This should be front-and-center in every “hey why are so many VCs backing Trump this time” article.
Joe Biden has spent 3.5 years rebuilding administrative capacity.
We now have regulators actually saying “hey knock it off that’s illegal.”
The VCs would much prefer autocracy to accountability.— Dave Karpf (@davekarpf.bsky.social) Jun 18, 2024 at 9:39 AM
A psychoanalysis of the CEOs who are playing nice with Trump from @JVLast.
Particularly gross for me to see Tim Cook continuing to play patsy for Trump. Totally unnecessary and gross. https://t.co/90xVyEgzng
— Tim Miller (@Timodc) June 17, 2024
Conservative Never-Trumpist spells it out:
… [W]why would Jamie Dimon (JPMorgan Chase), Brian Moynihan (Bank of America), Jane Fraser (Citi), Charlie Scharf (Wells Fargo), Tim Cook (Apple), Doug McMillon (WalMart), and scores of others show up to kiss the ring of a man they privately mock?…
There is a simple reason why these CEOs are cozying up to Trump and showing Joe Biden the back of their well-manicured hands:
Because crossing Trump could be costly; but crossing Biden is free.
We do not live in a truly free market system. The government is too big and sprawling; there are too many inputs, and externalities, and rent seekers.
But in general, the government doesn’t pick the winners and losers in a liberal democracy.
That is not true in illiberal democracies…
So pretend you’re Thurston Moneygood, the CEO of Widget AI. Your business is doing well, but the future is uncertain. What should you do about Trump and Biden? There are four possible pathways.
(1) You support Biden and Biden wins. You continue as you are now. The overall economic climate remains good. The rule of law stays intact. Maybe the second Biden administration will grant you an audience and listen to your concerns or advice. But you can’t expect special favors. You’re still pretty much on your own, competing against all the other AI companies.
(2) You support Biden and Trump wins. Not great. Trump and his people keep score and if the CEO of a competing AI company goes to Trump and asks for his help kneecapping you and Widget AI . . . well, you know what Trump thinks about loyalty.
(3) You support Trump and Trump wins. At the very least, this guarantees your status quo. At best? Sky’s the limit: You would not want to trade places with the CEOs of the AI company who supported Biden…
(4) You support Trump and Biden wins. What happens? Nothing. Literally nothing. Elon Musk’s businesses are built on exploiting the federal government through tax breaks and Defense contracts. Musk has been railing against Biden for four years. And he is fine. His businesses are fine. There is no retaliation. (Which is as it should be!)…
In a liberal democracy, institutions exist to prevent the demos from being offered the choice between liberalism and illiberalism. The job of institutions—from the political parties, to the media, to the business world, to think tanks and religious organizations and all the rest—is to stop aspiring authoritarians from ever getting in front of The People and offering them the choice between the rule of law and rule by law.
Over the last decade our institutions failed that task. Americans are now free to choose illiberal democracy if they please. The Business Roundtable isn’t going to save us.
The only way this gets fixed is from the inside…
Yes, sure, the Trump administration might jail me for writing mean things on the Internet.
Their climate policy will boil the ocean.
Their tariff plans will be a macroeconomic nightmare.
But regulators asleep at the wheel are *great* for Marc Andreessen’s investment portfolio.
— Dave Karpf (@davekarpf.bsky.social) Jun 18, 2024 at 9:54 AM
Reminder — this is the clip that set off the social-media chatter:
Brutal report from @andrewrsorkin on Trump's visit with CEOs yesterday:
"CEOs who said that he was remarkably meandering, could not keep a straight thought, was all over the map."
CEOs who walked in as soft Trump supporters walked out startled by him pic.twitter.com/m68PeT52ez
— James Singer (@Jemsinger) June 14, 2024
Thursday Afternoon Open Thread
Jeffro
We have to tax the absolute shit out of these people, if for our own protection if nothing else.
Otherwise, they just use all that extra dough to buy luxury items, like Supreme Court justices and the complete absence whatsoever of regulations that protect the common good.
hrprogressive
As has been true for a long time; Most of the shareholders may not be explicit Fascists – IE, not “true believers”, not foaming at the mouth to subjugate oppressed peoples, etc.
But the vast majority of them are absolutely Fash For Profit.
If Trump/Insert Strongman Here can guarantee them even greater greed and riches, they are fine with whatever else happens. They’ll have enough cash to either curry favor, or are “the right people” who won’t be targeted by the cult.
CaseyL
Confiscatory tax rates for billionaires. NOW.
These cynical assholes need to be driven from power before they kill us all.
Baud
We’re the only ones willing and able to fight them.
smith
It should be clear to anyone who can think straight that the Felon longs for a Putinesque dictatorship. It doesn’t take a lot of insight to recognize that in a Putinesque dictatorship, oligarchs fly out of upper story windows just like anybody else. Or do these CEOs imagine that the Felon would leave some aspects of rule of law in place just for them?
Quiltingfool
Someone below made a mention about Michigan’s Rep Friske and his troubles (shooting at a stripper in his room). I read this story at LGM, and here was something about Friske that made me chuckle (well, lots of things in the story were, shall we say, “interesting.”)
Apple don’t fall far from the tree…
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Jeffro: Absolutely. Money is power.
smith
@Quiltingfool: I’ve seen more reports of this incident, and it should surprise no one that in addition to being charged with chasing the woman and threatening her with a gun, he’s also charged with sexual assault.
satby
I could take or leave Tim Miller, but he’s dead on in his analysis here. Publicly, the safe choice for them is to appear to support tcfg; wouldn’t surprise me that privately several would vote for Biden, because the stupid tariff talk and undermining the rule of law would wreak havoc on the economy. And though they may talk a good game, more than a few can’t be positive tcfg can actually be controlled. He’s getting too volatile and erratic.
