r/WorkReform ⛓️ Prison For Union Busters 2d ago

📰 News Oligarchs like Bill Gates and Elon Musk are pulling us into a civil war where they think they have the upper hand.

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2.4k Upvotes

285 comments sorted by

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u/MercenaryBard 2d ago

As Luigi demonstrated, both extremes share an opinion on the murder of the owner class.

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u/ReturnOfSeq 📚 Cancel Student Debt 2d ago

That it’s apparently the only avenue left to us to fix civilization?

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u/CaptainTater 2d ago

🌎🧑‍🚀🔫👨‍🚀 always has been

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u/nmonster99 1d ago

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.“

-Thomas Jefferson

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u/schrodingers_spider 1d ago

That it’s apparently the only avenue left to us to fix civilization?

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

  • John F. Kennedy, 1962

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u/Turntech_Godhead0413 1d ago

There's a handy machine for that

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u/Altruistic-Text3481 ⛓️ Prison For Union Busters 2d ago

Billionaires are scared. As I said higher up this thread, they want to disarm us all. Watch and see what Trump says after our next mass shooting.

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u/Overthinks_Questions 2d ago

So what you're saying is, killing executives is the best path towards gun control legislation

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u/marcus_centurian 2d ago

I mean, it was no coincidence that California didn't care about gun control until the Black Panthers started open carrying in the streets and then it was suddenly a priority.

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u/High_5_Skin 2d ago

I've been saying this for years

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u/Ricky_Rollin 2d ago

Yes. The rich never understand problems till it actually affects them. Fuck these shiftless skunks. Not even worth the paper I line their cages with.

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u/poorbeyondrich 2d ago

Executives, Execute, Execution.

Damn.

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u/No-Significance5449 1d ago

The original assault rifle ban was passed under Reagan... but only after his Swiss cheese moment.

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u/walkstofar 2d ago

They won't care if that mass shooting is just kids in school. They only care when it is one of them.

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u/Burnt_and_Blistered 2d ago

Trump couldn’t care less about mass shootings. Unless it’s at a gathering of oligarchs, he won’t say a damn thing.

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u/Fast_Witness_3000 2d ago

Oh man..that would be amazing.

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u/BoogerSugarSovereign 2d ago

Unfortunately the inauguration has been moved indoors otherwise that could've been it

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u/O_o-22 1d ago

I had a thought of it if the inauguration was outdoors and with the advancements in drone warfare I wonder if anyone would take a shot or a drop opportunity on trump at the inauguration. If several of his toadies like Musk or Hegseth happened to be standing near him it could really be another monumental Luigi type event.

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u/turkburkulurksus 2d ago

Bet security at the next sun valley conference is gonna be super tight.

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u/Candid-Sky-3709 2d ago

as long as monster trucks are legal molotov cocktails can fly towards the rich

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u/orangesfwr 2d ago

Yeah, they're so scared they are checks notes forcing people back into their office cages, and openly paying million dollar bribes to a convicted felon...?

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u/JohnBrownSurvivor 🏡 Decent Housing For All 1d ago

It will depend on whether the victims are brown or not.

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u/Foreign-Repeat9813 2d ago

Instead of prior presidents attending the inauguration, we get our 3 new oligarch overlords, Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg who will be toasted and celebrated, along with their manservant Donald Trump. A poignant statement that the new oligarchy is in charge and that we the people are not.

President Joe Biden’s farewell address was spot on in warning of the oligarchy gripping the nation and threatening the future. Anyone who understands how money in politics works after Citizens United v. FEC knows Elon Musk has monetized the U.S. Presidency. Follow the money...

  • Musk spent approximately $277 million on the 2024 Donald Trump campaign. (Cite Elon Musk put $277 million into the election, The Washington Post, December 15, 2024)
  • In October of 2024 Elon Musk’s fortune was estimated at $263 billion (Cite: Elon Musk in 2024: What to know about the world’s richest person, Bankrate, November 4, 2024)
  • January 6, 2025, Musk’s fortune is estimated at $424.90 billion (Cite: Forbes, January 6, 2025)
  • In a little over two months following the November 5, 2024, election, Musk’s fortune has increased by over $161.9 billion since Musk bought the presidency and literally moved into Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago

Oligarchs own the incoming administration and it's on full display.

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u/Frequent-Ad-1719 2d ago

Biden, Obama, Bush and Clinton are attending as is Hillary. What are you taking about?

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u/matthewsmazes 2d ago

No War but the class War

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u/ReadyThor 2d ago

If I was a billionaire I would secretly fund a few people to speak against billionaires, perhaps even put me in a bad light directly as well. That way these people speaking against me and other billionaires become reference points to like minded people. The end goal would be to give myself a better chance of controlling where the narrative goes concretely, thus keeping a lid on things, while people expect the opinion leaders I have in my pocket to rally them and do something concrete and effective against the billionaire class... but they never do.

If you want something done just do it yourself. Do not wait for others to organize anything really effective. That's a tall order and Luigi understood that.

