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/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/linkfan66 17h ago

I think the point is they can handle the loss for a very long time. They literally can wait it out.

Yes you're right, but again, flawed logic. Just because they CAN doesn't mean it's in their best interest.

Every single billionaire on the Forbes top 10 tracker lost 1% minimum of their net worth today alone, with Zuck, Elon and Buffet each losing 3-5% net worth in 8 hours, that's not even including yesterday's huge drop.

Outside of Buffet who's a fund manager and anticipated events like these, Mark, Elon, Larry and the others all didn't sell any of their shares at the top, and are all getting fucked because of it.

Some billionaires on the sideline will profit for sure, but ffs my guy it's really hard to argue that the top billionaires who all have their net worth tied to a single stock are somehow extremely happy over a 10% drop in net worth in 40 hours.

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u/AnAttemptReason 12h ago

They don't care, 1 billion dollars is infinite money, you litteraly can't spend it faster than it will make you more money in a reasonable amount of time. 

Beyond that its just a tool to get whatever you want, be that political power, or competing for a high score or the biggest private yacht. 

Elon was happy to trade waste multi-billion dollars for Twitter because now he can use it to control narratives and push his own political goals.

They don't love in the same world as you and I and are unmoved from the consequences.

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u/linkfan66 11h ago

They don't care, 1 billion dollars is infinite money, you litteraly can't spend it faster than it will make you more money in a reasonable amount of time. 

If that logic were true, they'd all stop giving shit the moment the became multi billionaires. Instead of preparing for presentations and earning calls, they could be at the beach....so I call bullshit how suddenly billions of dollars of losses means nothing to them, while they're all claiming for billions of more dollars in gains at the same time and refusing to retire. The logic just makes no sense.

Elon was happy to trade waste multi-billion dollars for Twitter because now he can use it to control narratives and push his own political goals.

And that bet paid off ten fold when it helped Trump win the presidency and helped push Tesla stock up 100% in a few months, netting him hundreds of billions. Obviously it crashed after because he flew too close to the sun, but it was a purchase that paid off at the time, so not sure if that's a good example.

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u/AnAttemptReason 11h ago

If that logic were true, they'd all stop giving shit the moment the became multi billionaires. 

Why? 

They aren't motivated the same way you and I are. 

Anyone who hits multi-million dollars in a business could retire and live a life of luxury. 

By definition, the ones who don't are the ones who have different motivations. General power, prestige, control. Take Putin, dude was the richest man in the world, he invaded Ukraine because he wanted an empire building legacy, the cost was irrelevant.

not sure if that's a good example. 

In a market crash the ones who loose are the ones who have to sell. 

The billionaires don't have to sell, they can just buy the ones who do have to sell by leaveraging loans off their existing assets, which are still worth billions. 

So it's exactly like your ration for Elon buying twitter, temporary losses aren't imporaint to the final goal.