WSJ: We are living in the era of the "imperial CEO," where tech giants increasingly resemble private kingdoms.

Beating AI News Flash: The Wall Street Journal depicted Meta's Zuckerberg, SpaceX's Musk, and Anthropic's Dario Amodei as ancient monarchs, saying we are living in the era of "imperial CEOs."

The so-called "imperial CEO" is not just about a company boss wielding great power, but about these tech giants increasingly resembling kingdoms revolving around their founders' wills. They can wager tens of billions of dollars chasing near-sci-fi technological visions. Even after going public to raise funds, they do not have to be directly constrained by shareholders the way traditional corporate executives are.

Zuckerberg once made a massive bet on the metaverse, investing tens of billions of dollars, and now he is making a big bet on AI. Meta's board recently even designed a new class of non-voting stock for him to address a potential California billionaire tax while preserving his control.

Musk's SpaceX has already folded rockets, Starlink, X, and Grok into the same business empire, and he remains dominant after going public.

Anthropic, meanwhile, plans to have seven founders and an independent trust jointly control corporate governance, attempting to keep its AI safety path from being swayed by short-term stock price pressure.

Silicon Valley champions this "founder mode" that dares to make bold bets, and investors are willing to pay for it. But if the bet pays off, investors may reap astonishing returns; if it fails, outside shareholders will find it very hard to correct course.

As the decisions of tech giants affect more and more people's lives, who will constrain these "imperial CEOs" is no longer just a question for shareholders themselves.