Perhaps in a moment of incoherence, this three-tweet set was launched. It is just plain goofy (unless he is buttering up “the right” for after mid-terms…?)
In what looks like some kind of twisted attempt at being diplomatic, Elon Musk’s latest tweet manages to clarify his stance regarding “free-speech“ about as much as a mud bath clarifies a cupcake.
Leading off with a bizarre attack on what he Calls “the far left “, he explains that it is his contention that they “hate everyone including themselves”.
Standing alone this is already a bizarre statement, which seems like a far right talking point, typical of the Joe Rogan school of anti-cancel culture and anti-so-called “woke-mob”.
He follows this up with a disclaimer of sorts, as bland as it can be stating that he is “no fan” of the far right, either.
One would have to be forgiven if they thought that this implied, in its very wording, an actual bias toward the far right which is what many already believe.
Ending his three-tweet soufflé on the flat “Let’s have less hate and more love” the responses, not surprisingly, were a very loving mix of WTF and ????
To be fair, there were also lots like this:
If you ever run for President of United States 🇺🇸 you definitely have my vote 🗳 You are awesome my friend 🙏
But, the way his tweets were so oddly posted, there was definitely a sense among “lefties” that he was biased. And it didn’t take a genius, but merely @cjwalker21, to retort:
It actually seems odd, that Elon Musk would wade (or dive head first) into a “left vs. right” argument that has no hope of any kind of resolution. And pretending that the disagreements are equal on some level and love can just be ratcheted up as if it was cheap rocket fuel, seems odd…
In the US, far left is free healthcare and education, far right is no abortions allowed.
Honestly, if you just look at the numbers, maybe you don’t see taxes as the answer, but considering the company Elon is in (Zuckerberg and Bezos?) there’s clearly something wrong with this picture?
Periodically, we get a glimpse into the financial lives of the ultrarich. A pro athlete signs a huge contract, a tech CEO sells a boatload of shares in their company, or a billionaire heir unloads a Manhattan penthouse. Based on these nuggets of information, the media speculates as to how much income the rich might bring in every year. But nobody actually knows.
The analysis also shows how much they paid in federal income taxes — and it demonstrates how the American tax system, which theoretically makes the highest earners pay the highest income tax rates, fails to do so for the people at the very top of the income pyramid.
The top 400 earners pay noticeably lower tax rates than the merely rich; and, if you include payroll taxes, a married couple making $200,000 a year could end up paying higher tax rates than a person making $200 million a year. (The full analysis is here; it includes selected names beyond the top 15.)
Names That Won’t Surprise You
Scan the names on the list of the top 15 income earners and you’re certain to recognize several names — or at least the names of the companies they founded. Bill Gates hasn’t been involved in the day-to-day operations of Microsoft for over a decade, yet he still earned the most during the years we studied, reporting an average yearly income of $2.85 billion — and an effective federal income tax rate of 18.4%. Steve Ballmer, his former colleague, is also a well-known public figure, both for his time as Microsoft CEO and his current ownership of the Los Angeles Clippers NBA team.
Ballmer’s average annual reported income of $1.05 billion landed him in the 10th spot on the list, and his effective federal income tax rate was 14.1%. The other side of the PC/Mac wars is represented here by Laurene Powell Jobs, widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs.
Her average reported income of $1.57 billion ranked fifth-highest; she paid an effective tax rate of 14.8%. (ProPublica sought comment from everyone mentioned in this article. Nobody disputed the numbers cited here. Unless otherwise noted, representatives for people named in this article either declined to comment, declined to comment on the record or did not respond to requests for comment.)
Another well-known billionaire sits just below Gates on the list: Media and tech mogul and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, with an average reported income of just over $2 billion, paid an effective income tax rate of 4.1%, by far the lowest rate among the top 15. (A spokesperson told ProPublica for an earlier article that Bloomberg “pays the maximum tax rate on all federal, state, local and international taxable income as prescribed by law,” and cited Bloomberg’s philanthropic giving.)
The presence of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos — either the first- or second-wealthiest person in America, depending on the day — won’t shock most people, but Bezos’s annual reported income during these years of $832 million put him only at number 15. He paid an effective tax rate of 23.2%; as we’ve previously reported, Bezos had so little income in a couple of recent years that he was able to pay $0 in federal income taxes in those periods.
