An aversion to taxes and regulation explains why so many billionaires tend to vote Republican. But what is driving prominent tech and finance tycoons—David Sacks, the Winklevoss twins, Stephen Schwarzman, Kelcy Warren, John Paulson, and Nelson Peltz, to name a few—to court a return of Trump?
Almost all vowed never again after he lied about the 2020 election results and fanned the January 6 insurrection. And yet, here they are, giving as much money as campaign-finance law allows to re-elect Trump. The New York Times reported on Friday that Timothy Mellon, a reclusive heir to the banking fortune, recently donated $50 million to Trump’s PAC—among the largest disclosed gifts of this election campaign so far.
This month marks the 80th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy, and Americans are understandably focused on the heroism of those who defeated the Nazis. But it is time to also remind ourselves of those powerful German civilians who held their noses, crossed their fingers, and pumped up their personal fortunes by financing the election of a madman.
Trump is not Hitler; nor are his voters modern-day Brownshirts. It’s likewise probably specious—and inflammatory—to liken the brazen self-interest of Trump’s donors on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley to the greed of the German bankers and industrialists who supported Hitler’s rise to power.
Or is it? By most calculations, Mellon, Sacks, Schwarzman, the Winklevoss twins, Paulson, Peltz, et al. have even fewer excuses than did the Krupps, Porsches, Thyssens, Flicks, and von Fincks of yesteryear.
It is time to also remind ourselves of those powerful German civilians who held their noses, crossed their fingers, and pumped up their personal fortunes by financing the election of a madman.
America may be divided, but it is not the Weimar Republic. We don’t have hyper-inflation, a 33 percent unemployment rate, an insurgent Communist party, and a crippling war-reparations debt—even if Trump says we do.
Things were much more dire in the 1920s and 1930s, which helps explain why German industrialists such as Krupp and von Finck were so willing to help Hitler seize power. Naturally, they also stood to gain a lot: re-armament profiteering, slave labor, and Aryanization, the opportunity to buy up or simply steal Jewish-owned businesses at rock-bottom prices.
But they also didn’t have much room to maneuver. As David de Jong explains in his book, Nazi Billionaires: The Dark History of Germany’s Wealthiest Dynasties, by 1933 Hitler’s henchmen were able to squeeze even the most powerful Germans for money.
Günther Quandt, a major arms manufacturer and industrialist with stakes in BMW and Mercedes-Benz, who became a Nazi and a Wehrwirtschaftsführer (a leader in the military economy), with factories manned by slave labor, was arrested in May 1933 on trumped-up charges and jailed until he filled the National Socialist Party coffers with four million reichsmarks. And that was just a down payment. (He did make a killing later, literally and figuratively.)
How can Jamie Dimon and other American business leaders be so sure Trump won’t make their lives a misery if they don’t play ball? And maybe that is the problem.
It could be that these billionaires aren’t saying they prefer Trump solely because he tells them he will restore his 2017 income-tax cuts when they expire and lower corporate-tax rates to 20 percent. Maybe when Trump told his followers, “I am your retribution,” the investor class got spooked. Trump has threatened to fill government agencies with right-wing loyalists and turn the Justice Department into his personal-vengeance machine. A Trump enemies list could easily include hedge-fund billionaires who get in his way. Lock ’em up.
But the consequences of humoring Trump now are all too real. At this writing, Trump blames immigrants, not Jews, for the country’s misfortunes. But do Schwarzman or Bill Ackman really think that Trump would hesitate to go after Jews or Israel if it helped him politically?
His Supreme Court appointees just overturned Roe v. Wade; how can any of these tycoons be so confident that the State Department, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service won’t be similarly corrupted by Trump’s foot soldiers? They shouldn’t be so cavalier, and perhaps they aren’t.
Financiers rationalize making donations to Trump by claiming that Biden’s policies are bad for business, but surely they of all people know better. The American economy is healthy—especially for the 0.1 percent.
Do Schwarzman or Bill Ackman really think that Trump would hesitate to go after Jews or Israel if it helped him politically?
Even The Wall Street Journal thinks so. “Despite some CEO grumbling, businesses have thrived under Biden,” an article last Saturday explained. “Stocks are near records, corporate profits are up, inflation has come down and the economy has so far managed a soft landing despite aggressive interest-rate increases from the Federal Reserve. Industries such as energy that appeared to be at risk from Biden’s policies have done well.”
So, what is driving American business tycoons into the MAGA fold? Here are five possible motives:
- If Trump wins and I donated to Biden, I have a target on my back, but if Biden wins and I gave to Trump, nothing will happen.
- Biden could raise my taxes, and I didn’t amass this huge fortune just to give it to the government. No matter how much money I have, I want more. (See: Molière’s The Miser.)
- Trump will support Israel even more steadfastly than Biden—until it hurts him in the polls. Saying now that I support Trump for Israel’s sake makes me look like I care about something other than my own self-interest.
- I don’t care about Europe, Ukraine, and Russia (some of my best friends are oligarchs) and, whatever, nobody can really contain China.
- If the economy and/or democracy collapses, I can go to New Zealand and tend to my wineries and crypto accounts from the safety of my doomsday bunker.
In short, no matter what is best for their country and the planet, billionaires—then and now—will always find a way to leverage the worst.
Alessandra Stanley is a Co-Editor at AIR MAIL
