Donald Trump stood outside the Palm Room doors at the White House this week, taking questions alongside the AI titans with whom he’d just had lunch. Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, Dario Amodei, Mark Zuckerberg, Greg Brockman: a still image of the gaggle captures a net worth that edges into the trillions.
Cockburn found his mind wandering back to Trump’s interview with The Spectator at the start of his second term. Ben Domenech pointed out that the priorities of his wealthy new big tech friends “and the kind of populist priorities of your voters, don’t necessarily align on everything.” “Probably,” Trump conceded. “Are you going to have to tell them no on some of the things that they’re going to ask of you?” Domenech asked. “Sure. I just do what’s right,” the President answered.
Fast forward a year and a half and consider the following issues: AI regulation, cryptocurrency, H-1B visas, data centers. On how many of them has the President sided with his MAGA base over his new wealthy friends?
Democrats running in tight races have sought to capitalize on Trump’s camaraderie with billionaires. Jon Ossoff popularized the term “Epstein class,” while James Talarico regularly says that the “rules” of America were “written for billionaires.” This messaging is very much borrowed from the Bernie Sanders-AOC-Zohran Mamdani playbook – and is not too great a departure from the leftist meme that “billionaires shouldn’t exist.”
But a new book from two economists suggests that the Democrats should widen their target. The Everywhere Millionaire: Who Is Really Rich in America and How They Got There by Princeton’s Owen Zidar and UChicago’s Eric Zwick, highlights a tier of three million “Main Street Millionaires.” Zidar and Zwick are profiled in a New York Times piece headlined, “Are Democrats Worried About the Wrong Rich People?”
These “Everywhere Millionaires,” the Times reports, have “an average net worth of $25 million, and as a group, they commanded $54.8 trillion in 2022, the most recent year cited in the book. That’s more than 13 times the collective wealth that year of the billionaires on the Forbes 400 list.” The “small” business owners – who Zidar and Zwick also brand the “stealthy wealthy” – structure their companies in a manner that means they do not owe the corporate income tax, with business earnings instead appearing on the owner’s tax return, being subject to individual income tax. Econ nerds call these “pass-through businesses.” And, the Times says, “since the 1980s, pass-through businesses have been responsible for more than half of the additional share of income claimed by the top 0.1 percent.”
In the NYT piece, Zidar and Zwick express frustration that in 2017 House Republicans ignored their advice to not give a write-off to pass-through businesses. “When we noted that many of these ‘small’ businesses actually are not small, no one wanted to talk about it,” they write.
Cockburn is not convinced that lining up small business owners is the surefire success that the Democrats are looking for this midterm cycle. Better off sticking to unlikable Silicon Valley sex freaks than, you know, the town dentist.
This week in heartbreak
In unrelated news, pour one out for Shivon Zilis, Neuralink executive and mother to four of Elon Musk’s ??? children. She and Musk appear to have broken up again, judging by her X post this morning. “It’s hard to go from in love to let go in a week with no warning, but that’s just how it is sometimes 🤷🏻♀️,” Zilis writes. Her post is a quote tweet of the news that Musk no longer follows her on the app. It includes a screenshot of a text apparently from Musk last week. “Love you too,” he writes. “I didn’t realize that this Xi dinner included significant other (Beijing one did not) or I would have invited you”
“I’m hurting, but care deeply about E and will always be cheering for his happiness,” Zilis continues. “God speed, Elon, the world is lucky to have you.” Cockburn hopes Zilis’s good sentiment sees her retain her spot on the rocket to Mars. 🚀🚀🚀
On our radar
KING TAKES BISHOP Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington, has resigned. Budde famously implored President Trump to “have mercy” during the interfaith inauguration prayer service in early 2025.
TIME TO RALLY Trump will appear at two rallies over the weekend: later today in Mobile, Alabama, and then tomorrow in Dayton, Ohio.
DOGGONE The Wharf will host the Wiener 500 tomorrow, as part of its Oktoberfest celebrations. Around 140 Dachshunds are set to race down a 70-foot track.
Isn’t there a saying for that?
Former senator Kyrsten Sinema’s ex-bodyguard and lover found his way back into the headlines this week. Earlier this week Matthew Ammel gave an interview to the Arizona Republic, where he explained that he had had a mental breakdown the night in August when he trashed her house. The same Republic reporter then scooped yesterday that Ammel was back in jail for violating his pretrial conditions: he allegedly attempted to contact Sinema through an acquaintance, and brought a large military-style knife to a local gun store. Ammel maintains that he was innocently looking to get the blade engraved as a gift for his nephew. The former bodyguard was taken into custody in a Cheesecake Factory parking lot. How the mighty have fallen.
Cockburn is not sure what Ammel expected to happen when he brought a knife to a gun fight.
Soak up the Sun
An attempted takeover of DC? Don’t tempt Cockburn with a good time. Politico founder Robert Allbritton has been stepping up his efforts to turn his blog NOTUS into a local news competitor to the Washington Post. First came the hiring drive. Then came the rebrand of NOTUS (well, two rebrands, but who’s counting?) to the Washington Sun. Now, the Sun is in phase three: making a splash in DC. It set up a coffee stand right outside WaPo HQ on Monday – and yesterday hosted a relaunch party on the same block.
Allbritton, his CEO and his editor-in-chief took to the stage midway through. CEO Arielle Elliott declared their intention to make the Sun the “next great Washington newsroom,” while Allbritton said he was inspired by the “contraction, around here, in local media.” Cockburn hasn’t had time to consider the lack of specialist DC reporting, what with his morning reading of Politico, Axios, the Hill, City Cast DC and the Washingtonian. Still, the Sun’s staff has grown to 180 – and Allbritton characterized the relaunch as a “leap of faith.” It will probably go as well as every other big new media launch in the nation’s capital.
A DJ, MISS H.E.R., worked the decks, playing both Macklemore and Ed Sheeran, like a true bipartisan. “I see some movement!” she said at one point, at the faintest threat of dancing breaking out at a corporate party.
In attendance: Adrienne Arsht; Aidan McLaughlin; Al Weaver; Edgar Barrios; David Chalian; Jasmine Wright; Jeremy Barr; Jeff Stein; Josef Palermo; Josh Dawsey; Kelly Chapman; Kristin Wilson and Paul Kane; Oriana González and Guillermo Perez; Sally Quinn; Tom Sietsema; Justin Smith; Sumi Somaskanda; Will Sommer, and Zolan Kanno-Youngs.
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