Who Are These Others and Why Are They Paying Higher Tax Rates?
Tech billionaires dominate the top 15, but hedge fund managers account for a full third of the names on this list, and some of their incomes were just as huge. Most of them paid relatively high effective tax rates, especially compared to most of the tech sector representatives. Hedge fund managers often make their money through short-term trades, which are taxed at a much higher rate than when tech titans cash in on long-term investments.
The highest-earning hedge funder is Ken Griffin, founder of the Chicago-based firm Citadel. From 2013 to 2018, he reported an average income of nearly $1.7 billion, putting him fourth on the list. Griffin paid a tax rate of 29.2% during these years. (A spokesperson for Griffin said the tax rates in the IRS data “significantly understate” what Griffin pays, because they were lowered by charitable contributions and do not reflect local and state taxes. He also said Griffin pays foreign taxes, which aren’t included in IRS calculations of effective tax rate.)
Israel Englander, co-founder of Millennium Management, paid at a 30.8% rate, while the co-founders of Two Sigma Investments, David Siegel and John Overdeck, paid tax rates of 31.6% and 34.2%, respectively.
Some of this variation in rates reflects how people structure their businesses under tax law. Income earned by publicly traded corporations is taxed at the company level. When it’s passed on to big shareholders, such as tech billionaires, it can come in the form of dividends, which are taxed at lower rates than ordinary income. By contrast, the income from some manufacturing companies and hedge funds flows directly to company owners, who pay taxes on it, resulting in higher effective tax rates on average.
Where Are the Heirs?
Lists of the world’s wealthiest individuals are always heavily populated by heirs, ranging from descendents of old money to scions of more recently minted fortunes. Dozens of heirs made ProPublica’s list of 400 biggest income earners. Descendents and relatives of Sam Walton, founder of Walmart, claim 11 spots.
The DeVos family, heirs to the Amway fortune, also have multiple members in the top 400. Perhaps the best known is Betsy DeVos, who served as U.S. secretary of education during the Donald Trump administration. With a reported annual income of $112 million, she was the 389th-highest earner in this period.
Much like the tech titans who top the list, most of these heirs get their income from dividends or long-term investments, which are taxed at a lower rate. Their effective tax rates ranged from as low as 10.6% for Betsy DeVos to a high of 23% paid by Walmart heirTom Walton.
Don’t Forget the Deductions
Another key way that some top earners reduced their tax liability was to claim significant deductions, often in the form of large charitable contributions. This is particularly true for wealthy investors who are able to make their donations with shares of stock. Thanks to a generous provision of the tax code, they can then deduct the full value of the stock at its current price — without having to first sell it and pay capital gains tax.
Michael Bloomberg achieved a tax rate of 4.1% from 2013 to 2018 by taking annual deductions of more than $1 billion, mostly through charitable contributions. From 2013 to 2017, he also wrote off an average of $400 million each year from what he’d paid in state and local taxes. The 2018 tax overhaul limited that deduction to $10,000 — but also introduced a huge new deduction for pass-through companies that Bloomberg benefited from.
Wait — What About the Celebrities?
The earnings of actors, musicians and sports stars are a subject of nonstop scrutiny in the media, yet few celebrities cracked the list of the top 400 earners, which would have required them to report annual incomes of at least $110 million.
ProPublica’s trove has data on many celebrities. One who came close to the top 400 is basketball superstar LeBron James, who averaged $96 million a year in reported income. Grammy-winning singer Taylor Swift also came within reach of the top 400, averaging $82 million in reported income during these years. Actor George Clooney would have had to double his average income of $55 million to crack the top 400.
“While Americans struggle with high gas prices, these companies are doing victory laps, showering their already wealthy executives and shareholders with billions in stock buybacks and bonus compensation,” said one watchdog group. “They should be ashamed.”
As people across the United States face record-high gas prices—compounded by rising grocery bills and prices for other essentials—executives at three major oil companies are refusing to testify before Congress about what their firms could do to lessen the burden on U.S. households, leaving Democratic lawmakers and consumer advocates to condemn the companies for profiting amid lower and middle-class people’s financial pain.
Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee, had invited the CEOs of EOG Resources Inc., Devon Energy Corp. and Occidental Petroleum Corp. to testify next week, only to be rebuffedTuesday by the executives, who have personally profited off gas prices which averaged $4.24 per gallon on Monday.
“I invited these companies to come before the committee and make their case, but apparently they don’t think it’s worth defending,” Grijalva said in a statement Tuesday. “Their silence tells us all we need to know—that cries for more drilling and looser regulations are nothing more than another age-old attempt to line their own pockets.
I invited oil and gas companies to come before @NRDems to defend raising gas prices, raking in record profits, hurting Americans, and pushing for a drilling free-for-all. Apparently, they don't think their actions are worth defending. https://t.co/CuZdHWlHak
Since oil and gas prices began rising earlier this year as traveling and commuting increased, and went up further following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, the fossil fuel industry has claimed the Biden administration should release more permits for drilling on public lands and accelerate approval of permits for building energy infrastructure, with the American Petroleum Institute pushing for what Grijalva called “a domestic drilling free-for-all” earlier this month.
Lawmakers including Grijalva have argued that the companies could easily stabilize gas prices immediately, considering the billions of dollars in profits EOG Resources, Devon Energy, and Occidental Petroleum raked in last year.
Instead, watchdog group Accountable.US said Tuesday, Occidental Petroleum planned to use $3 billion for stock buybacks in 2022, while Devon Energy gave nearly $2 billion in share buybacks and dividends to shareholders last year. EOG Resources gave CEO William R. Thomas a $150,000 raise in 2021, making his total compensation $9.8 million.
“We want to work with them to reduce gas prices, but it seems as though they’re too busy taking in record profits while refusing to pass savings on to consumers,” said Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.), a member of the Natural Resources Committee.
Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) sarcastically expressed empathy for the “spineless” executives who refused to testify before Grijalva’s committee.
If I were a spineless, unethical oil corporation raking in record profits at the expense of consumers I probably wouldn’t want to answer questions either. https://t.co/XqSLR4agUJ
“It is hardly surprising that EOG Resources, Devon Energy, and Occidental Petroleum are dodging accountability by refusing to testify in Congress,” said Kyle Herrig, president of watchdog group Accountable.US. “While Americans struggle with high gas prices, these companies are doing victory laps, showering their already wealthy executives and shareholders with billions in stock buybacks and bonus compensation. They should be ashamed.”
Grijalva noted that while the industry has used the Russian invasion of Ukraine to call for even more freedom to drill for oil and gas, fossil fuel companies hold leases on 26 million acres of land.
“These same companies already have over 9,000 approved permits they can use whenever they want,” Grijalva toldPublic News Service on Tuesday. “And the very companies with thousands of acres of existing leases and hundreds of unused permits are the same ones shouting that they need more land for drilling.”
According to Accountable.US, the three companies refusing to speak to Grijalva’s committee “are among the top leaseholders of public lands oil and gas leases with 4,114 leases covering nearly 1.5 million acres.”
Companies including BP, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, and Shell have also been invited to testify at upcoming hearings on their business practices and impacts on consumers. In February, board members from the four companies refused to testify about the firms’ climate pledges.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) noted last week that oil prices dropped in recent days, but no savings were passed onto consumers.
“The bewildering incongruity between falling oil prices and rising gas prices smacks of price gouging and is deeply damaging to working Americans,” Schumer said last week. “The Senate is going to get answers.”
Originally published on Common Dreams by JULIA CONLEY and republished under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
The wealth-hoarding by ultrarich families would be equivalent to over four Build Back Better plans
Over the next few decades, the richest American families could avoid paying about $8.4 trillion in taxes, or more than four times the cost of the stalled Build Back Better package, according to a report released Wednesday.
“We can fix our broken estate and gift tax system… or we can trust our democracy to a handful of trillionaire trust fund babies.”
The new analysis details how loopholes have made the payment of estate, gift, and generation-skipping taxes—collectively called wealth-transfer taxes—effectively optional for the “ultrawealthy” and thereby accelerate the “accumulation of dynastic wealth.”
“Ultrarich families use dynasty trusts—the term for a variety of wealth-accumulating structures that remain in place for multiple generations—to ensure their fortunes cascade down to children, grandchildren, and beyond undiminished by wealth-transfer taxes,” the report explains.
