Extremely rich people are confronted with unusual opportunities and invisible perils in the tightest, most dramatic, chaotic and highest stakes political battle in modern times.
Entrepreneurs become legends when they make big bets on technology that pay off in a huge and dramatic way. Elon Musk is now applying that all-or-nothing philosophy to a presidential election, tying his reputation and perhaps his future to a win by Donald Trump.
There has always been money in politics, and rich people who sought their reward in Washington. President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s first Cabinet was known as “eight millionaires and a plumber.” But until recently, it was literally considered bad business for successful public figures to declare favourites too stridently and make too many demands.
Even this ocean of money has a limit, however. Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle who ranks just behind Musk and Bezos as one of the richest men in the world, last year backed the presidential aspirations of Senator Tim Scott. Ellison spent at least $US30 million but could not make Scott a viable candidate.
Musk, who has offered himself to Trump as a sort of inspector general for government waste, has regularly tussled with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The commission has probed the entrepreneur’s 2022 purchase of X, then called Twitter. Musk did not show up for a deposition in September, leading to an SEC request that sanctions be imposed on him.
When Trump was president, Amazon and its CEO were sometimes the subject of his barbs. The company bid on a $US10 billion cloud computing contract that the Pentagon awarded to Microsoft. Amazon sued, saying Trump had undermined its bid. The contract was canceled. Ultimately four tech companies, including Amazon and Microsoft, got a part of the cloud deal.
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