nahan J. Robinson and Rob Larson | May 4, 2021 | Current Affairs

Why billionaire philanthropy might not be as generous as you think

Tobias Jung | October 25, 2024 | The Conversation

Are the very rich taking over American politics?

Elaine Kamarck and Jordan Muchnick | January 9, 2025 | Brookings

Trump fills his government with billionaires after running on a working-class message

Bill Barrow | January 28, 2025 | Associated Press

What the Democrats’ Musk Whisperer Thinks Now

Russell Berman | February 7, 2025 | The Atlantic

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Transcript

For a full transcript of this episode, go here. You can also find transcripts of past episodes, live shows, Beg-a-Thons, Interviews and News Briefs here.

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