For any Americans who voted for Trump thinking he’d usher in a better economy for you, here’s a spoiler alert: It’s the rich who will be getting richer. A lot richer.
The Guardian has the deets:
The Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimated that the world’s 10 wealthiest people gained nearly $64bn (about £49.5bn) on Wednesday, the largest daily increase since the index began in 2012.
Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, registered the largest increase with a $26.5bn addition to his fortune, which now stands at $290bn. The prominent backer of Trump’s campaign, benefited from a surge in the share price of Tesla, the electric carmaker where he is chief executive and in which he owns a 13% stake.
The gains came as tech business leaders, including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Facebook parent Meta, and Apple’s Tim Cook publicly congratulated Trump on his election win.
Much of the gains for the top 10 was because of a surge in US stocks on Wednesday as investors anticipated a low-tax and regulation-light policy platform.
In a decent world, guys like Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg, who each backed Trump directly or indirectly, would think they have enough money and power to make a stand for democracy, decency and the U.S. Constitution. But they haven’t and they won’t.
But we’ve got power in numbers. I hope we use it and use it wisely in the coming days.
