Why the billionaire class is kissing Trump’s proverbial ring

Despite all beliefs to the contrary, the billionaires who have been seen in President Donald Trump’s orbit since he won the presidency for a second time last November are not mere sycophants to his regime. In explaining her decision to resign from the Post, Telnaes wrote, “Owners of such press organizations are responsible for safeguarding that free press – and trying to get in the good graces of an autocrat-in-waiting will only result in undermining that free press.” For Telnaes and other critics, the attempts of billionaires and megacorporations to curry favour with Trump – as they work to protect their business interests and government contracts – have them behaving like yes-men. During the post-election transition, Musk, Altman, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Apple’s Tim Cook, along with trillion-dollar corporations like Amazon, Meta, Bank of America, and Goldman Sachs, also contributed millions of dollars to Trump’s $150m inauguration fund. One need not look any further than Trump’s flurry of executive orders and memorandums authorising various agencies in the executive branch to take new and presumably business-friendly orders. Trump’s orders have also been about abandoning clean energy initiatives meant to thwart climate change and allowing businesspeople like Musk and Ramaswamy to regulate how the federal government regulates their own businesses.