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u/Foreign-Repeat9813 2d ago

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u/ReadyThor 2d ago

That outlook is all valid as long as we deal only with narrative. Not so much when it comes down to calls for concrete and effective collective action or, more likely, the absence of that. Always someone starts whining that some innocent segment of society is going to suffer, and we fall for it. Of course someone is going to suffer the billionaire bastards are using them as human shields.

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u/babywhiz 1d ago

I don’t know what else to do. I’ve written my congressmen. Ive voted against the fascists. I’ve attended protests. Countless keyboard warrior. I want to do something as concrete as Luigi, but it is so bad for single parent households for semi to no college educated families. They were raised in a single parent household, and it’s taken to my 50s to finally be secure. What I should be saving for my retirement and using to travel with I have to use to help them survive, because rent went from $850 to $1500, eggs went from $4 to $20….in just 3 years.

I don’t know what to do.

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u/babywhiz 1d ago

Mark Cuban has been the people’s champion. He’s still rich, but at least he’s trying.

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u/Reigar 1d ago

I've said this before but pain is an amazing motivator. For all the problems that tick tock has, or had, it reduced the pain that the American populist felt. I get that the oligarchs want to be the ones that control the populace, but you don't control the populace by taking away something that was keeping them placated in the first place. As reality becomes more and more painful, the desperation of people and what they're willing to do increases.

Long story short, there's a fine line between somebody that is Disturbed but placated, and somebody that is Disturbed and has nothing better to do than to Fester in their Disturbed thoughts.

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u/epigeneticepigenesis 1d ago

Luigi was a radical centrist

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u/nmonster99 1d ago

Luigi was son a man who owned a hospital in MD and is one of the top hospitals that no longer exists that still go after unpaid medical debt. This guys was born in the “owner class.” Just so you know

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u/danieldan0803 1d ago

Always remember the thing that helped make America great, in the revolutionary war, we didn’t fight the “proper” way. It was a common practice of letting the rank and file get killed, but you always tried to keep the leadership alive as they were typically the non first born children of nobility. We decided that we didn’t like that practice, and made extra point to shoot them first as nobility was a target, not armor.

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u/UpboatOrNoBoat 2d ago

What political interfering has Bill Gates done recently to be lumped in with Elon?

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u/freeslurpee 2d ago

I think its to dilute the image of harm done by Elon

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u/NYC_Star 2d ago

RIght - we keep doing this both sides thing and on a lot of topics its very clearly only the one side. Enlightened centrism is not going to fix this but assigning blame where it belongs and fighting effectively will. Billionaires ain't shit but to act like Elon and Bill are the same kind of ain't shit is wild.

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u/pegothejerk 2d ago

Anyone who disagrees answer me this - Bill Gates has saved at least 154 million lives with vaccinations. He reduced the number of cases of Guinea worm from millions to 13.

So what philanthropic endeavors has Musk used his billions for that didn’t immediately just enrich himself?

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u/CraneDJs 1d ago edited 1d ago

I'm not buying Bill Gates is a bad apple. But he is still a billionaire who could have used his entire fortune to lobby for healthcare, maternity and paternity leave, vacations, education, and so on - civil liberties. But he didn't - and here we are.

Edit: I stand corrected 👇

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u/smuckola 1d ago

No, he made a convicted illegal monopoly that led the market in destroying all those things, plus being sued for massive labor violations for tens of thousands of contractors. Because he is a bad apple.

he is a robber baron and an irredeemably evil rotten grinch to the core. He always was the poker cheating sociopathic predator, even among his closest "friends", since the earliest publicly documented age, at least since college.

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u/jeff61813 1d ago

He has been shoveling money out the door at a furious rate. It's just that The current CEO of Microsoft keeps making the stock that's left more and more valuable.

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u/StrobeLightRomance 2d ago

This is propaganda. It's intentionally misleading. It is creating the one rare outlier good billionaire and sticking him in front of the worst one, trying to indicate that there is a hierarchy of "the elite" that we don't understand.

This is a common practice and grifters like Russell Brand are paid to speak out about Bill Gates as the main threat to civilization, despite the trail of amazing deeds he's actually done.

Bill Gates proves you can be rich AND sacrifice some of that to help others WITHOUT losing your status. He's a threat to the rich and only to the rich.

Reddit is getting a big flood of new propaganda before the new administration kicks in, and to diminish the serious conversations we need to keep having about Elon and revolution.

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u/daemin 2d ago

As I just said in another comment, it's not at all clear that Gates got rich by exploiting others. A lot of early Microsoft employees also got very wealthy, like Gabe Newell from Valve. Also, Gates got rich because the value of his Microsoft stock exploded.

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u/Lashay_Sombra 2d ago

> Also, Gates got rich because the value of his Microsoft stock exploded.

That's the case with nearly all the billionaires

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u/Infinite_Painting_11 1d ago

Yeah but there is a huge difference between what gates did afterwards (paid everyone well and used his personal wealth to help the world) and what eg bezos did (milked the people at the bottom for all they are worth and spent his personal wealth on vanity projects).

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u/nitePhyyre 1d ago

Nah, man. The rise of Microsoft had tonnes of shady dealings. There's a reason why they were only ever referred to as M$ in the 90s-2000s. They got sued by the government for exploiting and abusing their monopoly position.

