John D. Rockefeller Is a Cautionary Tale for Today’s Business Titans

John D. Rockefeller Is a Cautionary Tale for Today’s Business Titans

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Analysis: John D. Rockefeller Is a Cautionary Tale for Today’s Business Titans

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Analysis

John D. Rockefeller Is a Cautionary Tale for Today’s Business Titans

The oil tycoon was celebrated as a pioneer before the public turned on him.

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*Julian E. Zelizer*

By **Julian E. Zelizer**, a columnist at *Foreign Policy* and a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. Sign up for Julian’s newsletter, The Long View, here.

!John D. Rockefeller, surrounded by journalists and photographers, upon his arrival in New York around 1900.

*John D. Rockefeller, surrounded by journalists and photographers, upon his arrival in New York around 1900.*

John D. Rockefeller, surrounded by journalists and photographers, upon his arrival in New York around 1900. Imagno/Getty Images

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September 28, 2026, 12:01 AM

Today’s business titans have become some of the most controversial figures in U.S. politics. Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg, and others are at the center of growing concerns about the impact of social media and artificial intelligence on the nation. These figures, who only a few years ago were celebrated as pioneers of technological innovation and credited with strengthening the economic position of the United States, are now viewed in a markedly different light. In August, a CNBC and Generation Lab poll found that more younger Americans don’t trust AI leaders than have confidence in them.

These business leaders are promoting technologies that could create national security risks while worsening economic inequality and threatening the jobs of both white-collar and working-class Americans. They are members of an elite class that wields overwhelming political influence through its wealth, embodying the dangers that money poses to a democratic system. They oversee companies whose power is so immense that they render the principle of free enterprise and market competition increasingly fragile. Indeed, as was clear during his second inauguration, many of them have become closely intertwined with the Trump administration, participating in a close alliance between business and government that many Americans have criticized when observed in other countries.

Today’s business titans have become some of the most controversial figures in U.S. politics. Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg, and others are at the center of growing concerns about the impact of social media and artificial intelligence on the nation. These figures, who only a few years ago were celebrated as pioneers of technological innovation and credited with strengthening the economic position of the United States, are now viewed in a markedly different light. In August, a CNBC and Generation Lab poll found that more younger Americans don’t trust AI leaders than have confidence in them.

These business leaders are promoting technologies that could create national security risks while worsening economic inequality and threatening the jobs of both white-collar and working-class Americans. They are members of an elite class that wields overwhelming political influence through its wealth, embodying the dangers that money poses to a democratic system. They oversee companies whose power is so immense that they render the principle of free enterprise and market competition increasingly fragile. Indeed, as was clear during his second inauguration, many of them have become closely intertwined with the Trump administration, participating in a close alliance between business and government that many Americans have criticized when observed in other countries.

This is not the first time that Americans have confronted this problem. Throughout the nation’s history, numerous individuals once celebrated as symbols of economic success have come under intense grassroots and media scrutiny for the dangers they were perceived to pose to the rest of the country. Little more than a century ago, the oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller Sr. followed a strikingly similar trajectory.

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Rockefeller was born on July 8, 1839, in upstate New York. His father was a bigamist and traveling salesman who peddled dubious medical remedies, and his mother, a religiously devout woman who instilled in him the values of hard work and charity, was his greatest source of stability growing up. From an early age, Rockefeller took small jobs in his neighborhood to make money before attending Owego Academy. His family moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where Rockefeller proved adept at mathematics in high school from 1853 to 1855. He then enrolled in Folsom’s Commercial College, where he spent 10 weeks learning about different business practices, such as bookkeeping.

In September 1855, he secured a job as an assistant bookkeeper in the shipping firm Hewitt & Tuttle. He steadily advanced within the company, earning greater responsibilities and eventually engaging in trade deals on his own. After several years with Hewitt & Tuttle, Rockefeller decided to go into his own business. On March 1, 1859, he and