Some U.S. states, such as South Dakota, have even changed their laws on dynasty trusts to attract wealthy residents, as Chuck Collins of the Institute for Policy highlighted last year.
The new report notes that U.S. lawmakers aren’t planning to address the issue, even if the Senate passes a version of a House-approved package:
The Build Back Better (BBB) legislation now before Congress—otherwise a vehicle for significant progressive tax reform—does nothing to directly reverse this toxic accumulation of dynastic wealth. Moreover, some dynasty trust reforms that were included in the bill passed by the House Ways and Means Committee in September 2021 were stripped out before the House voted on the measure in November.
The BBB bill needs full support from Senate Democrats to pass. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.)—one of the primary reasons the legislation hasn’t reached President Joe Biden’s desk—said Tuesday that it is “dead.”
However, Americans for Tax Fairness still uses the whittled-down BBB package to illustrate just how much money wealthy Americans can hoard for their families in the years ahead thanks to the U.S. tax system.
“The tax savings for the richest families could be about $8.4 trillion over the next 24 years or so if the current 40% estate tax rate remains in place,” the report states. “That’s the equivalent of more than four Build Back Better plans costing $1.75 trillion each over 10 years.”
The report adds that “about half of the $8.4 trillion is equivalent to the cost of the expanded child tax credit, which was included in the House-passed BBB bill and is estimated to reduce childhood poverty by 40%, for 24 years at $160 billion a year.”
There's no denying our economy and democracy are rigged in favor of the ultra-wealthy.
When the richest 100 Americans have 60,000 times more political power than the bottom 90% of people— it's time to get dynastic wealth under control. https://t.co/U1s6HmY1XC
“This hoarding of wealth is inexcusable,” declared the report’s principal author, Bob Lord, who practiced estate law for 30 years before joining Americans for Tax Fairness as tax counsel.
“The BBB legislation now before the U.S. Senate should be amended to close loopholes in the three components of America’s wealth transfer tax system: the estate, gift, and generation-skipping tax,” he asserted. “Effective reforms have already been developed—all that’s needed is for Congress to recognize the urgency to act now.”
The group’s new analysis and call for action come after Americans for Tax Fairness estimated last month that the 10 wealthiest billionaires in the United States have become approximately $1 billion richer collectively every day of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Wednesday’s report contains a warning about that group of ultra-billionaires, mentioning by name Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk of Telsa and SpaceX.
“As much as familiar fortunes have blossomed in the low-regulation, low-tax, wealth-worshiping environment of the previous 40 years,” the report says, “the next 40 and beyond could see the rise of economic dynasties that will make the old money look small.”
Along with closing dynasty-trust tax loopholes, Americans for Tax Fairness urges reforms that would “curb the year-to-year accumulation of wealth in existing trusts.” Specifically, it calls for a new income-tax bracket “on undistributed trust income in excess of $250,000 that is five percentage points higher than the maximum income-tax bracket for individuals.”
Noting a proposal from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the group also encourages U.S. lawmakers to “impose an annual 2% wealth tax on the portion of a dynasty trust’s holdings that exceed $50 million, and an additional 1% on dynasty trust accumulations in excess of $1 billion.”
“The choice is clear,” according to the report. “We can fix our broken estate and gift tax system and stop the concentration of an ever-larger share of America’s wealth inside enormous dynasty trusts, or we can trust our democracy to a handful of trillionaire trust fund babies.”
“Fortunately, we know what needs to be done,” the report concludes. “The sole remaining challenge is to summon the courage to stand up to the holders of dynastic wealth and their enablers.”
Originally published on Common Dreams by JESSICA CORBETT and republished under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
Frances Haugen said the company’s leaders know how to make their platforms safer, “but won’t make the necessary changes because they have put their astronomical profits before people.
Two days after a bombshell “60 Minutes” interview in which she accused Facebook of knowingly failing to stop the spread of dangerous lies andhateful content, whistleblower Frances Haugen testified Tuesday before U.S. senators, imploring Congress to hold the company and its CEO accountable for the many harms they cause.
Haugen—a former Facebook product manager—told the senators she went to work at the social media giant because she believed in its “potential to bring out the best in us.”