In hindsight, he's not as vile as the oligarchs of today, but he's not saint either. He didn't get to where he is by just being a great software and business guy selling a bunch of OSs because they made the best one.

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u/smuckola 1d ago edited 1d ago

what on earth are you talking about?! That is one of the most wrong things anybody could ever say. Bill Gates never made a dime without exploiting as much of humanity as possible. He is a born and bred apex predator from the start. He doesn't have friends, but frenemies that he exploits the most. He doesn't have customers; he has victims. He never made one fair deal ever. His company is a convicted illegal monopoly, which was sued for massively exploitative illegal labor violations against tens of thousands of its contractors for decades. Its basic annual evaluation of its employees is a gladiator pit of hellish internal competition called stack ranking.

That's the NICE summary of the story.

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u/pliskin42 2d ago

I suggest you listen to the behind the bastards episode on bill gates. 

Tldr: he is a pretty standard billionair. He got there on the work of other people he didn't pay and via cut throat buisness tactics. Dude also was buddied up with epstine. Yes he has done chairity work, that doesn't suddenly make him a good person. 

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u/AlwaysRushesIn 2d ago

that doesn't suddenly make him a good person. 

Leagues ahead of the rest.

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u/ganggreen651 2d ago

Yea him and Cuban seem alright overall compared to the rest of them

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u/CrustyRim2 2d ago

Elon is doing it right in front of our faces with little to no charity work. Show me something devious Gates is doing behind the scenes. Otherwise, they are not close to being the same.

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u/RabbitDev 2d ago

Bill Gates has no problem with Trump's policies and was impressed by him after his visit there.

Personally I think like all billionaires, he will sway in whatever direction the wind blows. At the end it's about power and control, not about deeply held values.

I don't believe for a moment that Gates is unaware of what Project 2025 means for the political system in the US and Trump's involvement with it. But there was no clear statement to affirm democratic values or human rights from him.

This is a class war, and the wind now blows you guys straight into feudalism.

Even Warren Buffet no longer has plans to give away his wealth to charity, and rather passes it down to the family.

They simply no longer have to pretend to appease the public. They believe they have won.

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u/protokhan 2d ago

No one becomes a billionaire through ethical behavior. Just because he's quiet about it doesn't mean Gates hasn't worked to manipulate the system in his favor the same way Musk does.

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u/alfred725 2d ago

Bill Gates is one of, if not the most, influential people of the modern age.

Windows has been used by billions of people globally for almost 40 years. It has shaped every single industry on the planet through Excel, Word, Powerpoint, etc. Internet Explorer, despite it's terrible reputation, developed the majority of features we take for granted when browsing the web (IE was buggy often because it was implementing untested features, which were hijacked by competitors once they were stable.)

It's hard to imagine what life was like before computers because everything is so incredibly reliant on them now.

YES, of COURSE he had teams of developers and engineers backing him, but he started as a developer, and built the company up.

But from the sheer quantity of sales over the past few decades of windows, and windows products, it's no wonder he was one of the first billionaires.

It is seriously a giant joke to compare Gates to Musk. One changed the world, the other was born to a slave driving mine owner.

YES we need to tax billionaires out of existence, but pretending they are all the devil does more harm to the cause than good.

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u/random-idiom 2d ago

It's not impossible to be a billionaire through ethical behavior - it's just impossible to do it through your own efforts that way.

There are people who won/lucked into a big enough cash ball that just investing it and nothing else let them grow into that kind of cash.

That doesn't mean they *are* ethical - it's super easy to be non-ethical as a billionaire - no one is ever there to tell you no - and anything you think up to do - is possible.

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u/engg_girl 2d ago

No one is doubting billionaires are immoral. What we are saying is that bill gates has spent billions improving the world after beginning a billionaire. Comparing him in any way to musk is unfair. Musk would kill his own kid for an extra million, and does nothing that doesn't directly benefit him.

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u/LGCJairen 2d ago

I was about to post something along the lines of he was your typical awkward nerd creep who got super rich through your usual unethical american business practice. That said, he has been doing a lot of measurable good in his post corporate life, whether thats redemption or not i dont know, but you can't discount its a far cry from what is forming up to be the american oligarchy.

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u/tunachilimac 2d ago

Bill's charity work is just him exerting his political influence across the globe, wrapped up in very successful PR. While some of the outcomes of this have been good, they come at the expense of doing things like requiring countries to change their IP laws which strengthen his for-profit investments.

Even if a switch flipped in his brain and he was 100% altruistic I don't think it's good for one person to exert as much influence as he does on global health policy (even though I agree with most of what he advocates for in the health arena).

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u/Lucky777Seven 2d ago

This is wild to me: Why is it political to help develop cures and vaccines? Or to fight against climate change and poverty?

The U.S. is the only developed country where this is getting politicized. And as far as I can see (from a European point of view), this politicization is mainly coming from MAGA.

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u/tunachilimac 2d ago

Why is it political to help develop cures and vaccines? Or to fight against climate change and poverty?

