As you’ve probably heard by now, there’s a presidential election happening in less than two weeks. Voters will have the choice to vote for Kamala Harris, who has never incited a deadly attack on the Capitol or fawned over dictators, or Donald Trump, who even Republicans have said was responsible for the 2021 insurrection that left multiple people dead, and who has never encountered a dictator he didn’t admire—including Adolf Hitler.* In other words, the fate of democracy is very much on the line, and the candidate who isn’t openly pro-fascism could use as much help as she can get, given that the polls, somehow, show a neck-and-neck race.
And yet, despite the very grave stakes, at least two powerful billionaires who privately support the vice president are apparently too frightened of Trump—and the blowback of going against him—to publicly endorse Harris.
One of those billionaires is JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, an extremely outspoken executive who The New York Times reported Tuesday “has made clear” in private “that he supports Vice President Kamala Harris” but “isn’t making his stance known publicly because he’s fearful that if Mr. Trump is victorious, he could retaliate against the people and companies who publicly opposed his run.” (In a statement, a spokesman for JPMorgan said Dimon, a registered Democrat, “has never publicly endorsed a presidential candidate, but he speaks out forcefully and often on policies to help strengthen our country and lift up communities.”) According to two people familiar with his private conversations, Dimon has told fellow Wall Street executives that while he is a backer of Harris, “he has a duty to JPMorgan shareholders to protect the public company from potential political retaliation.”
The other billionaire—and a billionaire many times over, to be exact—that supports Harris but is afraid of the repercussions of publicly saying so is Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Also on Tuesday, the Times reported that “after decades of sitting on the sidelines of politics, Bill Gates, one of the richest people in the world, has said privately that he recently donated about $50 million to a nonprofit organization that is supporting Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential run.” That $50 million will no doubt have been appreciated by the campaign, but the fact that it was reportedly “meant to stay under wraps,” and that Gates also has chosen not to publicly endorse Harris, is more than a little concerning. (According to the Times, the multimillion-dollar check went to Future Forward USA Action, an organization that does not disclose donor names.)
As the Times notes, Gates “has long sought to hold himself above politics so that he could have credibility with both Democratic and Republican audiences and administrations.” In a statement to the outlet, Gates stressed his bipartisanship, saying, “I support candidates who demonstrate a clear commitment to improving health care, reducing poverty, and fighting climate change in the US and around the world. I have a long history of working with leaders across the political spectrum, but this election is different, with unprecedented significance for Americans and the most vulnerable people around the world.” Which, reading between the lines, might as well be an endorsement of Harris—yet Gates conspicuously chose not to say so.
All of which you might kind of be able to understand! Trump has threatened to go after people who don’t support him on numerous occasions, and has literally threatened campaign donors. This month, he said the US military should be used against the “enemy from within” if necessary, and over the weekend confirmed that the phrase refers to his American political opponents.
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And yet, that’s all the more reason for people like Gates and Dimon to vocally support Harris, and do anything they can—including making public endorsements—to prevent her opponent from retaking the White House. Where, if he is to be believed, he’ll start going after people who didn’t kiss the ring on day one—and who knows what else.
*Here’s where we have to tell you: Trump denies saying good things about Hitler, leaving you to decide if his former chief of staff is telling the truth, or if a guy known for spewing more falsehoods in a day than most people do in a lifetime is. Also something to consider: the very long list of antisemitic things Trump has said about Jews.
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