[dathinab]

> many are willing to see him trample

there is little surprising about it

Trump is pushing in the direction of an Oligarchie, billionaires would be the future oligarchs.

So even iff a billionaire is no-okay with this development, if they stick out they

- will lose their status/money iff Trump wins long term

- will make enemies with many other billionaires, but a core trend of billionaires is taking advantage of connections to other powerful people

- will be the prime target to make and example of

So there is a high risk for sticking out. At the same time "mostly passively tagging along" will at worst make them oligarchs. At the same time they are used to crossing ethical boundaries to maximize profits. *This is just another form of that.*

In general its pretty much non-viable to go from sub/barely millionaire to billionaire by keeping to law, moral and ethics.

And it's not a secret either that any extreme concentrations of power or money are fundamental thread of _any_ democratic state of law, the US is no exception. The US has been warned that their system is very prone to populist take over and their checks and balances are quite brittle since _decades_. (At least since end of WW2 when people when people analyzed how Hitler took over post-WW1 Germany and wondered if the US could suffer a similar fate. And instead of improving the robustness, the general response was "nonsense, this is the US". Then after 9/11 thinks got worse, warnings that this can lead to a disaster where also many, but actions where none. And then in recent decades the US pushed in favor of monopolies instead of a (actual, practical) free market(1) to project more power internationally, and things got even worse.

(1): Monopolies and a (actual, practical) free Market are fundamentally incompatible. It also is kinda obvious why once you put away decades of deregulation propaganda.

[LogicFailsMe]

Given there are only ~1135 billionaires in the USA right now, I'd say it's pretty much non-viable to go from sub/barely millionaire to billionaire period. But Taylor Swift doesn't seem to have murdered any kittens to get where she is nor did Rihanna so it can happen without totally selling out.

[dathinab]

yesn't

my argument was more about becoming a billionaire by creating bringing a company to a level of success where they dominate their area of business.

I.e. not getting there by "fame" or "pure luck" (lets say you got 1/42th of early bitcoin from a "fun" project in the very early bitcoin days or similar).

Let's also for simplicity ignore that getting there by "fame" often involve tight cooperation with companies/people which don't care about ethics much. Through you might be able to separate yourself once you reach success, most times they try to make sure you can't.

And even iff you didn't compromise your ethics when becoming a billionaire this doesn't change the core argument.

That is if (as billionaire) you passively go with a push to Oligarchy you are unlikely to suffer from it. But if you don't and the Oligarchy wins, then you likely suffer a lot.

I.e. if you go with a non-emotional/non-ideology considering risk/benefit analysis passively yielding wins. Both for money and power.

In such a situation a lot of people will just go with it, no matter if billionaire or not.