WSJ: We are living in the era of "empire CEOs," as tech giants increasingly resemble private kingdoms.

Beating AI News Flash: The Wall Street Journal has compared Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, SpaceX’s Elon Musk, and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei to ancient monarchs, noting we are living in the era of the “Empire CEO”. The term “Empire CEO” does not merely refer to the vast power these company leaders hold, but rather that these tech giants increasingly resemble kingdoms run entirely on the founders’ will. They can bet tens of billions of dollars to pursue near-sci-fi technological visions, and even after going public and raising capital, they do not face the same direct shareholder constraints as traditional corporate executives. Zuckerberg previously bet big on the metaverse, investing tens of billions of dollars, and is now making a massive push into AI. Meta’s board recently even created new non-voting shares for him to address potential California wealth taxes while preserving his control over the company. Musk’s SpaceX has integrated rockets, Starlink, X, and Grok into a single business ecosystem, and he remains its dominant leader even after the company goes public. Anthropic, meanwhile, plans to have its seven founders and an independent trust jointly oversee corporate governance, aiming to insulate its AI safety roadmap from short-term stock price pressures. Silicon Valley embraces this bold “founder model” of high-stakes betting, and investors are willing to back it. But when bets pay off, investors can earn staggering returns; when they go wrong, outside shareholders have little ability to course-correct. As the decisions of these tech giants impact more and more people’s lives, the question of who can rein in these “Empire CEOs” is no longer just a concern for shareholders alone.