“But I’m here today because I believe Facebook’s products harm children, stoke division, and weaken our democracy,” she said during her opening testimony. “The company’s leadership knows how to make Facebook and Instagram safer, but won’t make the necessary changes because they have put their astronomical profits before people.”
“The documents I have provided to Congress prove that Facebook has repeatedly misled the public about what its own research reveals about the safety of children, the efficacy of its artificial intelligence systems, and its role in spreading divisive and extreme messages,” she continued. “I came forward because I believe that every human being deserves the dignity of truth.”
Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen: "I saw Facebook repeatedly encounter conflicts between its own profits and our safety. Facebook consistently resolved its conflicts in favor of its own profits."
“I saw Facebook repeatedly encounter conflicts between its own profits and our safety,” Haugen added. “Facebook consistently resolved its conflicts in favor of its own profits.”
“In some cases, this dangerous online talk has led to actual violence that harms and even kills people,” she said.
Addressing Monday’s worldwide Facebook outage, Haugen said that “for more than five hours, Facebook wasn’t used to deepen divides, destabilize democracies, and make young girls and women feel bad about their bodies.”
“It also means that millions of small businesses weren’t able to reach potential customers, and countless photos of new babies weren’t joyously celebrated by family and friends around the world,” she added. “I believe in the potential of Facebook. We can have social media we enjoy that connects us without tearing apart our democracy, putting our children in danger, and sowing ethnic violence around the world. We can do better.”
Doing better will require Congress to act, because Facebook “won’t solve this crisis without your help,” Haugen told the senators, echoing experts and activists who continue to call for breaking up tech giants, banning the surveillance capitalist business model, and protecting rights and democracy online.
She added that “there is nobody currently holding Zuckerberg accountable but himself,” referring to Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.)—chair of the Senate Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security Subcommittee—called on Zuckerberg to testify before the panel.
“Mark Zuckerberg ought to be looking at himself in the mirror today and yet rather than taking responsibility, and showing leadership, Mr. Zuckerberg is going sailing,” he said.
Frances Haugen strongly shakes her head in agreement as Richard Blumenthal says "Mark Zuckerberg ought to be looking at himself in the mirror" and "Zuckerberg, you need to come before this committee." pic.twitter.com/QC0B6zK9tW
“Big Tech now faces a Big Tobacco, jaw-dropping moment of truth. It is documented proof that Facebook knows its products can be addictive and toxic to children,” Blumenthal continued.
“The damage to self-interest and self-worth inflicted by Facebook today will haunt a generation,” he added. “Feelings of inadequacy and insecurity, rejection, and self-hatred will impact this generation for years to come. Our children are the ones who are victims.”
Originally published on Common Dreams by BRETT WILKINSand republished under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
“It’s important to address the fact that billionaire heirs may never pay tax on billions in stock gains.”
Sen. Ron Wyden, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, warned Tuesday that House Democrats’ newly released tax plan would let U.S. billionaires off the hook by omitting key reforms that progressive lawmakers, advocacy organizations, and President Joe Biden have embraced.
“It would be a monumental mistake for Congress to pass a bill that really exempts billionaires,” Wyden (D-Ore.) told the New York Times in response to the House Ways and Means Committee’s proposal, which was spearheaded by Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.).
While the House plan (pdf) would hike taxes on large corporations and the top 1% of earners in the U.S., analysts and Democratic lawmakers have voiced concerns that it doesn’t go nearly as far as it should to raise revenue for policy priorities and tackle the nation’s runaway income inequality, which the coronavirus crisis has made even worse. According to one recent analysis, the collective wealth of U.S. billionaires has risen by $1.8 trillion—62%—during the pandemic.
Wyden’s committee is in the process of crafting a tax plan of its own as Democrats race to compile their sprawling budget reconciliation package, which is expected to include major investments in green energy, healthcare, housing, and other key areas.
Specifically, Wyden and progressive organizations criticized the House Ways and Means Committee for failing to tackle a loophole that allows the ultra-wealthy to pass on massive fortunes to their heirs tax-free. Earlier this year, Biden released a tax plan that would close the loophole.
“It’s important to address the fact that billionaire heirs may never pay tax on billions in stock gains,” Wyden toldHuffPost on Monday. “The nurses, firefighters, and teachers who pay their taxes with every paycheck know the system is broken when billionaire heirs never pay tax on billions in stock gains.”