CaseyL
@satby: They’ll count on forging alliances with the people behind Trump, the ones making the real decisions.
Betty Cracker
I agree with Miller that the Biden admin shouldn’t target Musk because of his fascist political views. But I hope to hell they have a plan to disentangle critical government operations from businesses Musk controls since he’s already demonstrated a penchant for freelance foreign policy.
Jay
Jackie
@satby:
TCFG will definitely keep tally of the ones who don’t financially support him – and put them on his enemies list.
Quiltingfool
@smith: That man (Friske) is a hot mess.
Frankensteinbeck
I suspect a lot of CEOs hate Biden because he is strongly pro-labor. They can’t feel like gods if they can’t grind their employees under their heel.
Soprano2
@satby: If they think they can control him they’re fools. This won’t be like the first term because there won’t be anyone to tell him that he can’t have the Justice Department arrest people just because he wants them arrested. I don’t think there’s much else other than getting revenge that he actually cares about, so the Project 2025 people will be able to run amok. I was reading a business columnist today who thinks there will be worse inflation under TCFG because of the tariffs. Most people have no idea what that would do to the economy, but the financial and business people do.
Soprano2
@Frankensteinbeck: I think a lot of them reflexively support R’s because they’ve always done that. They don’t want more labor shortages which we’d definitely have with TCFG because he’d try to deport anyone with a funny accent who’s not white. They’re dumb to support TCFG even with the tax cuts.
smith
Michael Bloomberg has given nearly $20 million for Biden’s campaign, so #NotAllBillionaires. Here’s hoping Melinda Gates backs up her endorsement with cash as well.
In other news, the Biden-Harris campaign now has 1,000 organizers on staff in battleground states. I’m not sure the Felon has any.
Manyakitty
@Betty Cracker: he’s a major national security risk. I’ve been worrying about our reliance on SpaceX for a while now.
Leto
Just to continue to add to the Ai-hellscape:
Neo-Nazis Are All-In On AI
Extremists are developing their own hateful AIs to supercharge radicalization and fundraising—and are now using the tech to make weapon blueprints and bombs. And it’s going to get worse.
scav
@Quiltingfool: I somehow think he’s going to very much regret getting his — and his family’s — name above the parapet. I mean, Papa asserting that the Vietnam War was prolonged in order to raise taxes might still be a step too far for current Repubs, although his claims that more than 72% of the US economy had been taken over by Communists due to a conspiracy by LBJ, JFK and Tricky Dick might be MAGA-friendly by now. The socialists controlling public schools bit is boilerplate. That’s rather a low-hanging all-you-can-eat buffet for people to play with.
Odd to learn that bits of the sheer madness of some of this current kurfuffle are actually retreads — Conservation of Lunacy is actually a thing.
E.
@smith: He gave 20 of something he has 100,000 of.
Elizabelle
@Jeffro: Agreed. It’s not fair to have the billionaires carry us along on the nihilist train. They are too dangerous and destabilizing.
O. Felix Culpa
We don’t have a lot of billionaires openly on our side, but JB Pritzker is a good’un.
His Juneteenth message.
prostratedragon
@Quiltingfool: Slow burn for me that started when I idly wondered if his name were pronounced “frisky.”
rikyrah
They would sell their mother for those tax cuts
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
The one less-bad-than-others thing about a Felonious Thunk pResidency is that Agenda 2025 will be shredded in Lord Dampnut’s petty grievance-driven rule of spite and malice. As much as the 0.01%ers will be unable to control him, neither will the think tanks and Conservatist policymakers. He will be Queen-of-Heartsing all over their plans and replacing them with the anarchy of dementia.
Jeffro
one: sorry that your thread got bigfooted by the head Bigfoot, AL!
two: to the folks who think it’s ok that we have our ‘own’ billionaires…this is not a good or stable system. at least not for a democracy. It reminds me of the folks who clap back when I suggest we need much higher standards like prior experience in a lower office in order to run for federal office (Rep, Senator, POTUS), saying “but…but then we wouldn’t have had Obama!” Oh well. it’s a big country, I think we can find the talent AND make folks perform in our blessed ‘petri dishes of democracy’ before they just swoop in to the C-suite and endanger the country (and/or the whole planet).
Elizabelle
@Quiltingfool: did you hear me laughing out loud about the Luftwaffe veteran? The non-disclosure there is shameless.
trnc
I tell everyone who will listen that we need a constitutional amendment requiring presidential candidates to have been elected (not appointed) to public office at at least the municipal level and serve a minimum of 2 years. Even that seems ridiculously low in terms of experience, but it gets rid of gadfly candidates.
Darkrose
For me, the most chilling moment in Cabaret isn’t when the Aryan boy singing “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” raises his arm to reveal his swastika armband and the pubgoers join in. It’s when Michael York turns to his aristocratic German friend as they’re fleeing the pub and says, “You still think you can control them?”
Urza
@Leto: Really wish we could get a campaign going to convince the bigots not to use any tech that was even partially invented by a gay/trans/immigrant/melanin enhanced. They’d be Amish so fast.
Jeffro
I’ll see your 2 years and raise you, oh, 4 or 6 years, but YES!
No one goes straight to the C-suite! You don’t have to toil in the mailroom for decades, but for heavens’ sake, you don’t get to waltz in on the basis of name recognition, celebrity, wealth, whatever and make (literal!) life and death decisions for 350M Americans (and essentially, for the world)
bobbo
These richies are pre-surrendering to fascism. That is how you get fascism.
satby
@Jeffro: Obama was an IL state legislator for two years before he ran for the US Senate. And was a sitting Senator almost 3 years before he was inaugurated as President. IOW, not at all a political novice.