r/technology • u/DontFearTheCreaper • 20h ago

Social Media Tech CEOs who grinned behind Trump at inauguration lose billions in wake of tariffs

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-tariff-bezos-musk-zuckerberg-b2727147.html
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u/a-base 20h ago

Much like the 2008 housing crisis in the US, these things tend to work out very well for billionaires - at a cost to the poor, lower- and middle- class.

  • Their losses are just theoretical, it's not like they have to cash out their stocks or sell assets and take any real loss.
  • Even with these 'losses' they are still billionaires and can access cash in numerous ways. They can quite comfortably ride out any period of instability.
  • More likely than riding it out, they'll use it to their advantage. With markets crashing they are perfectly positioned to swoop in, scoop up anything they like, and make out like bandits.

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u/clueless_as_fuck 20h ago

It's pretty obvious at this point that this is the plan.

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u/DouglasHundred 19h ago

I mean, it's an economic system they designed to work for their exclusive benefit, so it's hardly a surprise.

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u/ovirt001 19h ago edited 18h ago

There was a period of a few decades where taxes and regulations reined in wealth concentration. Since the 80s that has been carefully rolled back.

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u/reddollardays 19h ago edited 14h ago

Fuck Reagan, such a sociopath.

ETA: Thanks for the awards, appreciate the sentiment - SOLIDARITY IS KEY!

Anyone else, please consider donating to the ACLU or a certain SMB character's legal defense fund. Eat the rich.

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u/OttawaTGirl 19h ago

It...was...never...just...Regan.

The heritage foundation and right wing cronies surrounded him just like Trump.

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u/mdp300 17h ago

And at the same time, guys like Jack Welch who turned GE from an engineering and manufacturing company into a finance company, and who started the whole "maximum possible profits this quarter are all that matters" philosophy.

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u/m3g4m4nnn 17h ago

Obligatory "check out the Behind the Bastards podcast episodes on Jack Welch".

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u/Three0h 14h ago

Also hijacking this comment to suggest everyone try listening/watching stuff made by Gary Stevenson. Fantastic speaker, economically inclined, and he is someone who knowingly walked away from millions of dollars as a trader.

Here’s his video on how to stop the economy from collapsing

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u/VinnieVidiViciVeni 16h ago

Ironically, he is quoted as saying shareholder primacy is the dumbest idea of all time. Not mentioning in defense of him, more an indictment of the system. And F him, also.

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u/reddollardays 14h ago

My ex-FIL worshipped that guy. He would bring his book to every family gathering and preach about what a hero he was, it was sad.

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u/DaddyDontTakeNoMess 12h ago

And they celebrated that ninja like he’s a financial genius.

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u/reddollardays 18h ago

I hear ya. It was all a long con to get to present times.

Also enabled by Democrats with their tepid responses to it all.

The few who are sincere on the left were and are hobbled by the traitors in their midst.

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u/Steak_mittens101 17h ago

Vote in all primaries and support justice democrat candidates.

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u/Xzmmc 16h ago

Or killed by the feds.

Remember, MLK and Malcolm X were only killed when they started talking about class instead of race.

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u/Happy_Penalty_9179 17h ago

Thank god someone speaks the truth. It's not like all of these regressionary policies couldn't have been rolled back by the democrats. They are just capitalists of a different color. Just look at how the democrats treat their more left leaning breatheren. Public healthcare? Pass. Public university? Don't care. Protectionist policies (not the f'ing blanket tarrif shit Trump is doing)? Ehhhh don't really feel like it.

And when the elections came down and the Democrats only policy was "I will not destroy the economy" vs the populist "I'm going to save the economy", it was clear that the lower class was going to vote with their hearts instead of their heads.

We just want to afford homes man. How can someone with 100 million dollars be closer to a homeless person than Elon Musk in terms of wealth?

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u/beyondo-OG 13h ago

you're right about that, they're the real villains in this, what happening is their plan. And not a one will be punished.

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u/madcoins 12h ago

The heritage foundation did have this mapped out in the 70s

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u/NatPortmansUnderwear 19h ago

At least Reagan went through the great depression and understood how bad tariffs are, unlike genius T.

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u/GoldandBlue 19h ago

I have seen 3 Republican presidents in my lifetime. All 3 destroyed the economy. When will we learn?

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u/JaneksLittleBlackBox 18h ago

When will we learn?

Never, so long as their voters are delusional enough to believe the RNC is god’s chosen party on Earth.

I grew up Mormon and GTFO of that cult at 18, but I saw enough from my parents and extended family to know they’ll always vote straight-ticket Republican because they’ve bought into the Republican “family values, God, Bible” bullshit for so long that the party will always have the delusional Christian vote.

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u/makebbq_notwar 18h ago

It’s interesting talking to Republican lawmakers one on one. The utter contempt they have for Christian conservatives is just amazing. They see Evangelicals, Mormons, and others as gullible fools who can be led around like sheep.

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u/JaneksLittleBlackBox 18h ago

They see Evangelicals, Mormons, and others as gullible fools who can be led around like sheep.

Because they are and can be, and these snakes know it based on 50 years of leading them around like sheep.

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u/Minute-System3441 18h ago

It’s interesting because most people I know who actually follow the OG Christian denominations, do not vote GOP.

Whereas, the American-invented prosperity-gospel hucksters - pulled it out of my --- denominations - worship at the altar of the GOP, are all staunch Republican voters. And, they have been told to dislike and disapprove the other older “socialist” denominations.

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u/PaulTheMerc 17h ago

When you have a giant flashing sign that says "I believe in shit with no proof whatsoever, often contrary to proof in fact!", at that point it isn't mostly the other person's fault for taking advantage.

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u/Minute-System3441 18h ago

The shows that really made me think of the Republican mindset and MO for me were Colony and The Man in the High Castle.

