Giant tech companies control the infrastructure of the digital economy in a similar vein to how Gilded Age trusts monopolized America’s industrial economy at the turn of the 20th century. Yet in 1900, the five largest U.S. companies had combined market values that equaled less than 6% of the nation’s economy, according to estimates by Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist Daron Acemoglu.

Currently, five of the largest American tech companies — Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Facebook, and Microsoft — have market valuations equivalent to about 30% of U.S. gross domestic product. That’s almost double what they were at the end of 2018.

The economic power of the Robber Barons created a fiery counter-reaction, in violent labor unrest and the adoption of reforms that once seemed radical, like the Sherman Antitrust Act and a federal income tax. Compared to the political difficulties faced by John D. Rockefeller and other early 20th-century industrial magnates, government moves against Big Tech have been relatively mild. At least so far.

On the left, politicians including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders have delivered blistering attacks on widening inequality and the growing wealth of billionaires. Protesters have gathered outside Bezos’s Manhattan penthouse, demanding a wealth tax. Facebook employees have spoken out about their employer’s role in spreading disinformation and hate speech.

New Gilded Age

Monopolists like Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie helped repair their public images with large-scale philanthropy, a move echoed in this new Gilded Age.

The Giving Pledge, a commitment to give away the majority of your wealth in your lifetime, was founded by Gates and Buffett. Zuckerberg also has stepped into the realm of philanthropy, establishing the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, or CZI, in 2015 with a goal to “advance human potential and promote equality.”

But even these acts have sparked criticism.

“The modern ultra-billionaire is someone who feels a right, in many cases, to privately govern the people of the United States,” said Anand Giridharadas, author of “Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World,” an influential critique of billionaire philanthropy.

Gates’s generosity and activism during the pandemic has earned him widespread praise, but it’s also attracted conspiracy theorists suspicious of his motives. A YouGov and Yahoo News poll found that 44% of Republicans and 19% of Democrats believed Gates wanted to use vaccinations to give people tracking implants.

The criticism of Bezos also hasn’t let up, even as his giving increased recently with a $10 billion commitment in February to fight climate change and a $100 million donation in April to the nonprofit Feeding America. When he made the announcements, his wealth had already grown by significantly more than those amounts this year. He hasn’t signed the Giving Pledge.

Signed Pledge

MacKenzie Scott, Bezos’s ex-wife, signed the pledge not long after the two announced their split. Scott said Tuesday that she has since donated $1.7 billion to several causes including racial equity, climate change and public health.

“There’s no question in my mind that anyone’s personal wealth is the product of a collective effort, and of social structures which present opportunities to some people, and obstacles to countless others,” she said.

Big Tech companies have earned some grudging respect, even from critics, during the pandemic.

“We have been fortunate to have these digital technologies,” said MIT’s Acemoglu. “Without them, the fallout from the lockdowns and social distancing would have been worse.”

That may come with a cost: “This is going to make the domination of tech companies over the economy and our social lives much worse, and it’s going to significantly accelerate the trend toward greater automation,” Acemoglu said. He warns that tech’s rapid ascent may deepen inequality, shrink the number of good jobs, and weaken democracy.

Such concerns could help shift Big Tech and its billionaires into the crosshairs of governments whose finances have been devastated by the pandemic. Heading into this year’s U.S. presidential race, Elizabeth Warren and Sanders proposed wealth taxes on billionaires, an idea that polled well with voters.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, hasn’t embraced the wealth tax, but he’s campaigning on higher rates on the rich and corporations, as well as the closing of estate-tax loopholes.

Absent a wealth tax or some other innovative new kind of levies, it will be difficult to tax the fortunes of Zuckerberg, Bezos and other tech billionaires. Much of their fortune is in the form of rising stock, which isn’t taxed until it’s sold.

“Billionaires are accumulating a huge amount of unrealized capital gains, on which they’re not paying much –- if any — tax,” said University of California at Berkeley economics professor Gabriel Zucman, who helped Sanders and Warren develop their wealth-tax proposals.