{"id":3372,"date":"2026-08-29T22:55:36","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T22:55:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=3372"},"modified":"2026-08-29T22:55:36","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T22:55:36","slug":"how-the-us-is-driving-the-rise-of-the-businessmen-politician","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=3372","title":{"rendered":"How the US Is Driving the Rise of the Businessmen-Politician"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Yves here. Readers often take issue with some of the details of John Ruehl\u2019s posts, but he focuses on interesting issues and his pieces elicit good reader discussions. Today the topic is how the US is in the forefront of the greater influence of our new oligarchs, which Ruehl calls the businessman-politician.<\/p>\n

By John P. Ruehl, an Australian-American journalist living in Washington, D.C., and a world affairs correspondent for the Independent Media Institute<\/a>. He is a contributor to several foreign affairs publications, and his book, Budget Superpower: How Russia Challenges the West With an Economy Smaller Than Texas\u2019<\/i><\/a>, was published in December 2022. Follow him on X @john_ruehl<\/a>. Produced by >Economy for All<\/a>, a project of the Independent Media Institute<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

As his superyacht Boardwalk<\/i> docked in Venice<\/a> as part of the \u201cFreedom 250 Coastal Diplomacy Italy initiative<\/a>\u201d in July, billionaire US Ambassador Tilman J. Fertitta was greeted by protests. Fertitta was traveling across the country to meet \u201cwith local business leaders, celebrities and Americans on board the yacht,\u201d according<\/a> to CNN<\/i>. The incident captured a growing trend of ultrawealthy business figures in positions of political power.<\/p>\n

Fertitta is one of several billionaire US ambassadors, alongside those serving in the UK<\/a>, Turkey<\/a>, France and Monaco<\/a>, and the Organization of American States<\/a>. Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff<\/a> and outside adviser Jared Kushner<\/a> are also billionaires, along with Trump\u2019s commerce secretary<\/a>, education secretary<\/a>, interior secretary<\/a>, head of NASA<\/a>, and administrator of the small business administration<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration includes 57 cabinet members and senior officials with net worths<\/a> of more than $100 million, according to El Pa\u00eds<\/i>. A more informal integration of billionaires into diplomacy was seen during Trump\u2019s May 2026<\/a> visit to China. More than a dozen CEOs and senior executives, including BlackRock\u2019s Larry Fink, Blackstone\u2019s Stephen A. Schwarzman, NVIDIA\u2019s Jensen Huang, and Tesla\u2019s Elon Musk, joined the US delegation.<\/p>\n

Businessmen have long been prominent in local American politics. A 2021 study by political scientist Patricia A. Kirkland of more than 3,200 mayors in 263 cities found that nearly a third<\/a> of mayors have either been business owners or have executive experience, making it the most common prior profession. But Trump\u2019s second term has brought the ultrawealthy into government at a rapid, top-down scale, believing that their experience building companies, managing organizations, and negotiating deals makes them better equipped than established politicians dependent on outside funding.<\/p>\n

The ongoing billionaire-politician surge has tapped into a wider anti-establishment mood in the country, and the shrinking of the permanent bureaucracy<\/a> under DOGE has further elevated political appointees and outside advisers.<\/p>\n

But it is neither a new American phenomenon nor confined to the United States<\/a>. More than 11 percent of the world\u2019s billionaires have held or sought political office, according to a 2023 study<\/a> in Perspectives on Politics, spanning various government systems. The trend is reshaping international relations as governments adapt to this change.<\/p>\n

The Rise and Return of the Politician Businessman<\/b><\/p>\n

Businessmen were just one of many<\/a> professions who entered politics in early America, alongside lawyers, landowners, veterans, and merchants. But industrialization allowed some to build enormous fortunes through railroads, manufacturing, banking, and natural resources. Compared with Europe\u2019s more aristocratic systems, American industrialists increasingly found opportunities to buy their way<\/a> into political power.<\/p>\n

