Economic historians coined the phrase 'vertical integration' to understand the rise and domination of John D Rockefeller's oil conglomerate, Standard Oil. By the 1890s, Rockefeller's company sold 84 per cent of all petroleum products in America. In 1904, the investigative journalist Ida Tarbell published a two-volume account of America's first billionaire and detailed how he crushed his rivals with ruthless and unjust tactics. The author carefully distinguished what happened in the light and what happened in the dark. "This huge bulk, blackened by commercial sin, has always been strong in all great business qualities - in energy, in intelligence, in dauntlessness. It has always been rich in youth as well as greed, in brains as well as unscrupulousness." Ten years after the book was published, Rockefeller rose to infamy for the Ludlow massacre in which company sponsored attacks on striking Colorado miners resulted in the deaths of at least 20 people, including 11 children. However, Rockefeller and his heirs gave millions of dollars to charity.

The latest example of vertical integration is billionaire Elon Musk, the world's richest man who is about to launch his Initial Public Offer, the IPO, valued by the market at more than a trillion dollars. He has built, during and after his association with President Donald Trump, highly profitable businesses in several sectors of the United States economy. He is now going public by launching a programme to have individual investors invest in his growing empire. He is already a household name by virtue of having launched Tesla, his electric automobile........

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