When I say 'power', I'm talking specifically and simply about ones ability to influence or affect an environment.

So within the physical environment where we all interact, power ultimately amounts to physical power - although we can wield and attain that power in different ways.

The simplest way is obviously the direct way, e.g. using our command over our own bodies to work, fight, etc. Our minds can also increase our physical power by inventing clever ways to manipulate our physical environment, e.g. using a long stick as a lever or big stick as a club.

It gets more complex when we talk about social power, but social power still ultimately ends with an expression of physical power. A president, monarch, tribal leader, middle manager, or CEO may not wield their physical power directly. But it is through complex social dynamics that other people end up being compelled to do things that affect the physical world, based on orders given by the leader. The leader increases their physical power via their game-theoretical hold over their subordinates.

And money works the same way. Money doesn't do anything by itself. But neither does declaring oneself the president. Money, like leadership, only works because of game-theoretical social dynamics that compel people to accept money as a command to do things - which again, always finish with an expression of power that influences the physical world.

So that's why I don't think it's particularly useful to distinguish between power and money. Money is power - as long as the social dynamics hold that make it so.

That said, I do think you have a good point about money being accumulated vs votes, which aren't.

I mentioned how big trees block out the understory. But what's nice about that scenario is that big trees are still limited by gravity, and can never take over a whole forest. But there's no equivalent "gravity" to money, and so billionaires have no natural check to their wealth gain.

It seems like that particular problem could be solved simply by a better taxation system that prevents runaway wealth. And maybe that's all we actually need to do. It's still kind of hard to pull that off, though, unless the whole world gets behind it. Otherwise, the richest people can just move to a different country where their earnings aren't curtailed.