In an electoral system in which money is king, former President Donald Trump has been courting as part of his campaign to regain the White House the billionaires of the United States, who have their transfers prepared.
The ability of the 77-year-old Republican presidential candidate to raise money from ordinary Americans is indisputable, and even a historic criminal conviction in New York has not diminished that operation in the slightest towards the November elections.
Trump’s campaign says it raised more than $53 million in the 24 hours after last week’s verdict in which he was found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a hush payment. of a former porn actress and thus avoid a scandal in the 2016 elections.
But for big donors, Trump’s powerful aura had faded after the chaos surrounding his 2020 election loss to incumbent Democratic leader Joe Biden.
On January 7, 2021, the day after Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol to try, unsuccessfully, to prevent certification of his defeat, billionaire businessman and investor Nelson Peltz said he regretted having backed the magnate.
“What happened is a disgrace. As an American, I am ashamed,” the CEO of Trian Partners told CNBC at the time.
But last March, Peltz hosted Trump at his Florida home for breakfast with other business heavyweights, including Tesla, SpaceX and X chief Elon Musk, The Washington Post reported.
In an interview with The Financial Times, Peltz said he would “probably” vote for Trump again in November, although he admitted: “I’m not happy about that.”
Because? Peltz, 81, cited an explosion in the number of migrants entering the United States illegally and also what he described as a “really scary” mental capacity of Biden, who is the same age as him.
Also Stephen Schwarzman, the billionaire president and co-founder of the Blackstone Group, one of the most important investment firms in the world, criticized the events of January 6, condemning the “mob’s attempt to undermine” the Constitution.
But on May 24, he publicly endorsed Trump, also citing the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border as a key concern.
– Taxes –
With the stock market at record highs and the economy growing despite persistent inflation, why would big business owners support a “convicted felon” perceived as a source of instability?
Economist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman believes these billionaires elect politicians based on their personal interests, not the well-being of the nation.
“The rich will almost certainly pay less taxes — and businesses will be less regulated — if Trump wins than if Biden remains in office,” Krugman wrote in April in The New York Times.
Biden has made no secret of the idea that, if he is re-elected and the Democrats achieve an absolute majority in both houses of Congress, he will apply a new tax on the super-rich.
In 2022, he attempted to establish a minimum income tax for billionaires: 20% for those whose family income exceeds $100 million, just 0.01% of the population. But his bill failed.
– Drill, drill, drill –
The Biden administration’s efforts to combat climate change have also made it less popular with Big Oil.
“Trump’s ‘drill, boy, drill’ philosophy aligns much better with the oil sector than Biden’s green energy approach. It’s a no-brainer,” Dan Eberhart, CEO of the energy company, recently told The Washington Post. Canary oil services.
Biden’s campaign team frequently attacks his Republican rival’s ties to big fortunes.
“Trump’s billionaire friends are supporting the campaign of a white-collar criminal because they know the deal: They give him checks and he cuts their taxes while workers and the middle class foot the bill,” said campaign spokesman Ammar. Moussa.
Although Biden is not left out of the lottery of multimillion-dollar donations either.
Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems and a leading venture capitalist, recently hosted a fundraising reception for Biden at his California home.
Wall Street and Big Oil are mainly in Trump’s camp, while Silicon Valley tends to back Biden.
On November 5, voters – perhaps influenced by ads paid for with millions of dollars from billionaires – will have the final say.
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