By the early 20th century, several businessmen had reached Washington\u2019s inner circles; banking and industrial magnate Andrew Mellon<\/a> became Treasury secretary in 1921, while banker Jesse H. Jones<\/a> chaired the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and later became commerce secretary. During World War II, hundreds of executives entered the government as \u201cdollar-a-year-men<\/a>\u201d to help manage war efforts, including General Motors president William S. Knudsen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Their direct political influence hit a wall after WWII, as military veterans came to dominate political office. A 1956 Time<\/i> article noted businessmen\u2019s declining involvement, quoting an industrialist who complained that \u201cthe same old warhorses<\/a>\u201d remained dominant in both parties. Lawyers, though in slow decline, also remained powerful<\/a>, making up 60 percent of Congress in 1960, while a variety of staffers, campaign officials, policy advisers, and career bureaucrats emerged as another growing political class<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By the end of the 20th century, however, billionaires were again testing the limits of how far wealth could take them. Ross Perot\u2019s presidential campaigns in 1992 and 1996<\/a> showed that personal fortunes could propel businessmen onto the national stage, helping inspire Trump\u2019s first presidential run in 2000<\/a>. Michael Bloomberg\u2019s successful run for New York City mayor in 2002<\/a>, where he served until 2013, showed that the GOP could embrace the model, with others<\/a> like Bill Haslam demonstrating its reach into state government as he became the governor of Tennessee (2011\u20132019).<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s 2016 victory accelerated the trend. His appointment of ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson<\/a> as secretary of state in 2017 signaled that corporate experience was treated as a governing asset, while billionaire businessman Robert Johnson was appointed ambassador to the UK<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Democrats embraced the billionaire politician model, too. Mark Dayton<\/a>became senator for Minnesota in 2001 and later served as its governor between 2011 and 2019. Bloomberg (now a Democrat) and Tom Steyer both sought the presidential nomination in 2020, while J.B. Pritzker has served as Illinois\u2019 governor since 2019.<\/p>\n

The growing overlap between business and political figures has greatly influenced geopolitics. Major technology, finance, energy, and defense firms close to the White House also operate global infrastructure and supply chains that foreign governments depend on. Elon Musk\u2019s Starlink, for example, is essential to Ukraine\u2019s war effort<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration\u2019s decision to own major stakes in private companies<\/a> has further tied corporate interests more closely to US policy, raising questions about how this new fusion of business and government will affect Washington\u2019s dealings abroad, as other countries manage their own class of politicians with vast wealth.<\/p>\n

Adversarial Adoption<\/b><\/p>\n

America\u2019s growing business-politician class can be compared to both its principal adversaries, China and Russia. China\u2019s political business class has been growing its direct contact with American officials and executives, with a delegation representing 22 Chinese companies traveling to the United States in July<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The prominent role of Chinese businessmen is relatively new. After decades of suppressing private capital, Chinese government reforms began encouraging<\/a> cooperation with business forces in the late 1970s. As researcher Sara Tomczuk notes<\/a>, the \u201clarge numbers of entrepreneurs co-opted into the party, especially in the 1980s, marked a decline in Communist ideology as well as a demonstration of the government\u2019s commitment to a market economy.\u201d The \u201cthree represents\u201d campaign in 2000, meanwhile, formally recognized private entrepreneurs as part of China\u2019s political order.<\/p>\n

Today, more than a third<\/a> of Chinese billionaires have held or sought formal political office, according to political science analysis website Good Authority<\/i>. Some have served or are serving as delegates<\/a> to the National People\u2019s Congress (NPC). For instance, Tencent CEO Ma Huateng was a deputy for two terms beginning in 2013 and Xiaomi\u2019s Lei Jun is currently a deputy of NPC, while others like Baidu CEO Robin Li<\/a> were part of Chinese People\u2019s Political Consultative Conference. For Beijing, incorporating billionaires with political titles signals loyalty, while giving entrepreneurs access and protection. Alibaba founder Jack Ma and other tycoons have, however, demonstrated the limits of that protection when they overstep. Jack Ma criticized China\u2019s financial system in 2020 and \u201clargely disappeared from public view,\u201d for a while according<\/a> to NPR<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Still, the business-political overlap has created another channel between China and the United States. Business leaders increasingly encounter one another through political relationships with shared commercial interests that provide an important communications channel, with China\u2019s consul general in New York celebrating \u201cnatural consensus<\/a>\u201d between the business communities in June.<\/p>\n

Russia had a near opposite experience with its ultrawealthy in politics. Instead of cautious integration, the Soviet collapse allowed oligarchs to accumulate enormous fortunes through privatization. Some assumed office, like former deputy secretary of the security council Boris Berezovsky<\/a>, first deputy prime minister of the Russian Federation Vladimir Potanin<\/a>, and former Deputy Chairman of State Duma Mikhail Gutseriev<\/a>. Many of them had transactional relations with Western capital.<\/p>\n

One in five Russian billionaires has sought or held<\/a> political office, according to Good Authority<\/i>, but Putin\u2019s rise in 2000 steadily stripped many of them of their political roles. Others were jailed or exiled, and some retained their fortunes by accepting the Kremlin\u2019s political supremacy. Alongside Putin-allied oligarchs ascending, the result was a \u201cgeneral decline in influence among oligarchs in favor of bureaucratic officials,\u201d according<\/a> to the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies.<\/p>\n

The suspicious deaths<\/a> of dozens of oligarchs since the start of the Ukraine War show their increasing vulnerability. Still, they remain embedded in politics, with figures like Suleyman Kerimov<\/a>, Mikhail Prokhorov<\/a>, Andrey Guryev<\/a>, and Andrei Skoch<\/a> essential to helping support the Russian political system.<\/p>\n

