After small wallets, big fish? In an American electoral system where the sacrosanct dollar is the maker of kings, Donald Trump recently received the welcome support of several billionaires.
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The Republican candidate’s ability to mobilize money from low-income households has never wavered, as evidenced by the more than $53 million collected in 24 hours after his guilty verdict last week, mainly from small donors, according to his campaign team.
But among the biggest donors, Donald Trump’s aura had weakened following the chaos surrounding the 2020 election.
On January 7, 2021, the day after the assault on the Capitol by supporters of the Republican president, billionaire Nelson Peltz expressed his regret for having supported him.
“It’s a shame. As an American, I am embarrassed,” said the head of the Trian Partners investment fund.
At the beginning of March, Nelson Peltz welcomed Donald Trump to his home in Florida for breakfast alongside other billionaires, including Elon Musk, according to the Washington Post.
Nelson Peltz and Elon Musk.
AFP
And in an interview given to Financial Times, he said he would “probably” vote for Donald Trump, but reluctantly. His reasons: an explosion in the number of migrants illegally crossing the border with Mexico and the state of Joe Biden’s mental health “which is really scary”, according to him.
Steve Schwarzman is also one of those billionaires who denounced the January 6 assault, castigating “the attempt, by a pack, to undermine our Constitution.”
However, on May 24, the CEO of Blackstone – one of the largest investment funds in the world – announced that he would once again support Donald Trump for the presidential election.
AFP
This Wall Street bigwig – with a personal fortune estimated at more than $37 billion per year Forbes – also cites immigration as one of his motivations.
Taxes
Another great fortune returned to Donald Trump: Miriam Adelson.
A major supporter of Israel, the widow of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson plans to spend even more than their $90 million disbursed in 2020 for the Republican cause, according to Politico.
While American stock indices have never been so high and the American economy is showing insolent growth despite persistent inflation, why do these tycoons decide to support a candidate convicted in criminal proceedings and perceived by many as a source of instability within the world’s leading power?
For economist Paul Krugman, the calculation of these elites is much more linked to personal interests than to concerns about the state of America.
“A fairly direct answer would be to say that the rich will almost certainly pay lower taxes, and businesses will be less regulated” in the event of Donald Trump’s victory, the 2008 Nobel Prize winner in economics wrote in April in the New York Times.
Because Joe Biden makes no secret of it, if he were re-elected in November and obtained a majority in Congress, he would implement a tax on large fortunes.
“Drill at all costs”
Since arriving at the White House in 2021, the Democrat has regularly emphasized the need to further regulate the world of finance; enough to partly explain the aversion of certain big bosses in the sector.
The Biden administration’s stated desire to fight global warming has also attracted the enmity of figures in the oil industry.
“Trump’s mantra of ‘we’re going to drill as hard as we can’ is much more aligned with the oil sector than Biden’s approach to green energy. “It’s obvious,” Dan Eberhart, head of a major drilling company, recently told Washington Post (repeated in X).
Joe Biden’s campaign team regularly attacks its Republican rival over his ties to the richest.
She accused him last week in a statement of “selling America to its biggest donors.”
However, Joe Biden is not left out when it comes to collecting money from big fortunes, like that of “tech” entrepreneur Vinod Khosla who recently organized a reception in his honor.
An illustration of the dichotomy of support for the ultra-rich, with Silicon Valley rather pro-Biden when Wall Street or “Big Oil” appear rather pro-Trump.