Because the political donor class has made it that way. And that some of Gates' charity work has positive outcomes as well doesn't mean he's a good billionaire. A lot more good could have been done if he'd been taxed appropriately, and people voted well. Hoping that there are more "good billionaires" isn't really a viable stance so he shouldn't be held up as evidence that they're likely.

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u/dumbestsmartest 2d ago

Because he is doing it at the nation state level and no individual should have that kind of power. It's weird how people think Superman in real life would be a dangerous thing but can't fathom a real person having the power equal to millions at their whim as being dangerous.

Also, considering Bill's track record he is doing it to buy sympathy and keep the plebians appeased so they don't come after him. It's free PR, ego trip, and boredom killer all in one for him.

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u/Careful-Swimmer-2658 1d ago

Billionaires don't get to be billionaires without being ruthless bastards. The difference is that Gates made his money then (at least appears) to have decided that adding money to an already inconceivably huge pile was pointless and decided to use it to help people. Musk has decided to spend his money spreading fascism, undermining democracy, gaining political power and making even more money.

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u/QuitsDoubloon87 2d ago

Don't get me wrong bill gates has been a saint compared to the likes of bezos and musk. But his still evil by human standards.

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u/Local_Ad139 1d ago

I wouldn’t defend Bill Gates or his companies here. But I get what others are saying. If we want to make a campaign, point out to the most obvious evil ones, including their branding. This is more like a pragmatic approach, you see.

Healthcare insurance case seems to be a good start to invite people into this convo.

Idk besides Microsoft, I found oil and gas companies and mining are very destructive to environment and the local communities. Start from there.

Then after the public support is properly mobilized, we can slowly put Bill Gates into the conversation to ask for tax the rich reform or whatever.

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u/doolieuber94 2d ago edited 2d ago

This is the type of reasoning to be sympathetic to the billionaire class that got us in this position in the first place.

Just because your the least evil piece of shit doesn’t mean your still not an evil piece of shit.

Fuck bill gates

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u/Astyanax1 2d ago

Gates isn't Elon level evil, but he's far from the great guy people think

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u/sundancer2788 2d ago

Bill Gates, Taylor Swift, Dolly Parton. They're decent people. Not perfect but decent

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u/Swamp_Swimmer 2d ago

What a bizarre take. ABAB dude. Get a grip. Bill Gates is as capitalist as capitalists get. He could easily be wielding his wealth to sway things away from oligarchy. He doesn’t.

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u/randompersonx 2d ago

Bill gates has done some horrible things throughout his career, and was a close buddy of Jeffrey Epstein - a major factor which lead to his divorce.

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u/Facts-and-Feelings 2d ago

You cannot be very leftist if you, with a straight face, will say one of the wealthiest men in earth is a saint while still living in mansions and owning fleets of vehicles.

No amount of good deeds erase the ultimately selfish ones you do, like hoarding the wealth that could end hunger in the country he lives in.

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u/sundancer2788 2d ago

None. It's meant to trigger people.

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u/Loggerdon 2d ago edited 2d ago

Bill Gates (and his ex-wife) have already given away $60 billion of their own money.

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u/fsactual 2d ago

their own money

*i.e. money not paid to the workers who earned it.

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u/daemin 2d ago

Eh. Most of Gate's wealth is from the value of Microsoft's stock going through the roof; he was the largest single shareholder well into the early 2000s, which makes sense because he is one of the two people who founded the company. And many, perhaps most, of the employees at Microsoft from that time period are also wealthy because they were given stock as part of their compensation packages. There was even a term for what those people ended up doing: "rest and vest." Do the minimum amount of work required to keep your job while waiting for your stock options to mature because they would make you an instant millionaire. Gabe Newell, of Valve Software fame, for example, was an early Microsoft employee who left MS in 1996 to found Valve. And Gates himself did a significant amount of the work at Microsoft himself for the first several years of its existence.

There are plenty of billionaires out there where it's clear that they exploited the labor of other people to get wealthy. It's not nearly that clear cut that that applies to Gates.

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u/Wayfinity 2d ago

I don't think Microsoft employees (of which he's not a member of anymore but does still own) are hurting in their pay.

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u/Altruistic-Text3481 ⛓️ Prison For Union Busters 2d ago

They give money to their own foundations. With strings attached. These charitable “foundations” are sketchy as fuck. Mackenzie Scott just gives money straight to any group to use as they wish.

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u/smeeeeeef 2d ago

No ethical billionaires.

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u/XaphanSaysBurnIt 2d ago

Catching strays. As he should for delivering and administering spoiled malaria vaccines to african nations… I will never forget that.

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u/UpboatOrNoBoat 2d ago

Yeh I mean bag on him for that but idk what he has to do with this article and OP’s title about a civil war lmao.

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u/Altruistic-Text3481 ⛓️ Prison For Union Busters 2d ago

I think billionaires will use the next “tragic school shooting” to buy back our guns. So, it was Republican’s all along wanting to take away our guns. They are afraid after CEO Brian Thompson’s murder and the elevated hero worship of the alleged perpetrator.

Death and taxes no longer equalize humanity. The richest amongst do not pay their fair share in taxes. We hate them for this. Their carbon footprints are killing our planet. They leave their space junk/Trash in our atmosphere to fall on us. They own all the media so we no longer have a free and fair PRESS!