The business-political overlap remains visible in diplomacy. A 2017 meeting<\/a>between Russian and US business leaders showed an early effort to use these ties before the Ukraine war sent relations into freefall years later. Nonetheless, they remain useful as backchannels; in January 2026, US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Putin\u2019s envoy on foreign investment and economic cooperation Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia\u2019s Direct Investment Fund, in Paris<\/a> to discuss peace plans relating to the Ukraine war, and met again in Florida in March<\/a> where they spoke on several topics, including Russian oil.<\/p>\n

Others, like Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, continue to play informal roles as state mediators, traveling to Kyiv in May<\/a> to carry messages between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.<\/p>\n

The New Political Order<\/b><\/p>\n

The trend of business-political overlap has gone global, moving beyond the realm of the great powers. Much of the post-communist world moved in a similar direction, as newly wealthy businessmen entered political systems weakened by flawed democratic reforms.<\/p>\n

Some became dominant political figures, such as Georgia\u2019s Bidzina Ivanishvili<\/a>, who became prime minister in 2012 and remains the country\u2019s de facto leader through his Georgian Dream party. The Biden administration sanctioned him in 2024, but a Trump Tower planned for Tbilisi is now being developed<\/a> on land partly owned by his son, Uta Ivanishvili, demonstrating how business relationships can provide workarounds to political barriers.<\/p>\n

Similar cases of ultrawealthy businessmen entering politics emerged in Moldova <\/a>and Ukraine<\/a>, but EU integration efforts have sought to weaken that influence through \u201cde-oligarchization<\/a>,\u201d particularly since 2022. Western Europe has generally remained wary of billionaires taking direct political power, with Italy\u2019s Silvio Berlusconi<\/a> being the major exception, serving as Italy\u2019s prime minister in three stints between 1994 and 2011. Skepticism over his dominance<\/a> meant he failed to establish a lasting model and helps explain the unease over Fertitta\u2019s arrival in Venice and the wider apprehension over Trump.<\/p>\n

But wealthy businessmen remain deeply embedded in former European communist countries. Bulgaria\u2019s Delyan Peevski, leader of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms party, has emerged as a vocal Trump ally<\/a>, alongside Czechoslovakia\u2019s Prime Minister Andrej Babis<\/a>, creating an opening for the Trump administration to cultivate figures less constrained by Brussels.<\/p>\n

As the Trump administration attempts to bring the Western Hemisphere under greater US influence, Latin America may be the most consequential for the government\u2019s efforts to cultivate ties with politician-businessmen. Historically welcoming<\/a> to the phenomenon, businessmen reached the presidency in the 2010s in Chile<\/a> and Panama<\/a>. Meanwhile, Ecuador\u2019s Daniel Noboa assumed the presidency in 2023, and Nayib Bukele was reelected in El Salvador in 2024. Both have since worked<\/a> closely<\/a> with the Trump administration, with business ties being an integral component.<\/p>\n

Mexico\u2019s billionaires have proven useful to Washington, even without holding office. Ricardo Salinas Pliego, for example, has maintained ties with Trump since his first administration<\/a>, and has used his business and media networks to challenge<\/a> Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum as she finds herself in disputes with Trump.<\/p>\n

With globalization having helped create an international capital class, the United States has now given the businessman-politician model a new momentum. Some regions, including Western Europe and the Gulf monarchies, remain resistant, but the model is increasingly visible across<\/a> the<\/a>world<\/a>, and may be more than a passing political trend.<\/p>\n

Governments and populations may not be able to reverse this, but they will have to understand its implications. As business and political disputes increasingly overlap, commercial infrastructure can become a target. Ukraine\u2019s strikes on Russia\u2019s Wildberries centers<\/a>, the country\u2019s biggest online retailer, and Iranian hits on Amazon data centers<\/a> demonstrate how businesses can get caught directly in geopolitical conflict. And when political systems depend heavily on wealthy individuals, they can quickly become unstable when those alliances break down. With business relationships becoming a major way for states to communicate, negotiate, and compete in the 21st century, the line between economic and political power is steadily eroding, and the influence of a small number of wealthy individuals over governments and international affairs is becoming more pronounced.<\/p>\n

\"Print<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yves here. Readers often take issue with some of the details of John Ruehl\u2019s posts, but he focuses on interesting issues and his pieces elicit good reader discussions. Today the topic is how the US is in the forefront of the greater influence of our new oligarchs, which Ruehl calls the businessman-politician. By John P….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3373,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[5480,3816,4562],"class_list":["post-3372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","tag-businessmenpolitician","tag-driving","tag-rise"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}