The second a new power takes control, every principle they’ve ever preached - flag, Constitution, bumper stickers, performative patriotism - goes straight out the fucking window. Like it never mattered.

Republicans would be the first to pivot, aligning with whoever holds power, purely for selfish gain.

A theory? Sure. But history’s already proven it twice.

Most of the South opposed the Revolutionary War - until it was won. Then, suddenly, those same people were die-hard, flag-waving, Constitution-thumping Americans. You think they’d have backed the revolution if someone had warned them slavery would be under threat in just 85 years? Not a fucking chance.

Same script, Civil War edition: Their ancestors fought against the very nation and Constitution they claimed to revere. Had the Confederacy won, today’s faux-devotion to the U.S. would’ve evaporated overnight.

This is Republicanism in a nutshell.

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u/JaneksLittleBlackBox 18h ago

The Man in the High Castle is a perfect representation of conservative patriotism now. The Nazis nuke DC and suddenly every American “patriot” immediately becomes a Nazi. J. Edgar Hoover being a rat-fuck Gestapo officer was perfect and hilarious.

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u/korben2600 18h ago

I can just imagine their contempt if Obama had like 15 kids from 6 different women while skipping out on child support. Or was hawking overpriced made-in-china bibles with his name on the cover while paying off porn stars. You know, "family values". They wouldn't have anything if they didn't have hypocrisy and double standards.

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u/Maleficent-Way5072 17h ago

This is a very good point!

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u/Turbulent_Country359 18h ago

Same! I was born in 1980 and was a kid during the “everyone who disagrees with me is a godless commie” Benson era. The church took a hard right and never recovered. For goodness SAKES, we were taught that there were literal, actual DEMONS on the left who were “trying to lead us astray”. Of course, Kimball, Packer, and others were awful, too.

I had my name removed from that church 14 years ago.

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u/fatpat 15h ago

"Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.” - Barry Goldwater

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u/broniesnstuff 17h ago

My reply to this would be "But don't you think that makes you vulnerable if the party's values change, but you always vote for them anyway? Who benefits from being able to dictate to you what your values are?"

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u/crashtestpilot 14h ago

good time to bring up taxing churches.

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u/1inTheAir 14h ago

I salute you for escaping the cult. I’m a fellow escapee at 18. That was 28 years ago. It’s fucking mental looking at it all from the outside.

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u/Particular_Rub7507 18h ago

But they keep saying they are going to FIX the economy, so I guess that’s what people believe instead of the facts

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u/LaTeChX 18h ago

Even now Trump is saying the economy is sick and needs short term pain (after saying everything would be great day one). We had less inflation than the rest of the world after COVID and Trump's deficit, and were poised for a miraculous soft landing. Only for him to come back in and fuck it up.

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u/wrgrant 18h ago

What they mean is "The Fix is In" /s

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u/MauPow 16h ago

"Sometimes you have to break things to fix them"

  • Person who doesn't know how to fix things

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u/Particular_Rub7507 16h ago

Gut comes in and smashes teapot with a hammer. “Sometimes you have to break things to fix them.” Next thing dude says is, “I always said I would make some mistakes. But we need to move fast.”

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u/HappyHuman924 18h ago

Oh, they fix it alright. See what I did there? :)

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u/Minute-System3441 18h ago

Oh, they have a track-record way longer than that. Republican administrations, while boasting about their economic expertise and business acumen, have been responsible for the following ‘wins' across 3 ‘centuries' now:

  • Civil War Recession 1861–1865
  • Post-Civil War Recession: 1869–1870
  • Long Depression: 1873–1879
  • Depression of 1882–1885
  • Panic of 1907
  • Post-World War I Recession: 1920–1921
  • Great Depression: 1929–1933
  • Recession of 1953
  • Recession of 1957–1958
  • Recession of 1969–1970
  • Recession of 1973–1975
  • Early 1980s Recessions
  • Recession of 1990–1991
  • 2001 Recession
  • Great Recession: 2007-2009
  • COVID-19 Recession
  • And the soon to be 2025 - Greater Recession or even New Depression

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u/Poe_42 18h ago

If only the Republicans lost the civil war all of this could have been avoided....

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u/Minute-System3441 18h ago

Today’s GOP wouldn’t recognize Lincoln - and he’d vomit at what they’ve become. Modern ‘Republicanism’ is just oligarchy in a flag pin, a 180° from its origins.

The ‘party of Lincoln’ is now the party of Lochner, a time when even their Supreme Court judges tried to chain workers to corporate fiefdoms and to this day still want to doom workers and the pours to eternal serfdom.

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u/ReallyNowFellas 14h ago

Wait dude I'm mostly with you but you're seriously taking shots at Abe Lincoln?

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u/WhoAreWeEven 11h ago

**2025 Great Recession, Some Say the Greatest Recession, My Uncle Went to Harvard and He Knows Recessions He Said this Is Greatest Recession Hes Ever Seen™

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u/REPL_COM 18h ago

I try telling my boomer family members who are hardcore republicans this simple fact. They just cry it’s not Trumps fault… uh huh sure

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u/doughball27 17h ago

the wealthy want the economy destroyed over and over again. i'd highly suggest reading marx on this. he described war as a necessary part of the capitalistic plan, since it destroys oversupply and resets the game in a way that favors the already super rich to come in and buy up assets cheaply.

since we can no longer have wars, thanks to the threat of nuclear anhilation, capitalists have devised a way to simulate what happens in war through designed economic destruction. we saw it with the tech bubble, the great recession, and then again now. expect it every 10 - 20 years.

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u/GuaranteeDeep6367 15h ago

Holy shit, Littlefinger was right. "Chaos is a ladder."

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u/yomam0a 17h ago

When we separate the church from the state. I said what I said. Remove religion from politics, period.

