Related paulg tweet: https://x.com/paulg/status/1951996478555357530
"The Trump administration has suspended the funding of Terence Tao and the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics at UCLA."
"The Trump administration has suspended the funding of Terence Tao and the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics at UCLA."
Maybe it's just Twitter's algorithm that only serves me the decent replies - but these at least have a point, antisemitism is running utterly rampant in academia these days. In no relation to Qatari funding, one might assume...
But I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s one of those “enlightened centrists.”
They didn’t get to where they are without playing a conformance game. That limits the degree to which they can object to anything.
If they’re vulnerable, it’s the psychological need to keep adding to their pile of money that does it.
Keep in mind that “money” is not some sort of concrete thing like a pile of gold - it’s dependent on factors like the value of companies. The wealthier someone in the US is, the more their wealth depends on their ultimate cooperation with the prevailing powers.
And the only reason their money depends on factors like the value of companies is because they want to add to the pile. It could literally be a pile of gold if they wanted it to be, that's just not the best way to make it grow. More realistically, it could be invested in index funds or something similar that the administration can't selectively destroy.
Worst case the government finds a way to confiscate everything, or imprison/kill them, in which case they're exactly as vulnerable as a normal person.
The opponents of "the side you totally are not supporting no" wont get any benefits of doubt, will have words super scrutinized and instead sanewashed will be exaggerated.
UCLA has $8 billion in endowments and the state universities in total have $30 billion in endowment funds. How many years could they fund Tao and his institute if they really wanted to?