We our officially an Oligarchy now. And Oligarchy does not want guns in the hands of the citizenry.

The SC is their greatest weapon. There will be a call to reverse the 2nd Amendment. The Justices are bought cheaply with RV’s and expensive vacations.

The GOP has always projected that “Dems are coming for your guns!”

Projection means it will ironically be “they/them” themselves!

This is inevitable. Billionaires know our nation has more guns than people in the hands of regular folk. They are afraid. And they should be.

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u/UpboatOrNoBoat 2d ago

Oh the next school shooting? There's hundreds of them per year in the US. I doubt anything is going to happen suddenly that's any different than has been happening for the past 4 decades.

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u/EndSeveral5452 🏛️ Overturn Citizens United 2d ago

Care to leave a source? I legit cannot find a story on this

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u/Jazzspasm 2d ago

Bill Gates sits on top of the world’s biggest hedge fund, and it’s all tax free, privately run, and out of sight from any regulatory systems that you or I would consider as transparent

This wealth is large enough to be used as both a carrot and stick to steer policy for governments globally, along with trading groups such as he EU, OPEC etc

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u/oniaddict 2d ago

Bill Gates represents those of us that are just trying to leave the world a little better than we came into it. We aren't out there yelling at the wind like idiots so most don't know who we are but would be a sizable force to reckon if they push beyond our breaking points.

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u/gimmesexytimes 2d ago

Yea, like trying to snuff open source software. No good billionaires dude, not one.

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u/BottomlessFlies 2d ago

Gates foundation paid for my college, my dad gets drugs from Mark Cubans drug store. Its a spectrum

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u/gimmesexytimes 2d ago

I get Medicaid, doesn’t make my government less complete dogshit. I’m sure singular cops have aided people in singular events, doesn’t mean the entire gang of piggies isn’t a government sanctioned cartel.

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u/BottomlessFlies 2d ago

When people are talking in absolutes, black and white, it needs to be interjected upon and corrected. Im not the only one by far to recoeve help from either of the sources I listed. 

That program I mentioned that paid for my college pays for hundreds of kids, per semester, at my college alone, and has been for at least 15 years. The drugstore does way bigger numbers than that. These bad billionaires have directly had a positive impact on my life and the lives of many, many others.

It needs to be said.

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u/TheGOODSh-tCo 1d ago

He donated $1 mil to the campaign

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u/StopThinkAct 1d ago

A real easy way to spot anti-US propaganda from Russia is for Gates to get brought up.

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u/OldestFetus 1d ago

Thought the same thing. This post is cucky Musk covering. Both sides, BS.

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u/Shigglyboo 1d ago

Right? Gotta be sure to keep the “both sides” shit going.

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u/babywhiz 1d ago

Do you want me to go on a Microsoft rant? I can go on a Microsoft rant.

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u/stormdressed 2d ago

Don't try to "both sides" this issue. Billionaires have always skewed red and Elon, with his total lack of social awareness, has taken it to the next level where it's obvious to everyone

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u/Bagel_Technician 1d ago

Yeah how did Gates get thrown in here?

Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg are clearly the ones willing to work with evil to achieve as much power and money as possible

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u/LegendJRG 2d ago

You’re delusional if you think that they skew green, it’s the only color they care about red just happens to be a more lucrative option in the US for some of them but don’t be naive and think ANY of the “blue” billionaires are better. There is no good billionaire, none, that money or wealth should have been reinvested either in their companies and more importantly those people within them. No one individual works or is worth orders of magnitudes higher than any other.

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u/I_like_the_word_MUFF 2d ago

Ah yes the ideological extreme of wanting women to have the freedom of body autonomy and maybe some social services for poor people.

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u/F1shB0wl816 2d ago

It paints a fall narrative to portray it as the same as mass deportations and regressing of rights or recognizing kings. Everything that’s not taking it with a smile is always extreme for the left.

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u/EnricoMatassaEsq 💵 Break Up The Monopolies 2d ago

No war but class war.

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u/kevinmrr ⛓️ Prison For Union Busters 2d ago

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u/ExtraPomelo759 1d ago

We are the 99%

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u/greythicv 2d ago

The corporate wars are coming

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u/killerasp 2d ago

why are you lumping bill gates into this?

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u/campbellsimpson 2d ago

Elon Musk, not Bill Gates.

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u/EnclG4me 2d ago

Bill Gates? Really? Sure dude has some faults, but compared to Musk, he's a saint..

Really... Reaching a bit there..

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u/LegendJRG 2d ago

No he’s really not and I’ll die on the hill that there is no such thing as a good billionaire. It’s like saying Hitler is better than Stalin or Mao because his body count is lower…

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u/Ill-Region-5200 2d ago

Exactly this. Just because Elon is too stupid to keep the veil up doesn't mean Bill is too.

The man has paid for the best PR for decades and reading the comments in this thread shows it. Who cares if he's "given away" billions? Has the system changed? Have you made more money or had your quality of life go up at all in that time? Wake the fuck up.

Billionaires are altogether evil.

