Palo Alto, the small Californian town which spawned Stanford University, Silicon Valley and the so-called “broligarchy”, used to boast that it was home to more billionaires than anywhere in the world. Home might be too strong a word.

Local legend had it that in this dull suburban sprawl, inside the underwhelming ranch houses, were freshly minted millennial millionaires who spent nights alone in their empty rooms on their computers.

Speaking at a presidential rally in Washington, Musk twice extended his arm out with his palm facing down, drawing comparisons to the Nazi salute.Credit: NYT

Daytime was no better. The one main strip was dotted with soulless coffee shops full of nerdy young white men, or occasionally nerdy young Asian men, sitting by themselves on their then ubiquitous white Apple laptops. Hey, at least the geeks were out of their garages.

It was while I was doing a year-long Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford in the late naughties that I decided what these blokes could do with was a good session at the pub with a few mates. If they had any. There were no pubs either.

Yet incredibly these misunderstood misfits, these rich tech dudes, have grown up to become the bros of the new oligarchy that President Biden belatedly warned us about.

As of today, this broligarchy apparently rule the US; tomorrow perhaps the world. Which we should have seen coming as their original motto was “move fast and break things” and they were going to change the world.

Back then it was all about stopping climate change, creating electric cars, helping the homeless, putting staff before profits with their ludicrous........

© The Sydney Morning Herald