Who will set limits for the oligarchs?

Dear Mostafa Kamal Majumder,

we live in a world where, if you have enough money, you can sail your yacht through the blocked Strait of Hormuz without being fired upon. You can also get some of the world’s major stock market indices to change the rules so that your company’s shares are listed faster.

We are talking about Alexei Mordashov, a Russian oligarch and friend of Putin, and, of course, Elon Musk, a South African-Canadian-American oligarch and – at least at times – an ally of Trump. These two are prime examples of individuals who are able to convert extraordinary wealth into power, and power, in turn, into wealth. This is how David Lingelbach and Valentina Rodríguez Guerra from The Center for the Study of Oligarchs define oligarchs in their latest D+C article.

It is oligarchs like Musk and Mordashov who are increasingly shaping our world. They want us to believe that they are above the rules and unstoppable.

Namibia, for example, shows that this does not have to be the case. In March, the Namibian regulatory authority rejected the application by Musk’s satellite service, Starlink, for an operating licence. Namibia requires that at least 51% of telecommunications companies must be locally owned. South Africa is also currently refusing to grant Starlink a licence, as the country stipulates that network operators must demonstrate that at least 30% of their ownership is held by historically disadvantaged South Africans. Musk has repeatedly described these regulations as “openly racist”.

To prevent the spread of oligarchic rule, it is therefore sometimes enough simply to stick to principles – such as those of democracy or the rule of law. The hope is that South Africa, Namibia and other countries will find alternative ways of connecting their populations to the internet – and that they will not one day be forced to abandon their established principles of the rule of law in favour of rapid technological progress.

Katharina Otieno, editor at D+C