Tag Archives: oligarchy

“If you’re a member of Congress and you’re asked about, like, do rich people pay more money? The reporter’s like, rich people pay a lot more into the system than poor people. In fact, poor people pay nothing into the system. Poor people live off the rich people. “The rich people are the only ones who pay taxes. The middle …

“If you make x-amount of money and you’re worth $60 million, we’re gonna look at why that is. That’s where the panic is coming from. Let’s think about this. In our administration, we have a tremendous amount of billionaires who are successful businessmen. “And I could name them all, but we know who they are who have taken a leave, …

Fortune reports: Elon Musk’s plans for government efficiency just got a whole lot bigger: He says he’ll need to delete entire agencies in order to achieve his goal in the long term. Speaking at the 2025 World Governments Summit in Dubai, Musk was asked about how his cost-slashing actions in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) will be maintained under …

The New Republic reports: One of Donald Trump’s biggest donors is looking to the Supreme Court to limit tough press coverage of the MAGA leader’s administration. Republican megadonor Steve Wynn filed a petition with the nation’s highest judiciary on Friday to overturn New York Times v. Sullivan, a landmark 1964 decision that raised the standards required for a plaintiff to …

NOTUS reports: Tech billionaire Elon Musk is working to shut down government agencies and cancel congressionally approved funding — and many Republican lawmakers are just fine with it. “He’s doing exactly what he should be doing,” Sen. Rick Scott said Monday night. “He’s going through every agency and looking at how to make sure the money’s spent right.” Wait, isn’t …

Wired reports: Elon Musk’s takeover of federal government infrastructure is ongoing, and at the center of things is a coterie of engineers who are barely out of—and in at least one case, purportedly still in—college. Most have connections to Musk and at least two have connections to Musk’s longtime associate Peter Thiel, a cofounder and chairman of the analytics firm …

NPR reports: The Trump administration is working on a plan to save TikTok that involves tapping software company Oracle and a group of outside investors to effectively take control of the app’s global operations, according to two people with direct knowledge of the talks. Under the deal now being negotiated by the White House, TikTok’s China-based owner ByteDance would retain …

Bloomberg News reports: Howard Lutnick, Trump’s nominee to lead the Commerce Department, detailed his wealth and influence across hundreds of firms and left open the possibility of his adult children buying his holdings if he wins confirmation. Lutnick, chief executive officer of Wall Street investment bank and brokerage Cantor Fitzgerald LP, confirmed he’ll divest his interests in the three core …

“You know, when the so-called robber barons came in, for the hundred years before that, wages were like this [makes downward motion]. After this, they went like that for 100 years. Oh, when the robbers came in — robber barons came in, life expectancy in America was like this; all of a sudden, it went like this [makes upward motion.] …

“Governors have also been relegated to the Emancipation Hall overflow viewing space, including Republicans Indiana Gov. Mike Braun, Florida Gov. and former presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, and Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat. Kari Lake, a former candidate for senator and governor of Arizona, is also here.” …

Deadline reports: President-elect Donald Trump and Melania Trump kicked off Inauguration Day with a longtime tradition: Attending services at St. John’s Episcopal Church across Lafayette Square. Trump was joined by Vice President-elect JD Vance and his wife Usha, and among those attending were Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta; Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, and fiance Lauren Sanchez; and …

The New York Times reports: President Biden warned in his farewell address to the nation last week that an oligarchy is taking shape in America. In Washington, the oligarchs are already here, buying big houses. Counting Trump himself, there are at least a dozen billionaires among his cabinet picks and those headed for senior roles in the new administration. Elon …

Semafor reports: President-elect Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance had lunch with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Wednesday, along with Elon Musk, according to people briefed on the meeting. Microsoft President Brad Smith also attended the gathering at Mar-a-Lago, the latest example of the tech industry’s increasingly close relationship with Trump following his victory in the November election. Microsoft …

Politico reports: Google CEO Sundar Pichai will join the growing list of tech executives sitting on the dais as President-elect Donald Trump is sworn into office on Monday, according to a person familiar with the company’s plans who was not authorized to speak publicly. Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a close confidant of the incoming president, is expected to attend the …

The New York Times reports: After Inauguration Day, the group of Silicon Valley-inflected, wide-eyed recruits will be deployed to Washington’s alphabet soup of agencies. The goal is for most major agencies to eventually have two DOGE representatives as they seek to cut costs. On the eve of Mr. Trump’s presidency, the structure of DOGE is still amorphous and closely held. …

Sen. Bernie Sanders writes for Fox News: It’s hard to miss. Our country is rapidly evolving into two Americas. One America consists of less than a thousand billionaires who have an unprecedented amount of wealth and power and have never ever had it so good. The other America, where the vast majority live, consists of tens of millions of families …

Bloomberg News reports: A mystery seller is asking $200 million for an empty waterfront lot next door to the properties Jeff Bezos bought in South Florida. The roughly 1.84 acre lot (0.74 hectare) is located at Indian Creek, a man-made barrier island that’s been dubbed “Billionaire Bunker.” Ilya Reznik, who’s brokering the transaction, declined to identify the seller but said …

The Texas Tribune reports: President-elect Donald Trump announced Saturday he would nominate Houston billionaire hospitality mogul Tilman Fertitta to serve as U.S. ambassador to Italy. Fertitta, owner of the Houston Rockets and Landry’s restaurant group, is a prolific political donor who hosted a fundraiser for Trump at his Post Oak Hotel in Houston earlier this year. He has donated millions …

The Washington Post reports: The relationship between billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and billionaire Tesla and SpaceX owner Elon Musk is warming up, a Friday morning exchange on Musk’s social media app X suggested. Two days after the tech titans dined together with President-elect Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, Bezos broadcast his agreement with Musk’s opinion that it was necessary to …

The Washington Post reports: President-elect Donald Trump had dinner Wednesday with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (who owns The Washington Post) at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, and the two were joined by billionaire Elon Musk, a Trump transition team spokesperson confirmed.The meeting marks the latest trek by tech executives to Trump’s home in South Florida to appeal to the incoming …