‘We Have Gone Full Kleptocrat!’ Scott Galloway Condemns Trump’s Cozy Relationship With Billionaire Tech Bros
Scott Galloway is mad as hell, and he’s not going to take it anymore. Well, maybe that reference to the seminal 70’s movie Network may take things too far. However, the frequent cable news socioeconomic and cultural commentator is on something of a rage bender, literally speaking truth to power, if we can all agree on what is actually the truth anymore in a post-fact-checking and entirely subjective political media ecosphere.
During a passionate appearance on CNN’s AC360 to discuss Mark Zuckerberg ending his company’s fact-checking process and the substantial profit that he and his shareholders will get in return, Galloway sounded the alarm on what he described as the current “kleptocracy” that the US has become under President-elect Donald Trump and his cozy relationship with very generous tech billionaires.
Following a clip in which Trump effectively admitted that Zuckerberg’s new pro-Trump stance was a result of his threats to put him in prison for life, Anderson Cooper asked if Galloway thought “a lot of these tech billionaires are kind of following or trying to play catch up, I guess, with Elon Musk and making inroads with the new administration.”
“And best investment,” Galloway interjected, explaining how “The best trade of 2024 was Elon Musk for $250 million into the Trump campaign. And since then, the value of his companies and his stake in those companies is up by about $140 billion. So that’s about a 5,600% return.”
He then explained how that massive gain in valuation has had “Nothing to do with their operating margins, their innovation, their sales. It’s based on a general assumption that America has become a full kleptocracy like Russia, that the largest, deepest pocketed customer in the history of our modern economy, the U.S. government, will effectively, as now, are effectively just now pay-to-play and will shuffle contracts, monies and impose regulatory punishment on the competitors to the companies who do not invest in the Republican Party or his inaugural campaign, as evidenced by the fact that very few of these tech executives invested in the inaugural campaign fund for Biden and they are all doing it for Trump.”
“We have gone full kleptocracy!” he said. “And if you don’t think this hurts everyone, just raise prices. And for the little guy or the companies that don’t want to engage in this type of pay-for-play, it hurts them. This is now this this will increase prices and weaken our democracy. This is absolutely no different than how Putin became the wealthiest man in the world.“
Watch above via CNN.