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u/Akuuntus 14h ago

But "Republicans are better for the economy" is repeated everywhere as if it's a core truth of the universe, so the actual results of their policies are ignored.

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u/C64128 18h ago

It's almost like they're trying to eliminate any voters that aren't on their side.

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u/Spiritual_Regular557 17h ago

Just in time to see it all come down

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u/Yaboymarvo 5h ago

Never because they pass the blame on the previous democratic president and their smoothed brain voters eat it up.

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u/MauPow 16h ago

I too saw that video yesterday

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u/D_dawgy 19h ago

Reagan was just a puppet… much like the rest of American politicians.

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u/mortalcoil1 19h ago

Reagan was proof of concept that people with dementia make the best presidents for evil people to easily control and manipulate.

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u/GuiltyEmu7 18h ago

Fuck Reagan, but killing Glass Stegal by Clinton is a major player in our economy.

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u/captainwacky91 18h ago

While Reagan does deserve all the rage he gets, let's not forget that it was Carter's deregulation that allowed Reagan to do what he did.

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u/EricGarbo 18h ago

Clinton, too.

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u/reddollardays 18h ago

I've heard he's very charismatic in person, like he enters the room and everyone asks "Who's that guy?" level. To think he got elected because he wore sunglasses and played the saxophone for Arsenio Hall. We are all so easily duped.

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u/newbie527 19h ago

We need another Franklin Delano Roosevelt. We need a newer deal.

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u/beardicusmaximus8 19h ago

Nah we need a new Teddy Roosevelt. Tear up the big businesses and rebuild America on the world stage.

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u/Hovercraft_Sudden 19h ago

We need both Roosevelts at this point. I fear we'll never get another one. Just puppets.

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u/LaTeChX 18h ago

Teddy getting elected was a fluke even then.

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u/Brilliant-Hamster345 17h ago

you think given that they are distant cousins, their descendants can bang each other and make a super roosevelt

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u/DouglasHundred 17h ago

I need to see these cousins before I can get into that idea.

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u/newbie527 17h ago

Teddy started the tear down of the Gilded Age. FDR built the foundations of a New Age for America.

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u/Brave_Quantity_5261 17h ago

Yes we do.

In his time, all his friends and family were among the richest in the USA (elite class) and they felt absolutely betrayed by FDR for essentially doing the opposite of what is happening today.

It’d be like Zuckerberg or Bezos getting into the White House and taxing the upper class to fund social safety nets for the lowest earners and starting a bunch of public works projects to get everyone decent jobs/wages.

His peers hated him, but he really got us out of a depression and built more stability that lasted decades.

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u/ArkitekZero 18h ago

They know that. That's why they made sure they got a trump instead.

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u/Mjolnir2000 15h ago

Or a Eugene Debs, for that matter.

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u/Jacinto2702 19h ago

We need Karl and his pals.

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u/kerrvilledasher 18h ago

Or maybe Kirby and his tree friends.

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u/Infinite_Carpenter 19h ago

Carefully?

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u/VaughnSC 19h ago

‘Boiling the frog,’ at the time. Lately, the gloves are off.

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u/Infinite_Carpenter 19h ago

That’s an optimistic view of the past 40 years

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u/Significant_Turn5230 19h ago

They succeeded, didn't they?

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u/Infinite_Carpenter 18h ago

Workers’ rights have been completed eroded and the wealth transfer to the top 1% has been massive. Unions’ power in the USA hasn’t been this diminished in decades. Both Democrats and republicans have been complicit, obviously conservatives would rather workers didn’t have any rights.

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u/daahump 19h ago

Reined?

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u/ovirt001 18h ago

Autocorrect got me.

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u/gbot1234 18h ago

Carefully at first, and then not so carefully.

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u/kex 16h ago

"They will leave if we raise their taxes"

Ok. I'm fine with that.

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u/eoan_an 16h ago

And then came trickle down economics

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u/Mirions 16h ago

Capitalism benefits those with capital, no one else.

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u/onionfunyunbunion 18h ago

Yes, as a billionaire I’m very happy with this outcome. Finally we’re gonna get our big break!

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u/TheFoxsWeddingTarot 18h ago

That’s why they’re grinning.

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u/Pantim 19h ago

Yeap, that. 

It would take a total idiot not to see this crash coming from the policies Trump was proposing during the election. These people are not idiots.

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u/StoicallyGay 18h ago

Too bad the MAGA crowd thinks everyone else are idiots for understanding the very very basic macro-economics that follow literal cause and effect logic. Because their argument is "short term losses for long term gains!" or "Trump has a plan and I trust him" AKA "we have no fucking logic or reasoning or reason to believe anything will work how we want, we just d-ride Trump forever."

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u/Sharkbait_ooohaha 13h ago

Yeah no that’s where you’re wrong. The entire technocrat class was somehow clueless about Trump being serious about Tarrifs. They thought, based on Trumps first term that he could be controlled but they were very wrong. This isn’t anybody’s plan except Trumps and the oligarchs are actually showing they have very little actual power (Elon spent $20M and lost a race by 10 in Wisconsin).

We have to stop thinking of the Oligarchs are devious, intelligent planners. In a lot of ways they are extremely stupid.

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u/FaultElectrical4075 19h ago

The plan for who? This is gonna hurt lots of very rich people too. The only people who aren’t going to be severely hurt by these tariffs are crypto people and people directly involved in the Trump administration.

You guys have to realize that oligarchs/the ruling class are not a monolith. They are united against the ruling class, but besides that they are constantly in competition with each other. It’s a bunch of sociopaths trying to one up each other in a desperate quest for power. Unifying behind Trump is mostly them trying to protect themselves from his line of attack.

These things only seem like they were planned after the fact, because no matter what happens there are going to be winners and losers. But society is too chaotic with too many conflicting interests for a ‘plan’ of this scale to work out except by sheer luck.

