Billionaire investor George Soros launched a scathing attack on tech giants at the Davos summit on Thursday, calling them monopolies that could be manipulated by authoritarians to subvert democracy.
During an annual dinner he hosts at the World Economic Forum, held this week in the Swiss alpine resort, Soros turned his sights on a host of subjects including U.S. President Donald Trump and the speculation frenzy surrounding the bitcoin cryptocurrency.
But much of the Hungarian-born financier’s ire was reserved for the tech giants of Silicon Valley who, he argued, needed to be more strictly regulated.
“Facebook and Google effectively control over half of all internet advertising revenue,” the 87-year-old told diners during a speech.
“They claim that they are merely distributors of information. The fact that they are near-monopoly distributors makes them public utilities and should subject them to more stringent regulations, aimed at preserving competition, innovation, and fair and open universal access.”
He predicted that tech giants would “compromise themselves” to access key markets like China, creating an “alliance between authoritarian states and these large, data rich IT monopolies.”
“This may well result in a web of totalitarian control the likes of which not even Aldous Huxley or George Orwell could have imagined,” he warned.
Predicting governments would start to more heavily regulate the sector he said: “Davos is a good place to announce that their days are numbered.
Soros said such “unholy marriages” are likely to happen first in Russia and China.
The Hungarian-born investor also accused U.S. President Donald Trump of trying to run the country like a criminal enterprise.
“In the United States, President Trump would like to establish a mafia state but he can’t, because the constitution, other institutions, and a vibrant civil society won’t allow it,” he said Thursday night at the World Economic Forum.
Soros has passed on a large share of his fortune to his foundation that promotes democracy and human rights.
At the forum the 87-year-old investor also warned that the tensions over North Korea’s nuclear program have put the survival of human civilization at stake.
“The rise of leaders such as Kim Jong Un in North Korea and Donald Trump in the U.S. have much to do with this,” he said.
“Both seem willing to risk a nuclear war in order to keep themselves in power.”
However, he predicted that the U.S. president’s appeal would not last.
“I regard it as a purely temporary phenomenon that will disappear in 2020 or even sooner.”
Known for his legendarily successful currency trading, Soros also dismissed bitcoin as a “typical bubble”.
But he said the cryptocurrency would likely avoid a full crash because authoritarians would still use it to make secret investments abroad.
But the investor’s traditional Davos predictions do not always pan out. Last year in Switzerland he warned that the stock market rally would end after Trump’s election and that China’s growth rate was unsustainable.
China’s growth has continued while U.S. stocks are regularly hitting record highs.
