Episode

Are the tech billionaires taking over?

Podcast
The Global Story
Published
Jul 14, 2026
Duration seconds
1647
Processing state
not_requested
Canonical source
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct8mhs
Audio
http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/6/redir/version/2.0/mediaset/audio-nondrm-download-rss/proto/http/vpid/p0nyq47d.mp3
JSON
/v1/public/podcasts/the-global-story-6677479/episodes/are-the-tech-billionaires-taking-over
Markdown
/podcast/the-global-story-6677479/are-the-tech-billionaires-taking-over.md

Actions

  • POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-global-story-6677479/episodes/are-the-tech-billionaires-taking-over/transcription-requests
    Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
  • GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-global-story-6677479/are-the-tech-billionaires-taking-over.md
    Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

Summary

According to a recent financial disclosure, President Trump made more than $1.4 billion last year from business dealings in cryptocurrency. Though the White House has denied Trump was profiting from the presidency, he has been championing crypto in recent days — describing himself in one news conference as a, "big crypto guy". Trump’s embrace of crypto raises big questions about the future of the technology. But according to the new BBC documentary, 'The Tech Billionaire Takeover', Trump’s support is just a fraction of the story. Presenter Matt Shea shows how cryptocurrency’s wealthiest advocates are steadily growing their power, and in some cases, even advocating for a total overhaul of government and commerce as we know it. Today, Shea joins us to explain what the tech billionaire takeover really is - and whether it is already begun. Audio for this episode was updated on 14 July to correct a factual error. The original audio said that the Trump family receives 75% of net profit every time the USD1 coin is sold. In fact, they receive 75% of net profit from a different crypto coin called $WLFI. (Photo: Reporter Matt Shea with Crypto billionaire Justin Sun in Hong Kong. Credit: BBC) Producers: Xandra Ellin and Aron Keller Executive producer: Bridget Harney Sound engineer: Travis Evans Senior news editor: China Collins