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u/HiiiTriiibe 19h ago

Look into Curtis yarvin, there’s definitely something to be said for JD Vance’s and Thiels love of that man and his ideology, and tearing down the government is literally step one to creating the techno-fascist city-state system yarvin advocates for. These people are a legitimate threat to democracy and have every intention of ending it here

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u/Absolute-Nobody0079 19h ago

That kind of system must be vulnerable to a large scale military invasion...right?

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u/Resevil67 19h ago

Yeah that’s what I think. These are techbros with way to much money and time on their hands dreaming of turning the US into their little utopia. The only issue is they have the money and power to do it.

However splitting the US into little fiefdoms all ruled by a techbro would fracture the military and cause infighting on who gets the nukes and stuff IMO. This would literally make us very vulnerable to an invasion from China or Russia.

These guys aren’t smart. They are literally techbro frat boys getting high on themselves and thinking this will actually work.

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u/beardicusmaximus8 19h ago

They know exactly what they are doing. They are crashing the economy on purpose to replicate the fall of the Soviet Union.

Russia and China won't invade the US (they haven't got the capacity or the political will to invade across oceans) they just want the US out of their way so they can take control of what they see as their own backyard. The issue both of them take with the United States is they see us as imposing our own world order on everyone else. They figure if they let/help the techbros take over then they can go back to the Cold War style of power sharing. I mean, one of the points Trump tried to put on the negotiating table for Ukraine was that NATO would withdraw to pre-1991 boundaries. It's pretty transparent what they are trying to accomplish

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u/MindLikeaGin-Trap 18h ago

Someone shared an article about how they are hoping to flee to Greenland, which they feel that they can defend, and will also set them up with the resources they need to survive once they collapse everything. They're also hiring ex-military to protect them and, in the article, were wondering if they needed to fit their security with shock collars, because they were certain that their security would turn on them as well because they're planning on scarcity and taking all the resources for themselves.

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u/NinjaLion 17h ago

significantly MORE vulnerable to infighting/civil conflict. they'll tear into each other and coalesce underneath whoever is the bigger violent monster, and bam, we are back at "kingdom". they know this and every one of them is a huge narcissist who thinks they'll be the king at the end.

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u/roylennigan 19h ago

If you look at the history of market downturns, you'll find wealthy individuals who are able to consolidate their wealth by buying up capital that suddenly becomes cheap. When the market crashes, companies go under, and the ones that stay afloat can buy them up. If you know you can stay afloat, you're going to benefit from a market crash, even if you lose billions in the short term.

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u/FaultElectrical4075 19h ago

That is opportunism. It isn’t planned out.

When the market crashes companies go under which is exactly why powerful people don’t want the market to crash, but sometimes it does anyway and people with the ability will take advantage of that when it happens.

If companies are being bought out they are being bought from someone. That person has clearly lost out.

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u/roylennigan 18h ago

The wealthy people who've supported this admin are in positions to benefit from market downturns. Musk himself became the richest person in the US during the last downturn. It would be naive to think they don't intend to benefit from this one as well - especially since they've positioned themselves within the admin and presumably at the very least have some forewarning, let alone intention behind it.

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u/Outlulz 16h ago

Google is not going go under. Meta is not going to go under. Apple is not going to go under. The guys grinning behind Trump that may lose some billions in stock value in the short term but ultimately will come out ahead.

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u/moeman1996 18h ago

The problem with that is US is going against allies. Allies will not trust the USA anymore nor trade like they used to do. Countries are not pushovers.

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u/come-on-now-please 17h ago

To para quote Mitt Romney, who didn't understand how out of touch it was, "market downturns are good! They're a perfect time to buy!"

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u/87utrecht 12h ago

And if the stock market currently was going up I bet you would be saying how this only benefits billionaires bla bla bla bla.

No, this shit isn't planned. These people are idiots and people like you give them way too much credit.

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u/FeelsGoodMan2 19h ago

Yeah, I think people dont realize that the tech bro billionaires are kind of stupid, they've huffed their farts so long they think they can do literally anything and just win. I think they thought they'd just easily grift and wrangle this idiot in and it'd all work out, they kind of forgot that status quo was actually really fucking good for their bottom line.

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u/TraditionalSpirit636 19h ago

It’s not sheer luck though.. it’s a fucking plan. And it’s been laid out and done before. 2008 happened. We’ve seen this.

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u/FaultElectrical4075 19h ago edited 19h ago

2008 was just opportunism. It looked like a plan in hindsight, these things often do.

People saw Trump’s desperation leading up to the 2024 election as an opportunity and they took it. Now they are reaping the rewards. But calling it a plan is giving them way more credit than they actually deserve. These people aren’t visionary geniuses, they’re sadistic, incompetent morons who were in the right place at the right time.

The most powerful people on earth prior to Trump’s election are losing out immensely from this. Do you know how much manufacturing Apple does in China, for example? These tariffs are a disaster for them. It turns out power just isn’t that stable a thing.

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u/LongjumpingDebt4154 19h ago

This is all by design. It’s a political tool. It’s a means to compel loyalty from every business that will need to petition Trump for relief. He’s using access to government funds to bully universities, law firms, state & local governments into loyalty pledges. Now, one by one, every industry or company will need to pledge loyalty to Trump in order to get sanctions relief. Public shows of support from executives for his economic policy & campaign contributions will be the first signs this is working according to trumps plan. As he adjusts & grants relief it’s a win/win; the economy improves & dissent disappears. Once Trump has lawyers, colleges & industry under his thumb, it becomes very hard for the opposition to have any space to maneuver.

This was from Senator Chris Murphy yesterday- I think it’s bang on, thought I’d summarize & share

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u/notapoliticalalt 19h ago

Go watch the bank run scene from “It’s a Wonderful Life”. It explains it perfectly. They may be in a dick measuring contest with each other, but they will recognize a fire sale when it happens.

