In the last week or so, three of the world’s richest people have been in the news.
Sam Bankman-Fried was hailed as a master of crypto currency. The 30-year-old built FTX, a $32 billion empire, giving legitimacy to this form of money (which I still don’t understand) through a very high press profile. On November 11, FTX filed for bankruptcy, leaving hundreds of investors holding the bag.
As part of his annual “Bezos Courage and Civility Award” Jeff Bezos of Amazon gifted Dolly Parton $100 million dollars for her philanthropic work. Nice, right? Then Amazon proceeded to lay off 10,000 employees. Bezos has a net worth of $117 billion.
Of course, there’s Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, with a net worth of almost $190 billion. He just sunk $44 billion of that fortune into buying Twitter. In just a few weeks, he’s proceeded to decimate that platform, allowing many banned figures back on, and tacitly encouraging the rise of racist and antisemitic comments. Twitter was far from perfect to begin with, but under Musk it’s truly become a cesspool of hate speech.
Imagine if he’d used that $44 billion towards something useful, like helping solve poverty or homelessness. Imagine too, if Bezos took some of his billions and gave Amazon workers a living wage, plus a way to retain those 10,000 employees who will be without a paycheck right at the holidays.
The thing about these three billionaires is and their various headlines is that they’ve been revealed; the emperors have no clothes.
In the last decade or so, we’ve come to lionize these rich guys as if they were some kind of supermen. The fact of their extreme wealth must mean that they’re smarter than the rest of us, right?
Even in the face of Musk’s very obvious bad business decisions with Twitter, his fan boys are still claiming he’s playing three-dimensional chess and mere mortals just can’t understand his plan. But with every passing day, it’s obvious that my cat would make a better CEO (and he eats his own vomit). The plain truth is that we, as a society, need to reassess our perception of these so-called geniuses.
President Biden’s Billionaire Minimum Tax ensures that the richest among us pay at least 20 percent on their income. Considering that both Bezos and Musk have benefitted from millions in government subsidies along the way, this seems only fair.
Pushing back against their entitlement is also a good idea. For all his talk of “free speech,” Musk has been suspending accounts of anyone on Twitter who dares make fun of him (but he can’t keep up with all the mocking). When Bezos’ 400-foot superyacht was too tall to pass under an historic bridge in Rotterdam, he pressured the city to dismantle it. They firmly told him “no.”
Look, extreme wealth isn’t a bad thing in and of itself. Bill Gates quietly donates a ton of his money to good causes, as does Bezos’ ex-wife, Mackenzie Scott (she’s said she’s determined to give away all of her 28 billion before it’s all over). The aforementioned Dolly Parton has plowed her substantial fortune into good works like books for children, college tuition for her employees, and helping fund development of the COVID vaccine.
What IS a problem is giving a pass (tax or otherwise) to the super-wealthy for decisions that impact our society overall. In a world of Elons, we need more Dollys.
What’s being said on your social media feeds about Twitter, Elon, and the rest? What do you think of social media platforms overall? Are you changing your behavior based on how Musk and Bezos are running their companies, treating their employees? Sound off in the Community Soapbox!
Cindy Grogan is a writer, lover of history and "Star Trek" (TOS), and hardcore politics junkie. There was that one time she campaigned for Gerald Ford (yikes), but ever since, she's been devoted to Democratic and progressive policies.
Original source can be found here.
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