[jfbaro]

The US controls the world. It is above any regulation or international law. Other countries have to comply with UN and other agencies... not the US. US will always find an excuse to do whatever is best for their oligarchies (AKA Transnational Corporations).

[unfocussed_mike]

A transnational corporation isn't an oligarchy.

(Nor are they "oligarchs", almost by definition, though you could make the argument that the world is heading slowly towards global oligarchy of a Rollerball type)

An oligarchy is a system of government where very few, usually extremely wealthy people control the system (and where wealth is acquired through proximity to power).

The US, even with all its political dark money problems, is not an oligarchy.

(Russia is not an oligarchy anymore either; it's an "auto-kleptocracy" of sorts. But the prior oligarchs exist, in no small part as proxies for kleptocratic wealth, either within Russia or in the diaspora.)

[unfocussed_mike]

And to further explore the point, the USA itself is not particularly close to oligarchy.

There are just too many wealthy and non-wealthy voices, though it's hard not to see Trump as being at least more favourable to oligarchy (if not autocracy) as a principle, even though enacting it would be a long way off.

(I think this point can be made observationally and apolitically, but others may see it differently)

If it was trending particularly strongly towards oligarchy, I am not even sure who those oligarchs would be -- it's kind of fun to come up with names, though. So here's a go at it -- you can assume I am not projecting any particular position on these people.

Jeff Bezos for sure; he has exactly the kind of empire that would be useful to an oligarch in a situation where there was no resistance to it, and I think Trump reacted to Bezos the way he did out of an instinctive feeling for that.

As to others: Warren Buffet, Elon Musk, one or two of the Waltons, one of the Mercers (Rebekah, probably), Rupert Murdoch?

[unfocussed_mike]

Also: Michael Bloomberg. Actually the best example I can think of. He'd for sure be an oligarch if the US was an oligarchy.