I believe that most conspiracy theories are ridiculous. I don't believe in the Illuminati per se but there is something similar that I do believe in. That is black budget operations.

The United States is still the most powerful nation on earth. The government contractors receive a lot of money to create military equipment of every type. President Eisenhower warned about the military industrial complex in his farewell address. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyBNmecVtdU. It does exist. It is due to the greed of many who have found a way to skirt normal government rules.

On September 10, 2001, the day before the September 11th attacks, Donald Rumsfeld said that the Pentagon was missing 2.3 trillion dollars. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVpSBUgbxBU.

The U.S. Government has always had its secrets kept from the American public. I know because I used to work at NSA. My job was to reclassify documents when their classification ended. In other words, they were classified for say 30 years. On the date that the 30 years ended, I would have to reclassify them for another 30 years. I learned some very interesting things there. So, yes, there is an Illuminati but it is called the military industrial complex.