Billionaire hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman and democratic-socialist senator Bernie Sanders probably weren’t ever going to see eye to eye on matters of wealth accumulation and distribution, and as it turns out, there’s a fair amount of daylight between how the two men view Elon Musk becoming the world’s first trillionaire. Sanders, for example, thinks the moment is emblematic of the destruction of America at the hands of the oligarchy, and Ackman thinks it’s a reason to break out the party horns and thank Musk for his service.
On X, the senator from Vermont declared that Musk’s “rise to trillionaire status is not a time to celebrate” but instead “a call to action to take on the unprecedented income and wealth inequality that now exists and the greed and power of a ruling class that is destroying the social fabric of America.” He added:
Our democracy cannot survive when one man, who contributed $290 million to get Trump elected, becomes $700 billion richer since Trump’s election. Our economy cannot sustain itself when one man owns more wealth than the bottom half of our society, when 60% of our people live paycheck to paycheck, when we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major nation and when our kids will have a lower standard of living than their parents. This is not just about wealth. It’s about power. Musk and his fellow Oligarchs want it ALL. Together, we must fight back. We can and must create an economy and a government that works for all of us, not just Elon Musk and his fellow billionaires.
