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/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 18h 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/Intelligent_Gold3619 15h ago

Controlling a country isn’t sexy. Do you know what’s sexy? Controlling the world