Donald Trump is set for a major stop in the 2024 money race Thursday when he travels to Silicon Valley for a high-profile fundraiser with tech billionaires.
This current class of vocal billionaires led by Musk is much more likely than their predecessors, experts say, to focus on social issues that are not directly related to their bottom lines.
Sacks and Palihapitiya, two billionaires who have been associated with the biggest names in Big Tech for decades.
They talked about their discussion to help Trump on a recent episode of their podcast in which they mixed financial and social topics with a clear interest in having the ear of the former president to discuss policies.
Goes on to crypto, taxes, business regulation, immigration, antisemitism (as a reason to support Trump), deep state, Fauci, AI, national debt.
It’s not surprising that the lot of them are a self interested bigots. For some reason I continue to be surprised at just how intellectually weak these men tend to be and how willing they are to voice their ignorance. These guys either lack a lot of self awareness, or they’re just thriving in the post-reality culture that seems to be taking hold.
They’re still also statistically pretty young compared to other rich people who got wealthy in their young adulthood. And male. Give young men access to a bunch of money, and the results tend to not be pretty. Day what you will about old men, if they’re reaching peak income near or after 50, they’ve already blown the worst of their testosterone out of their systems - that still leaves ego, which is its own problem, but suddenly coming into money in your youth I believe badly skews your perspective of reality. The culture they obtained wealth in is also important: guys (and gals) who gain sudden wealth in their youth through, say, competitive snowboarding are also going to have a skewed perspective, but their peer group and the lack of the negative influence of Wall Street and investors mitigate the worst of the effects.
They got rich young by winning the lottery. They’ve contributed fuck all to society and at some deep level are all aware of how arbitrary it was that they got so lucky… as a result their actions often just serve to try and pull up the ladder behind them so they can lie to themselves about actually being special.
Glad they are in the minority. This is obviously why Musk thought he could turn his creepy followers around to his way thinking by buying and ruining Twitter.
These people really need to read up on Fritz Thyssen, Jack Ma or any one of the many Russian oligarchs who’ve been defenestrated, ventilated or irradiated under Putin.
A small amount of taxes in a functioning democracy when you’re already a billionaire is a lot cheaper than a hole in your chest under a thin-skinned fascist autocrat.
None of these folks think they’ll be a line in Niemoller’s poem. They’re horribly wrong.
If billionaires thought in the long term, they wouldn’t be billionaires.
A reasonable person sees that they have $500 million in the bank and says to themselves ‘I can spend $1 million a year for the rest of my life and still leave plenty to the kids. Guess I’ll retire.’
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