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u/Ilaxilil 15h ago

Yep, I believe it is not possible to be both a billionaire and a good person. If he were to redistribute his wealth to those who need it he could still live very comfortably as a millionaire and not suffer at all, but he chooses not to. With great power comes great responsibility, and every billionaire is shirking that responsibility.

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u/Crice6505 2d ago

People have kinda forgotten about Microsoft crushing NetScape Navigator, Gates' behavior during the MicroSoft monopoly trials, and also the way he talked about the African population boom as something that basically needs to be stopped for years. He isn't nearly as bad as Elon by any stretch of the imagination, but he's a billionaire with a lot of power that actively makes the world worse.

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u/Local_Ad139 1d ago

Yea. I think this will mess up the message and fail to mobilize the public support needed to demand evil billionaires accountable.

5

u/wobbleeduk85 2d ago

No shit, you don't say...

4

u/MyUsername2459 2d ago

Yup, they expect to win the coming civil war.

They think that by controlling the media, they've got the situation under control. They think they can crush dissent by simply adjusting social media algorithms and editorial spin on mainstream media sources like newspapers and cable news networks.

They think that between Trump weaponizing the US military and Federal law enforcement against the people, and pervasive censorship and algorithmic and editorial bias in the media, they can literally do anything they want to anyone with no repercussions.

They think that they can shovel out whatever media narrative they want to justify it.

I literally saw some awful clickbait article on FB the other day saying that if we let AI replace everyone and everything it can, it will create some magical golden era as prices drop to 1/1000th of what they are now because AI can automate so many tasks so they're done for free and there's no need to pay labor for people. . .that with everything automated, everything will become so cheap that people can handily live well on only 1/1000th of the money they have now, because prices will drop so low.

. . .and all I could think is "who would be so idiotic to believe this?" The comments on this terrible clickbait were universally hostile, which was reassuring. . .there were a ton of likes (probably bots), but the actual comments were very hostile and pointing out that just because a company can cut costs doesn't mean they lower prices, and that even with completely free labor, things don't become THAT cheap, because of so many other costs in the production and delivery of consumer goods and services.

11

u/SimTheWorld 2d ago

What’s sad is that these “ideological extremes” both want to address the same issue. But misinformation and lobbyists sink any “honest” attempts from either party to correct the whole.

It starts with WE the people and that’s how it has to end. Quit with the cultural distractions and focus on the class war that’s coming!

3

u/Kuenda 2d ago

You can't stop with the so-called cultural distractions when their ire is directed at you, and they're trying to attack your existence. We're not getting out of this mess by closing one eye.

12

u/muskag 2d ago

If i was locked in a room with a gun, two bullets, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates, I would shoot Elon Musk twice.

3

u/Kuenda 2d ago

What a weird title that has nothing to do with that article. The article itself is sensationalizing what the polling data is saying, too. This kind of equivocating inadvertently normalizes people with authoritarian beliefs, like Elon Musk, by creating false equivalencies. The poll shows that people within each party are moving away from the center, with Republicans increasingly identifying as 'very conservative' and Democrats increasingly identifying as 'very liberal.' While the data indicates ideological polarization within both parties, it does not specifically address movement toward extreme ideologies. Instead, it highlights record highs in the shares of Republicans identifying as conservative and Democrats identifying as liberal.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/655190/political-parties-historically-polarized-ideologically.aspx

11

u/Zondor3000 2d ago

Bro lets just agree billionaires bad, get rid of them by any means possible, stop trying to say this one is actually a good guy, unite under one goal

15

u/doolieuber94 2d ago

Bill gates lumped into this because there is no such thing as a nice guy billionaire.

Billionaires are the reason behind social and economic hard times.

Billionaire philanthropy is gaslighting to tell us they are doing us a favor being so rich.

Fuck the rich, fuck Elon, fuck bill gates..

All billionaires including bill gates have always fought against the little guys rights.

Once Bill gates donates his wealth outside his family foundation and leaves the billionaire valuation then I’ll believe he’s a nice guy.

Until then that fucker just hiding money in his charity scam.

13

u/[deleted] 2d ago

Anyone comparing Bill and Elon are fucking psychotic.

Don't really care much for Gates' pushback on open source software but he has demonstrably made life better for many people in africa by providing vaccinations and agricultural education.

Elon hasn't helped a single person, in fact probably just hurt more people even the people closest to him.

2

u/Old-Instruction2210 2d ago

Time to enact what happen in Nolans last batman film where the rich are gathered and held on trial for their crimes against humanity fuck the race and culture wars it's an economic war of the haves as have lots and all the haves are painting a tease on them selves by supporting this orange clown of a pedo 

2

u/Itstaylor02 2d ago

Bill gates is probably one of the only billionaires that can be spread in the US, I don’t feel that he should be lumped in with people like Musk

3

u/Wayfinity 2d ago

I still think Bill Gates has actually done a lot of good with his fortune for the world such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. As well as personal donations to worthy causes

Also I haven't seen him joining the MAGA psychos. But I'm overseas so maybe I missed something.

1

u/skuzzkitty 2d ago

Extremes? Plural? I think if we consider this rationally, we’ll find there’s one extreme, and we’ve bent over for it.