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u/Money-Nectarine-3680 19h ago

This is a load of nonsense. The pre-emptive layoffs before Biden took office in order to force a rescue package that fed their stock value were ALL driven by billionaires in this photo and out of it. They saw the economy begin to recover from covid in late 2020 and decided as a block to raise unemployment. They tried and failed to usher in a recession at that time.

These people have been pulling strings you don't even know exist. To say they are afraid of Trump is to say the hand is afraid of the shadow it casts.

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u/Little_candy_cream 19h ago

They might protect some industries but they hurt others especially in tech

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u/cellardoorstuck 17h ago

Act 1: crash stock market

Act 2: give out bailouts to billionaires to buy up America for penny on a dollar

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u/Low_Pickle_112 17h ago

The fact that Trump hasn't gotten the Fred Hampton treatment should tell you how the ownership feels about all this. They'll be fine after the dust settles and they take up an even bigger piece of the pie, leaving the rest of us at each other's throats, eager to please our rulers, desperate for their scraps, and completely confounded as to how this all happened.

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u/ParkYourKeister 13h ago

In an interview asked if he thought there’d be a recession he basically said he won’t rule it and that it’s a real possibility. Striking fear in consumers is exactly what you want to do if you’re manufacturing a recession.

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u/designedfor1 12h ago

Better yet, they know when and what is going to be done before trump does it, so they can buy a bunch of puts and make money down, use that to buy companies that close, then buy stock when it’s time to climb back up.

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u/MountainPK 11h ago

I have no clue about stock trading. But I have heard that when you want to sell stocks for profit, there is usually a substantial tax (is this capital gains tax?)

UNLESS at the same time, you also sell stocks for a loss. Then you can bank that loss to avoid taxes.

Is this right? If so does this mean they can use the imaginary loss to avoid taxes on their real capital gains?

I’ll hang up and listen.

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u/callmesandycohen 10h ago

Mark my words - he’s going to extort every one of these companies for special dispensations and get favors for his companies in return. He doesn’t even care. He’s literally going to extort this whole country until we all line his pockets.

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u/braiam 20h ago

Yeah, I don't know why these articles come out. There's zero risks for people like that. They are immune to economic downturns. It will take years of economic pains for everyone for them to start to feel it.

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u/sezaruwoenai 19h ago

To mitigate the backlash.

Poor billionaires, will anyone think about the plight of the billionaires.

They're losing money too! Think of all the money they're losing. Clearly they deserve their tax breaks.

While they swoop in and further solidify control over large swaths of society, whilst everyone else suffers.

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u/WhompWump 19h ago

There's people out there who think this is them getting "owned" not realizing that at the end of the day it's a fire sale on assets for people like them who have so much money they don't have to worry about anything at all ever.

These kinds of headlines act as a cathartic release for them and keep them distracted from the big picture. This was always the play, and every recession and economic crisis that's always the play.

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u/soitheach 19h ago

it's capitalist propaganda

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u/ayyzhd 19h ago

the articles exist to convince people they "won" against the billionaires. it gives false hope

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u/TakuyaLee 19h ago

There's a lot of risk actually. Especially if people get angry enough.

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u/braiam 19h ago

If it doesn't involve guillotines... we are never going to fix this.

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u/tigerscomeatnight 19h ago

Like Trump said one time, he is the King of Debt.. Banks bend over backwards to lend these guys money. They don't have to sell anything. John Stewart had a bit about this. If everyday people were like billionaires. Guy goes to a bank and asks for a loan, they say, do you have any collateral? Yes, I have a car he says, a 69 olds with 352,000 miles on it. The bank asks for an appraisal. He gets his drinking buddy to look at the car and his buddy says it's worth, 4, not wait, 5 million dollars. Bank gives him a loan for that amount.

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u/jfsindel 19h ago

In the movie, Big Short, I will always remember the subplot line of Steve Carrell's character: "Didn't they (companies) see this coming? Why aren't they saying or doing anything?"

The realization that he has sticks with me. "They knew all along, but didn't care. They knew they would get bailed out. They knew they would be fine."

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u/throwawaygamer76 17h ago edited 17h ago

If you read the book, some didn’t register what would happen. They were moving along with greed, nothing more than robots trying to earn money while a few rang the alarm about the subprime mortgage loans and started hedging against it. A lot of it was hubris.

In other books, the libertarian billionaires wanted no bailout of the banks in 2008, but later realized that meant their stock prices would decrease. Again, hubris. This time though, there is no TARP to save the economy and their money.

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u/noxsicarius 16h ago

No TARP yet, you mean.

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u/throwawaygamer76 15h ago

Doubtful that orange melon and his merry band of sycophants can implement an effective TARP.

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u/LastMuppetDethOnFilm 14h ago

They're going to loot SSA for the bailout money

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u/[deleted] 17h ago

The Big Short completely refutes what this guy is saying (as does any understanding of finance). "Yeah, the billionaires are losing money in the stock market, but they can then... make the money they're losing back later?"

That would make sense if the billionaires had their investments all in cash, which they obviously don't, especially tech CEOs.

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u/abcpdo 14h ago

no the point is they can freely borrow large amounts of money using their shares as collateral. their asymmetric advantage is they can pay for hundreds of analysts to figure out when its going to start turning around. or better yet go for a dinner at mar-a-lago or play around of golf.

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u/ThenAnAnimalFact 14h ago

Except for a couple of things here.

  1. Cash among rich people AND Companies IS at an all time high right now. Warren Buffet has literally been sitting on the largest cash reserve in his history. A lot of them are prepared.

  2. In each of the last 3 crashes top .01% accelerated recover and took the vast majority of all the gains. So the overall premise and conclusion is true.

Of course they would have preferred 08 not to happen, many of them never came back. But for the most part their relative wealth to the rest of society increased as a result.

