Hollywood is increasingly portraying tech billionaires in a darker light after earlier works presented them as brilliant innovators despite their personal flaws. The shift reflects changing attitudes in US society towards the sector’s giants, alongside rising concerns about artificial intelligence, ballooning fortunes and the concentration of power among a small group of business leaders.
A press report traces the cinematic shift in the portrayal of technology company founders, from admired figures celebrated for their innovations and ambitions to figures viewed with suspicion. In this new depiction, broad technological ambitions can become a source of harm rather than a means of serving the public good.
Four works reassess the image of tech giants
The report draws on four works about prominent figures in the technology sector: Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman and Elizabeth Holmes. They include the film “The Social Calculation”, which presents Zuckerberg in a darker light, drawing on the 2021 leak of information from inside Meta.
The works also include the documentary “Musk”, which examines Elon Musk’s rise at a time when his personality and career have become the subject of works exploring the relationship between economic influence and exceptional technological ambitions, and the impact of the wealthy on public life. The film “You Can See Everything” follows Elizabeth Holmes, the former founder of Theranos, during the period before she went to prison.
The film “Artificial” tells the story of Sam Altman and the artificial intelligence race, focusing on the struggle to control a technology that could affect humanity’s future. The report links these cinematic portrayals to the decline of the positive image established by earlier works that celebrated the genius of technology company founders and investors.
Historian charts the collapse of the public’s relationship with technology
Margaret O’Mara, a historian at the University of Washington who specialises in studying Silicon Valley, said the public’s relationship with technology had been like an intense love affair that ended quickly, describing the major shift in attitudes towards the sector and its leaders. The decline of that image comes as public concern grows over technology’s social and political effects, particularly artificial intelligence and social media.
Opinion polls show growing concern in the United States about the speed of artificial intelligence’s development, while around two-thirds of Americans believe social media has harmed democracy, according to a Pew Research Centre poll.
Concern over wealth, influence and artificial intelligence
The new films also reflect broader concerns about the concentration of wealth and influence in the hands of a small number of people and the potential impact on society and its institutions. Dramatically, technology company founders combine the archetype of the businessperson who may be corrupted by wealth and greed with that of the scientist who employs science and technology without sufficient regard for the ethical consequences.
These figures are increasingly appealing to filmmakers because of their eccentricities and unusual ambitions, making them suitable for thrillers, dramas and documentaries. The new darker image is therefore not limited to a change in storytelling techniques; it is linked to a broader mood of greater scepticism towards the technology industry, amid concern over economic influence, artificial intelligence and the impact of digital platforms on democracy.
O’Mara summed up this view by suggesting that excessive wealth can make its holders eccentric, reflecting the widening gap between the idealised image of the technological innovator and the doubts surrounding their social influence.