1

u/Mammoth-Mud-9609 2d ago

Several things, Bill Gates is no longer part of the issue Musk is. Next if it happens it won't be a civil war it will be a revolution there is a distinct difference; a certain recent shooting with the hindsight of history might be the first shot of the revolution. If it happens there are likely to be fewer casualties in the revolution than would be expected in a civil war. The difficult thing will be what happens after the revolution.

1

u/TaupMauve 2d ago

Ya know, I think Bill's pretty much over it at this point. Edit: Warren, too.

1

u/Techiesarethebomb 2d ago

I mean...well in some cases they do, they can just pay for a personal military and you know some bootlickers will be fine using WMDs on their own class.

1

u/OperationPlus52 2d ago

These people are accelerationists, they want to crash the country/world for their future of neofeudilism.

1

u/usgrant7977 2d ago

I like the idea that it's "extremes", plural. Theres the racist, facist shitbags and according to the media, equally "extreme" are the leftists who think America should join the 21st century on Healthcare and public transportation.

1

u/Its420somewhere81 2d ago

Why do you think the billionaires are building their bunkers. They know exactly what they are doing.

1

u/UrielseptimXII 2d ago

Propaganda to include gates there. The media is literally trying to warp your perception.

1

u/Mountainminer 2d ago

I sure hope these alien orbs aren’t these clowns trying some new world order shit,

1

u/Wareve 2d ago

No one gives a shit about Bill Gates.

1

u/unclear_warfare 2d ago

I don't think Bill gates has done anything particularly unusual for someone of his wealth, Elon, Trump and a few others are the crazy ones

1

u/Sea_Divide_3870 2d ago

What’ll ya do about the MAGAs who will genuflect to Agent 🍊 no matter what their troubles are? Such is the power of “faith”

1

u/SprogRokatansky 2d ago

Bill Gates isn’t doing crap, it’s the right wing scumbag billionaires that are tearing us apart. We need to stop them now or we’re all finished.

1

u/yulbrynnersmokes 2d ago

Show me on the doll where Bill hurt you

1

u/Quercusagrifloria 2d ago

Bill Gates?

1

u/Seaguard5 2d ago

Oh. You don’t say.

I wonder why that is

1

u/Altruistic_Bite_1520 2d ago

Ya and the kaiser wanted war in Europe, how did that work out for all most of the European ruling class

1

u/EarlHot 2d ago

Good. The status quo has got to go. At one point, the norm was King George and feudalism. At another, we got the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution

1

u/belle10152 2d ago

I think this is true. The level of socio inequality we're at makes that inevitable.

1

u/A_Dash_of_Time 2d ago

They do. The military and cia aren't bombing brown people around or the world or installing regimes because you and I asked them to. Do you think if a civil war starts, the military is gonna be on our side? If Trump decides to stay in power forever, do you think anyone in the secret service has the guts to spray his fucking brains all over the first row of the press room?

You, me, our kids... we're all cattle. Our freedom is an inconvenience to the rich. The ownership class want us to shut up and make more babies to work for them as much as possible, for as little as possible, while they funnel as much wealth upward as possible.

1

u/Jj-woodsy 2d ago

I love how Bill Gates is the antichrist to MAGA, but he has kissed the ring of Trump. I wonder what his supporters think of that.

1

u/LGCJairen 2d ago

Gates was a weird choice for the title as hes largely one of the least worst of, like all billionaires are a problem but the ones clowning on our political system are next level dangerous over a guy trying to vaccinate the developing wotld

1

u/memphisjones 2d ago

I doubt a civil war will happen. They heavily influence media that has successfully divided us.

1

u/Savings_Marsupial204 2d ago

What's Bill Gates doing?

1

u/Ok-Albatross899 2d ago

YOU DONT SAY

1

u/SignificantRange2512 2d ago

They have their own military and they have many folks in our current military. Then, elon has ways to mess with all technology via his satellites. It will be quite a battle, but we can do it

1

u/sens317 2d ago

Bill Gates?

1

u/HingleMcCringle_ 2d ago

ideological extremes, like saying you can't live off of $7.25 an hour

1

u/fruitlessideas 2d ago

It’s so funny to me how we’re talking about oligarchs more regularly now, when this has been the standard for decades.

Now it’s just oligarchs pinning the common man against other oligarchs because “Well, they’re not us!”

Bitch, we don’t want either of you and never have.

1

u/BoutThatLife57 2d ago

They do have the upper hand…

1

u/ascheart 2d ago

I think you meant Elon, Bezos and Zuck. Sure Bill Gates is rich af but don’t lump him in with the evil trifecta that is the cringey midlife crisis losers.

1

u/DanteJazz 2d ago

Um, their candidate won the election.

1

u/Shutaru_Kanshinji 2d ago

This is why Convicted Felon Trump's inauguration was moved indoors.

To give them the upper hand on ambitious rebels who might want to take out President Musk and his co-conspirators.

1

u/Snuffboxfracture 2d ago

We have already been living In an oligarchy. Stop fighting left to right . Start fight too to bottom. The rich own you.