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u/latortillablanca 19h ago

Thank you. This headline and article—which i actually read— is clickbait appealing to the worst of us. Of course we want elon to fail and bezos to suck and zuckerBORG to crawl back to the hole from whence he came. But this article had a chance to inform the point you made—which is super fucking important for working class voters to understand—and instead appealed to our smugness and sanctimony and need to feel like we are giving a fuck yoh to these schmucks.

They likely developed the tariff plan from the jump… this isnt a negative consequence. These people are not stupid. Its a step in a comprehensive plan, decades in the making.

Do not let up.

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u/linkfan66 19h ago

Musk lost $21B in 48 hours, I don't see how he's able to recoup it easier than just simply having his stock go up?

Also, stocks aren't going back up for a long fucking time, hard to buy the dip if 'the dip' caused a 30% drop in your net worth.

This conspiracy doesn't make sensenwith the fact that all these CEO's have 80% of their worth tied to a single stock, and that there's nothing to gain by deliberately crashing your stock.

There's a reason why Musk was literally crying over his stock plummeting lol. You can't seriously convince me Elon is loving this drop right now.

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u/ProfessorXWheelchair 18h ago

it’s easy to buy the dip if losing 30% of your net worth means you still have billions of fucking dollars

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u/linkfan66 18h ago

Yeah, but that would entail selling off their other stocks to buy the dip, as none of them were able to sell at the top... the same stocks who just saw a HUGE decline in value.

Your logic just makes zero sense. So if Tesla fell 80% and Elon lost 60% of his net worth, you'd genuinely think that's some master plan and that he'd be excited to buy the market dip?

And what if stocks don't rebound because we're now in a recession and all countries hate us? Again, broken logic.

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u/teh_fizz 17h ago

I think the point is they can handle the loss for a very long time. They literally can wait it out. At one point, they want things to go back up, and if they can't do that naturally then they manipulate the market as normal.

It's absolutely why the rest of the world needs to come together and act towards them.

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u/PrimeIntellect 16h ago

losing $100B isn't that big of a deal if you still have $200B, it's literally unfathomable levels of wealth that is enough to buy entire industries.

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u/BeatBoxxEternal 17h ago

I'm convinced the thing Musk cares about more than anything isn't the wealth, the power, the popularity (although all of these things are high on his priority list) -- it's being remembered. If you view Musk through that lens, in everything he does, it makes more sense. He would rather be a controversial figure plastered in the history books then to be forgotten. He'll lose billions and be hated just to be studied in the future. It makes sense. It's not that he doesn't care about the money, it's just... what does the richest man in the world really want.

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u/Catatonic_capensis 17h ago

Calling it a conspiracy is one of the dumbest things. The rich do that shit every time things tumble. Always.

Musk out 80% of his stock value still has 60+ billion dollars. Do you think he'd be financially struggling with that? Do you not think he can qualify for a loan anymore? He could lose 99% of it and still afford to buy a business or two during a significant downturn.

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u/anonymous_lighting 20h ago

i hear ya but to that same point do they really gain anything if their wealth increases by 10% after the fact? 

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u/DankButtHats4sale 20h ago

THE PILE OF GOLD MUST GROW TO FILL THE SPOT WHERE MY SOUL SHOULD BE

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u/Decantus 19h ago

It really is Dragon Sickness.

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u/Gorgon31 17h ago

Maybe we should start praying to Saint George...

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u/Teledildonic 19h ago

The Mesoamerocans had a good solution for a few Spaniards that had insatiable thirst for gold.

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u/aspidities_87 18h ago

So did Khal Drogo

Crown for King

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u/Least-Back-2666 13h ago

Let's take a billion in cash and bury musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg in it. Alive.

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u/Teledildonic 13h ago

What about pennies?

Ass pennies

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u/roylennigan 19h ago

They aren't looking to increase their wealth directly, but rather increase their ownership of capital. If the market crashes, the value of everything drops, and you can buy up other companies, buildings, equipment, IP, etc. very cheaply.

This is pretty much the game plan for any wealthy individual or group during a downturn. Just look at Musk's net worth through covid.

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u/xixipinga 18h ago

explain please, if a billionarie has 100B and small business costs 10M, market crash and now the small business only values at 2M but the bilionarie meme stock money now only values at 5B, how is that beneficial to the elite meme stock over valued bilionarie class? they protect thei fake money and tech meme economy at all costs, they will never crash the eoconomy on purpose, real manufactoring business will be much less affected, the trump tech bros will be the one that disproportionate lose in this nonsesne, they are not smart, there is no master plan, they are very stupid and trump is screwing everybody

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u/N3ptuneflyer 18h ago

It's about their percent share or outright ownership of competing companies. The stock market crashes, they can buy shit at a discount, and when it rebounds they own more and have less competition. They've already taken out loans against their stocks when they were at a higher value, so they get the best of both worlds.

Once they reach a level of wealth it's not about money anymore but power, ownership and creating a legacy. They have a vision for the future and they will do anything to achieve it.

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u/SporadicPanic 17h ago

A good example may be Zappos. Zappos absolutely did not want to be bought by amazon; they rebuffed an early offer but when the 2008 financial crisis hit and Zappos' credit lines were affected, they gave in and were bought out by amazon.

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u/sump_daddy 20h ago

Its not just that. Its their CONTROL. They will be able to buy many new and diverse businesses, dirt cheap because they are on the ropes. The FTC and other federal orgs designed to stop monopolies from forming or abusing their positions will be gutted, of course, so there will be no guardrails to complete consolidation into a dystopian corporatocracy.

"just a few more billions"? Thats not their end game, Zuck literally is mapping out where Meta vertically controls a significant portion of the country (of course alongside important allies at Amazon, XAI, Alphabet, etc)

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u/Useful-Perspective 19h ago

They will be able to buy many new and diverse businesses, dirt cheap because they are on the ropes.

