Biden sounds warning about Trump and his billionaire buddies in presidential farewell

He also notes enormous power of new tech under command of trillion-dollar companies

- Bhagyashree Garekar

WASHINGTON - President Joe Biden's farewell message to his fellow Americans was a simple one: Stay on guard.

In a short speech from the Oval Office on Jan 15, less than a week before President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in for a second term, Mr Biden was at his most animated when he warned the nation about the dangers of a "concentration of technology, power and wealth".

He did not name Trump or the techno-billionaires in his proximity - Tesla and SpaceX chief Elon Musk, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon's Jeff Bezos, among others.

But his allusions were clear.

"Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms," he said.

It will likely go down as the most memorable portion of his 17-minute speech.

Mr Biden also warned against what he called the "tech-industrial complex", referring to trillion-dollar tech companies and the enormous power of new technologies they command, like artificial intelligence.

The coinage is borrowed from the farewell address of post-World-War-II-era president Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1961, where he sounded the alarm against the "military-industrial complex".

Mr Eisenhower, who had served with distinction in the war, was referring to the enormous arms lobbies that kept the US war machine supplied with weapons at enormous cost, resulting in the ballooning of military budgets and enriching of defense companies.

This nexus could undermine democratic values and ideals like liberty, he had said.

Mr Biden talked about how the dangers had evolved.

"Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation enabling the abuse of power. The free press is crumbling. Editors are disappearing. Social media is giving up on fact-checking. The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit," he said.