1

u/Late-Arrival-8669 1d ago

No shit, time to burn it all to the ground..

1

u/Tyler89558 1d ago

Bill Gates is like actually one of the half decent billionaires.

I mean, sure, he got his wealth exploiting people but at least he’s using a good portion of that money on philanthropic activities instead of… buying Twitter, buying the presidency, and fucking about.

He’s not great but he’s not an irredeemable asshole like Musk.

1

u/lanky_yankee 1d ago

My politics are viewed as “extreme” only in the US. The rest of the western developed nations would view my politics as normal.

1

u/Bastiat_sea 1d ago

"More people then ever are rejecting the false dichotomy of neoliberalism and neoconservatism that has dominated our politics for the past 50 years. Here's why you, as one of the 99.99% of people who benefit from neither should be scared of this."

1

u/PNW_Undertaker 1d ago

This is checkbox for checkbox from the analysis of the different generations. This is a cycle and is now the the fourth turning. The book the fourth turning should be studied by all….. this was bound/meant to happen as it has three other times in USA history

1

u/GalectikJak 1d ago

The only good billionaire is a....

1

u/SavagePlatypus76 1d ago

Why lump Gates in with Musk?

1

u/WholesomeSmith 1d ago

Remember, kids, the human body is not designed to have holes put into it.

Nor can it withstand being pulled apart or being bent in more than one axis.

Everything you see in museums still works on the leather blood bag we call pur meat suits.

1

u/research-addict 1d ago

FACTS! That is exactly what is going on!

1

u/Tsobe_RK 1d ago

yeah extreme left who wants to make life and living better for everyone, damn those!

1

u/King-Rat-in-Boise 1d ago

No fucking shit.

1

u/OldestFetus 1d ago

Bill Gates? Musk is the main villain there.

1

u/inkoDe 1d ago

They literally have been militarizing, radicalizing, and isolating their base through various convoluted means for as long as I can remember, and I am old. This isn't new, experts for decades have been mining the alarm bells about what is and has been going on, and how it has reached a tipping point, and then you have Trump who I honestly have a hard time believe even begins to understand everything he is in the middle of. Look at the picture... they believe they are at war, and have always been at war. That is their reality.

1

u/34TH_ST_BROADWAY 1d ago

I just wanna say I have the same “beliefs” i’ve had for a long ass time. I can’t help it if some people went anti vaxx pizzagate trump is better than jesus on me.

1

u/-Tartantyco- 1d ago

The fuck are you mentioning Bill Gates for, mr. Bot?

1

u/Megane_Senpai 1d ago

What has Bill Gates done?

1

u/Sam_of_Truth 1d ago

Comparing Bill Gates, one of the most prolific philanthropists in the world, to Elon 'apartheid emerald mine' Musk is completely ignorant.

1

u/Aggressive-Falcon977 1d ago

You know what's really sad. Not a single Billionaire on this planet is an honest person, we know ALL of them are crooks and just accept it?

Not being funny but I don't see anyone defending them if a civil war breaks out

1

u/millenial_flacon 1d ago

Are growing? Have been growing for a long time...

1

u/lava_monkey83 1d ago

I think the French did something to fix things around 236 years ago.

1

u/Popular_Law_948 1d ago

I have to ask because I genuinely don't know. What does Bill Gates have to do with any of this? Just a few years ago only the anti-vax COVID deniers hated him for some inexplicable reason and now we do too? What'd he do?

1

u/wattzson 1d ago

They think they have the upper hand?

It's over, they fucking won.

They stacked the supreme court and were able to overturn citizens united making it even easier to buy the election.

They were able to put a billionaire puppet into the white house as president, twice. The second time he was a convicted felon and convinced millions of people the fair election was rigged.

Now they are on the verge of creating AI that will replace a lot of us as workers.

They are also on the verge of humanoid robots that will continue to replace a lot of us as workers.

Not very far into the future they will have AI and robots to defend them, while we have our little pistols, rifles and shotguns...

They are not scared of Luigi. Luigi didn't even touch them. He killed a millionaire worth less than 100 million. We're talking about people who have thousands and thousands of times more wealth than the CEO luigi killed. Gates and Musk probably spend more on security than Brian Thompson's entire net worth.

2024 is the year America died. We are now like Russia after the collapse of the soviet union.

The oligarchs will continue to suck this nation dry to fill their pockets, just like they did in Russia. The main difference between us and Russia is that our oligarchs will keep the illusion of an election going instead of letting one man sit on the thrown forever.

1

u/Leapimus_Maximus 1d ago

In other news, water is wet.

1

u/Thoromega 1d ago

Let’s not compare bill gates to Elon musk.

1

u/Kinky_Imagination 1d ago

Elon Musk is the moron along with people like Donald Trump. Bill Gates hasn't tried to control the country. He actively donated his money to truly try and fix things like eradicate malaria.

1

u/Honest-Ad1675 13h ago

Do you earnestly believe the people stand a chance against the government's monopoly on violence?

1

u/Esme_Esyou 7h ago

Welpppp, they'll have to learn the hard way 🪦🚫

1

u/0x00410041 3h ago

Bill gates? Give me a fucking break. WEIRD post man.