Yeah, pay close attention to the IP that they gobble up on the cheap

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u/OkAd134 19h ago

This is exactly the path to riches that the Russian Oligarchs took

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u/restingstatue 19h ago

This. Money itself can only buy so much. But when you can change laws? Geopolitical boundaries? Definitions of human rights? Become untouchable and take your mask off to show your truly malevolent nature? Ahhh, that's the real dream of sociopaths.

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u/TakuyaLee 19h ago

No one is untouchable. No one. Did no one learn from the French Revolution? The rich actually had a good thing going in the US, but some of them don't think that's enough.

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u/carcar134134 17h ago

The French aristocracy didn't have access to f-22's and a global surveillance network.

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u/kos-or-kosm 17h ago

Nor did they have access to sophisticated propaganda techniques and massive media networks to disseminate said propaganda. "People have gotten dumber" is a sentiment I encounter a lot, and I fundamentally disagree. Humanity has gotten smarter over time and has learned better and better ways to trick each other.

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u/N3ptuneflyer 18h ago

Shit will have to get way worse before it actually becomes dangerous to them. Look at Russia, as long as those oligarchs suck up to Putin they are untouchable. The idea that the American public will rise up in revolt is ridiculous. The French were literally starving to death while the rich were living in luxury.

We will still have food to eat, a roof over our heads, a bed to sleep in, and a phone to entertain us. They need to maintain a bare minimum of livability and the American public will avoid revolting in fear of losing that much.

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u/Acrobatic-Event2721 19h ago

How? Losing half your wealth will leave you in a worse position to leverage, never mind the difficulty of acquiring loans in a recession as banks go more conservative to protect themselves from ruin.

This is a lose/lose situation. I think what happened is billionaires were caught off guard with Musk backing Trump and his win so they all bowed down to Trump to be on his good side. More billionaires actually supported Kamala’s campaign.

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u/sump_daddy 18h ago

Losing half your wealth is fucking fantastic if every other 'rich person' (the sorry little single digit billionaires and below) lost 90% of their wealth.

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u/xixipinga 18h ago

deregulation is one thing they always do, but nobody is convincing me zuckeberg is willing to give up 75% of his fortune to get the deregulation he wants

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u/sump_daddy 18h ago

Youre still too focused on the number of dollars. That will go up and down as the seasons change. They dont give a shit about that really. They care about WHAT they own. Numbers of users. Distance of reach of media. Dominance of competition. Thats where the battle is fought.

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u/xixipinga 18h ago

i understand we live in something much closer to feudalism than capitalism and dollar numbers are worth way less than it should be in a real capitalist society, but they have big egos, all the media is always talking about "the richest man" their influence is also based on those big numbers, when a fortune goes too low their influence vanishes, thats why you see the state/king always rushes to bail out 100% of the lossoes as fast as they can, if the bilionarie ceases to be a bilionarie for too long he is no longer accepted in the inner circle

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u/[deleted] 20h ago

[deleted]

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u/m_Pony 19h ago

Of course they all would,

they have already done so,

uncountable times.

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u/FuckingColdInCanada 19h ago

I want you to be Fred so bad...

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u/Sen0r_Blanc0 19h ago

These are the people who GAINED 3.7 trillion in wealth during covid. They want to be kings, and to do that they have to destroy the democracy

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u/Edie_T 19h ago

To help them, Trump/Musk/Yarvin want to crash the economy and ultimately replace the dollar with an electronic currency they can directly control. They'd freeze the assets of any adversary who got too close to landing a punch.

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u/throwawaygamer76 17h ago

You can thank the Federal Reserve for pumping up the stock market and printing money. The federal government giving out PPP loans to business. Don’t know if they can do it again this time around.

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u/Martel732 19h ago edited 17h ago

This are vain greedy fucks. Money doesn't matter to them for its specific buying power. It matters as a high score for life. While they all have more money than God they still stew in anger whenever someone else has more. And once they are on top they have to protect their status from others.

We need to stop idolizing the acclimation of wealth over all else. We have created a society that celebrates greed, and now we are surprised that our country is ruled by its greediest members.

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u/Deranged40 19h ago

You know what a billionaire wants more than anything in the world?

Ten more bucks.

I once heard someone say "Once you make your first million, you have to decide what type of millionaire you are gonna be". Lots of people get that first million, look at the numbers, and say "You know what? I can retire on this amount" and just live in peace from there. But then you have others that say "I can make my second million faster".

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u/saynay 20h ago

A sense of accomplishment, I imagine? Maybe they buy up some competitors, on in to a new market, and therefor gain in power.

In any material way that is relevant to their life? No. But you don't become a billionaire without the mentality of wanting to run up the score.

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u/IAmPandaRock 18h ago

It's about control, power and ego at that point.  Elon didn't buy Twitter to make money, he bought it to control the narrative. 

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u/Air-Keytar 17h ago

They gain 10%. If you're looking for logic as to why that would matter it's the same logic why they would want to have 500 billion instead of 200 billion dollars. There's not really a whole lot more to benefit in your lifestyle or quality of life in any way with that much money. It's just an ego trip after about a billion.

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u/WolverinesThyroid 20h ago

plus they can always ask for bailouts. Sure you lose your house, but the big company gets a few billion to buy up capital while they float the disaster.

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u/sicilian504 19h ago

Can't wait for a new picture of them drinking champagne and smiling on a balcony while taking pictures. Like last time.

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u/FaultElectrical4075 19h ago

The tariffs are not going to work out well for anyone except people directly involved in the Trump administration

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u/FastForwardFuture 19h ago

We will all be serfs and whores, offering bespoke servitude to the mega rich.

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u/IndividualEye1803 19h ago

Yup - privatized gains with socialized losses.

