John D. Rockefeller became the world’s first billionaire with his streams of wealth coming from the Standard Oil Company and its subsidiaries in 1916. His total assets were equivalent to 1.5% of America’s economic output in 1937. Despite not achieving billionaire status in this era, Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt and J.P. Morgan fell into the same vein of exceptionally wealthy industrialists.
These Gilded Age entrepreneurs, derogatorily nicknamed robber barons, were heavily scrutinized by the general public due to their unethical and exploitative labor practices. They engaged in conspicuous consumption, flaunting their monopolized wealth to indicate social status.
However, it is important to note that Rockefeller and Carnegie were relatively philanthropic, donating over $500 million dollars — not adjusted for inflation — to charity, and creating the New York Public Library and Carnegie Mellon University, respectively. Rockefeller, with a net worth of $1.4 billion, donated over 35% of his fortune to philanthropic causes by the time of his death in 1937.
Now, America is experiencing a new era of innovation, with the technology sector contributing nearly $2 trillion in economic output. Tech moguls including the likes of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg have become among the wealthiest people in the world.
Under this new era of immense wealth, the philanthropic spirit of the American billionaire has died. In 2023, two-thirds of the billionaires on the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest people donated less than 5% of their fortune to charity — a stark contrast to the 35% that Rockefeller donated to charity by the time of his death.
We are experiencing, in real time, the downfall of the American billionaire and a consequent resurgence of the robber baron.
In recent years, the American view of billionaires has shifted negatively. In 2021, 29% of surveyed Americans believed that people owning “personal fortunes of a billion dollars or more is a bad thing for the country,” according to Pew Research Center. That percentage rose from a previously surveyed 23% in 2020.
Similarly, the general public’s view of robber barons in the Gilded age was less than stellar. The nickname itself is a derogatory one, and is derived from the fact that the methods used by these industrialists to garner their wealth were unscrupulous at best and exploitative at worst.
But when Carnegie authored “The Gospel of Wealth,” he wrote that, “The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.” The aforementioned Rockefeller was driven to donate his wealth through his own strong “moral sense and religious convictions.” Their stated intent when donating their wealth was at least somewhat altruistic in nature.
Contrastingly, modern-day humanitarianism from American billionaires is fueled by the fact that the wealthy receive tax breaks on their philanthropy, as taxpayer subsidies for charity are returned right back to them. With that in mind, the search for an ounce of genuine altruistic motivation becomes much more difficult when it comes to today’s billionaire tech moguls and monopoly men.
This is not to say that billionaires have never contributed to anything in their lifetimes. Many have taken the “Giving Pledge,” started by notable billionaires Bill Gates, his wife Melinda Gates and Warren Buffet, to give away a sizable portion of their wealth to philanthropic causes.
However, the pledge is shrouded by its conspicuity and vagueness. Besides Buffet, who pledged to give away 99% of his wealth to philanthropic causes by the time of his death, there are few actionable steps to give away certain amounts of money — for example, building libraries or learning institutions like their predecessors.
Though they share the trait of being ultra-wealthy, the modern day billionaire is arguably more individualistic in nature. On Oct. 27, 2024, Elon Musk’s net worth increased by $2.7 billion, which is more than what he gave to charity in 2022. This is also less than what he spent on donations to help elect President Donald Trump and other Republican candidates in 2024 elections, a move that secured him the head position of the newly established Department of Government Efficiency until the end of May.
The modern day American billionaire does not donate enough, build enough nor give enough. The modern day American billionaire is as avaricious as their robber baron predecessors, but stripped of any true good will that may have been there.
Rebecca Do is an Opinion Apprentice for the spring 2025 quarter. She can be reached at dort@uci.edu.
Edited by Casey Mendoza, Annabelle Aguirre
