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Comment by creaghpatr | Hacker News Reader

>>Still, the embrace by millions of American voters of a billionaire authoritarian who argues that the “system” has been rigged to serve a cosmopolitan ruling class against the interests of ordinary people does suggest that American democracy has a unique credibility problem.

Just goes to show people are willing to appeal all the way past the legal/political system to the foundations of our country due to losing a vote.

If his words had any practical influence or any accountability for the implications of such a statement I'd be more likely to take him seriously.

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I'm not a Trump supporter by any means, but it's interesting to look back and notice that the top layer of the billionaire class -- the richest of the rich -- were either backing Clinton or taking great pains to distance themselves from and criticize Trump during the campaign.

It might be viewed as a battle of the major billionaires against the minor billionaires -- and the major billionaires lost. In any event, the vast majority of the wealth was on Clinton's side or at least critical of Trump.

Billionaires who directly supported and/or endorsed Hillary Clinton:

* Warren Buffett: $73 billion

* Bill Gates: $84 billion

* Carlos Slim: $50 billion

* Michael Bloomberg: $40 billion

* George Soros: $25 billion

* Laurene Powell Jobs: $19 billion

* Elon Musk: $12 billion

* Eric Schmidt: $11 billion

Billionaires who (at least) were critical of Trump, and refused to endorse or support him:

* Jeff Bezos: $65 billion

* Mark Zuckerberg: $53 billion

* Charles Koch: $43 billion

* Mark Cuban: $3 billion

Billionaires who supported Trump:

* Sheldon Adelson: $32 billion

* Carl Icahn: $18 billion

* John Paulson: $8.6 billion

* Woody Johnson: $3.5 billion

* Peter Thiel: $2.7 billion

* Wilbur Ross: $2.5 billion

* Tom Barrack: $1 billion

* Stephen Feinberg: $1.25 billion

* T Boone Pickens: $0.5 billion

* Steven Mnuchin: < $1 billion

Business wants stability, and generally cares more about policy than Joe average voter.

Clinton was a candidate with a long track record, Trump is essentially unpredictable. The billionaire vote in this election isn't particularly surprising, or indicative that they form a Sekrit Global Cabal.

Indeed, it's more worthwhile to consider prior times that sort of anti cabal rhetoric has been deployed.

Um, yeah. I have no info about a secret global cabal of billionaires (whatever you meant by that).

Anyway, what's surprising is not that the majority of the wealthiest billionaires supported Clinton. What's surprising is that the majority of the wealthiest billionaires supported a candidate who went on to lose the election.

Is there a canonical list of US billionaires, or say, top 100 wealthiest US citizens? I suspect that not all provide their endorsement. I'd be interested in seeing a more complete breakdown (assuming this isn't).

yeah, good point. my list is not exhaustive. it's hard to find an exhaustive list of the billionaires and whom they supported. if you search for "billionaires for trump" and "bilionaires for clinton" and such things, it sure looks like nearly all of the wealthiest billionaires supported Clinton.

if we just add up the Buffett, Gates, Bloomberg and Soros fortunes, the number is awfully large though. it's about $225 billion. and you end up thinking "if Trump had equal support from the wealthiest billionaires, who are they? i can't seem to find them."

I understand what motivated your question; it's not that interesting to me. I'm more interested to see what percentage of the wealthiest are publicly politically active.

How many times does the candidate with the most votes need to lose an election before people get angry? It's happened 2x in the last 15 years, and I feel like it's going to happen again until something breaks.

There are very good reasons why this country was explicitly not setup as a popular democracy. I, for one, am very pleased that we haven't yet eroded those foundations completely and devolved into the tyranny of the mob yet.

A majority of the population also used to be disenfranchised if they weren't males or owned property. Traditionalism makes for bad governance

"If his words had ... accountability for the implications of such a statement"

What does that even mean?

I think he means to say the article is hyperbolic

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