Love it /s

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u/organix5280 19h ago

Unless everyone stops using their products; highly unlikely but would short circuit their plan.

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u/JT91331 19h ago

Yup, all worth it for the tax cuts that the made up tariff revenues will justify. After that legislation is passed Trump will reverse tariffs (for those who have paid their bribes).

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u/e37d93eeb23335dc 19h ago

it's not like they have to cash out their stocks or sell assets and take any real loss.

Except, sometimes they do. I'm sure there is a technical term for it, but I know that when the CEO of my company sells a lot of stock, he has to put it on a schedule and is forced to sell it at whatever price the stock is on that day, regardless of whether he ends up selling it at a loss or not.

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u/npsimons 19h ago

Warren Buffet, "good" billionaire that he is, has some amount of billions in cash. He's ready to buy at fire sale prices. And that's just one billionaire we know about.

I was about to post that these billionaires would have paid less if they just paid their fair share of taxes, but yeah, they would have had to cash something out for that, not so much with how it's going now.

Worst case scenario for them is they sell at a loss, claim it on deductions, and pay zero taxes.

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u/DigitalWarHorse2050 19h ago

Yup. What they lost is mere pocket change to them.

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u/Thedudeguyman 19h ago

I don't disagree on the whole "buying the dip" theory, but on some level it doesnt make sense to me. The poor/middle class are getting hit, but the companies are getting fucked. This includes the wealthy individuals, I don't think this is a good way to implement a "buying the dip" strategy.

I saw another post that made way more sense to me. It is much more nefarious than "buying the dip". Trump is making American companies non-competitive with the rest of the world, and tanking the economy at the same time. American companies are quickly and directly impacted in negative extreme ways. He is flexing on them right now. "See what I have the power to do to you?". "Only I can undo this." He wants them to bend the knee. He is consolidating industry and power.

This is way worse than the rich buying up more market share. This is Trump and co acquiring more and more direct control over private industry in the country. Leadership will be replaced with allies. Private industry will go the way of what is happening to public.

We're all fucked.

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u/WhompWump 19h ago

With markets crashing they are perfectly positioned to swoop in, scoop up anything they like, and make out like bandits.

Right on the money. This is the whole point, in times like this the biggest fish in the pool just consolidate and get bigger.

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u/Oo__II__oO 19h ago

Don't forget they can unionize to position the government to provide a bailout, citing financial hardships, then use that cash for a stock buyback.

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u/BitterAd4149 19h ago

yep they can stay solvent way longer than we can.

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u/zeekayz 19h ago

Even more so market crashes like these benefit these types of quasi monopolies. Large companies with a huge hoard of cash/asset can ride out huge market downswings that smaller competitors can't.

Big actions like these serve to wipe out many startups and smaller competitors that cant last through a long stretch of a bad economy. After all this happens, Facebook, Google, Adobe, Amazon etc. all emerge stronger with most of their competition wiped out and their monopoly position strengthened. Whatever they "lost" during a depression like this will be made up 10x when they use their stronger monopoly power to bleed consumers further.

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u/SteelCode 19h ago

The rich buy more when the price crashes. The poor just lose.

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u/molecuul 19h ago

“And as much fun as it is to watch pompous, dumb Wall Streeters be wildly wrong, I just know, that at the end of the day, average people are going to be the ones that are going to have to pay for all this. Because they always, always do.”

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u/abbzug 19h ago

Their losses are just theoretical, it's not like they have to cash out their stocks or sell assets and take any real loss.

The loans they take against their stock is however, very real.

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u/wholetyouinhere 19h ago

Not to mention, any remaining vestiges of labour rights that once existed in America are surely soon to be axed, while regulations of all kinds will be stripped away, leaving these people in much stronger positions, no matter how bad their temporary losses are.

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u/eggsaladrightnow 18h ago

This is the best, most well informed take. The media landscape is "omg look the sky is falling for billionaires" but it isn't. It never will be. They're just going to raise their prices accordingly

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u/Own_Bluejay_7144 18h ago

If Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerberg all lost 99% of their money, they would still be billionaires. They will be fine.

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u/nexusheli 17h ago

and make out like bandits

I believe the preferred term is "robber barons"...

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u/omfghi2u 19h ago edited 19h ago

Absolutely. These people don't "lose" anything in this situation. They own assets. You only lose something on assets if you sell the assets. They don't need to sell assets to cover their general expenses. Yes, their value decreased at this time. Yes, on paper, their net worth is lower at this time. But that doesn't mean anything. It's not a "loss" if you don't sell.

Plunging the economy into a recession is an opportunity for massive wealth transfer towards the top. As the markets crater, the ultra wealthy leverage their liquidity and buy up even more assets at rock bottom prices. Then, in about 5-10 years, when things stabilize and start climbing back up, they now own 30% more of everything. It's the "buy low, sell high", but for people who control hundreds of billions-to-trillions of dollars in capital. It's an opportunity for them to average down on the shit they own and eventually be richer because of it.

Just look at Warren Buffet's recent activities... he's (or Berkshire Hathaway) currently sitting on ~400billion in cash. He's been selling off large stakes for about a year or two, while stuff has been at all time highs. What do you think he's about to do with that extra 400b? Just chill? Not try to get more? Or... buy low, sell high? The man is not stupid, the company is not stupid.

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u/linkfan66 19h ago

Difference is Warren SOLD, everyone else didn't.

You can't just cherry pick the one billionaire who correctly mass sold everything and go "SEE!! THEY'RE ALL DOING IT", when in reality all the CEO's still have their net worth tied a single stock.

Buffet is famously like the one and only billionaire who knows valuations and saw this shit coming and sold. Cherry picking him is straight up disingenuous or naive.

Berkshire is literally known for being smart enough to sell when shit gets frothy and everyone else is greedy, don't use him as an example for how other billionaires act.

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