The age of insecure billionaires

A few months ago, an article was published in the New York Times entitled Mark Zuckerberg is done with politics:

As recently as June at the Allen and Company conference — the “summer camp for billionaires” in Sun Valley, Idaho — Mr. Zuckerberg complained to multiple people about the blowback to Meta that came from the more politically touchy aspects of his philanthropic efforts. And he regretted hiring employees at his philanthropy who tried to push him further to the left on some causes.

In short — he was over it.

His preference, according to more than a dozen friends, advisers and executives familiar with his thinking, has been to wash his hands of it all.

My reaction in September when I learned about all this was that it was, of course, bullcrap. The CEO of Meta, whatever he says, whatever he does, is inherently involved in politics. If Zuckerberg wanted to really “wash his hands of it all,” he would quit, and he would stop being involved.

Distancing oneself from politics, whether they are progressive or not, is perfectly fine. But don’t pretend to not care while keeping your job as Meta CEO, arguably one of the most politically involved jobs in the world, outside politicians. It’s like saying you’re done talking about air quality and health while being the CEO of an oil company.

Zuckerberg is my age, 40 years old. He is a multibillionaire. He could retire, spend time with his family, enjoy Hawaii, teach boxing or whatever he got involved with recently, grow larger marrows in his garden, start a blog about his fitness routine… Maybe even start working on an innovative product that is completely unrelated to social media.¹ What is he really trying to prove by doing all this? And to whom?

But no. Not only is he still very much involved in politics as the CEO of Meta — and remember, nobody is making him stay, he wants this — but he now has this new attire that looks somehow worse on him than the previous plain-toast-eating grey T-shirt look.

Of course, his new appearance, that is surely the work of an overpriced image consultant, and his recent focus on combat sports are there to fit his new “strong man” image. The same way that Musk wears a cowboy hat and a leather jacket, or the same way people like Infowars’ Alex Jones drive oversized trucks. He has also fallen into the whole survivalist paranoia and is apparently building a bunker, while he has appointed the Trump supporter and CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) to the board of Meta (while deleting internal posts criticising the decision). It is now only a matter of days before we see an Instagram story of Zuckerberg using firearms in his backyard.

This “strong man” stance would not be complete if he did not appear and repeatedly lie on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, and talk about “masculine energy” or whatever they call this toxic nonsense. And like with most of the other “strong men,” this attitude goes with feeling threatened and scared by things like DEI and fact-checking. Then, as very brave and strong men, they run for cover behind a wall they like to — erroneously — call “free speech” just to express their vomit and feel heroic doing it.

If there was a playbook for how to be a jackass in 2025, I’m pretty sure we would see all of its chapters at play in Zuckerberg’s behaviour, and he would also have a good chance to appear on the book cover, wearing his dumb Aut Zuck aut nihil shirt.

Which brings me to everything that was announced at Meta this week. I’m not going to detail each part; it has been done everywhere already. You can read Ina Fried’s take on this, or Matthew Ingram’s.

What troubled me the most about his little speech is the fact that the words “algorithm” and “news” are absent. Not a single time, talking about Facebook, opinions, fact-checking, elections, and “mainstream discourse” did he mention the role of Facebook’s algorithms, or how information was being amplified on his platforms, let alone dis- or misinformation, with tragic consequences. It feels like someone complaining about candy without ever using the word “sugar.”

Zuckerberg’s whole speech was not factual: it was closer to what a politician would say to boost their approval rates. The omission of the impact of Facebook’s algorithm and the way he somehow manages to make us believe that fact-checking is synonymous with “censorship,” is, as we say in French, a way to “drown the fish”: his way of diverting the conversation away from Meta’s responsibilities. In short, he is lying, to save himself and his company from whatever he fears, and also to seduce the audience he needs to go along with his new “strong man” character.²

This trend of cult-like toxic masculinity and/or, as Will Oremus recently pointed out, the “revenge of the white men” is rather depressing, and somehow Zuckerberg feels right at home in it.

But what surprises me the most about all this is how easily most of these “strong men” adorers are getting fooled.

Maybe if instead of “strong” they were a little more focused on being “smart,” they would see that they are being played, that they are being used, that they are being lied to, and that none of this will end up making them happier, healthier, or better people. The plot is not even complicated; the textbook manipulation at play here has been described many, many times, and yet, they seem to fall naively for it.

Meanwhile, these insecure billionaires only want to be remembered as powerful figures. They want to look at themselves in the mirror and see Roman emperors. They don’t care about “freedom of speech”, the planet, democracy, or society. They have enough money to do whatever they want, buy islands, and go to space, regardless of what happens. At this point, they only hope to live long enough to see statues of them being erected, and that Rome will fall after their time.