Steve Wamhoff, director of federal tax policy at the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), echoed Wyden’s concern, noting in an interview with the Washington Post that “if the Ways and Means plan was enacted as is, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk would still pay an effective rate of $0 on most of their income if they pass their assets on to their heirs.”
“It’s obviously a big improvement over the tax code we have now,” Wamhoff said of the House plan, “but there are a lot of things Biden suggested that would go a lot further.”
I agree with Chairman @RonWyden: we need to pass a bill that ensures that billionaires and corporations are finally paying their fair share. A wealth tax and my Real Corporate Profits Tax are two ways to get that done. https://t.co/xTtTQ8PGx2
On Tuesday, the progressive advocacy group Patriotic Millionaires made the House plan’s shortcomings the focus of a new mobile billboard campaign that features an image of Bezos—the richest man in the world—accompanied by the caption, “Oops! Missed me! (Thanks, Richie Neal!)”
“Richard Neal and the House Ways and Means Committee failed the president, failed the country, and failed history. It’s that simple,” Morris Pearl, chair of the Patriotic Millionaires, said in a statement. “This is not what the American people voted for when they elected Joe Biden as president.”
To remedy the proposal, the Patriotic Millionaires urged the House Democratic leadership to make several changes, including:
End the preferential tax rate for capital gains income over $1 million as President Biden requested. There is no intellectual or economic justification for working people in America to pay a higher tax rate than investors.
Eliminate the “stepped up basis” that allows the heirs of billionaires to avoid capital gains taxes on inherited assets (provide a reasonable exemption for family farms and small businesses). The committee’s failure to address this problem at all is particularly troubling.
End the Carried Interest Loophole which allows fund managers to mischaracterize their “ordinary” income as capital gain income for tax purposes. The Ways and Means proposal extends the hold time for investments to five years. Given that most private equity firms hold investments for six years, this change will have essentially zero effect. The loophole should be eliminated entirely.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), whose “Tax the Rich” dress at the lavish 2021 Met Gala made waves on social media, said Tuesday that “members of both parties have tried to halt taxing the wealthiest in our society” even after billionaires made enormous wealth gains during the pandemic.
“It’s unacceptable,” the New York Democrat added. “We must tax the rich.”
According to a June survey released by Americans for Tax Fairness, 72% of U.S. voters support closing “loopholes that let the wealthy avoid paying taxes on the profits from assets they transfer to heirs.” The poll also found that 62% of voters support raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%.
The House Ways and Means Committee proposal would only raise the corporate rate to 26.5%.
As Chuck Collins and Sarah Anderson of the Institute for Policy Studies argued in a blog post on Monday, “The public has a tremendous appetite to do much more to address the grotesque concentrations of democracy-distorting wealth and power—and to shut down the ways that billionaires and a few hundred global corporations manipulate our tax system.”
“House Democratic tax writers do not go far enough to raise revenue or reduce extreme wealth inequality,” Collins and Anderson wrote. “The tax reforms would generate an estimated $2.2 trillion—just barely more than the revenue lost due to the 2017 Republican tax cuts.”
Long-time adviser and spokesperson for the Trump campaign, Jason Miller, stated on on Fox’s “MediaBuzz” that the former guy would be “returning to social media in probably about two or three months.”
In typical fashion spokesperson says it will be huge
Next he bragged that his return to social media would be via “his own platform” and that this new network would garner “tens of millions” of users and in his opinion would also “completely redefine the game.”
“It’s going to completely redefine the game, and everybody is going to be waiting and watching to see what President Trump does, but it will be his own platform.”
—Jason Miller, Trump Spokesperson
This news comes at a time when the furor of constant rage tweeting from the former guy has finally died down. It remains to be seen if this announcement is credible as there are pending legal and financial challenges that could potentially stand in the way of such an undertaking.
Series of Silicon Valley cautionary tale in development
Jared Leto could be returning to a TV screen near you. It has been well over 20 years since the show “My So-Called Life” that the actor has starred in any small screen episodic. This news come with reports that writer and producer Lee Eisenberg and studio exec Drew Crevello are developing a series for Apple TV+ based on the infamous workspace rental startup company ‘WeWork’.
The series concept is inspired by the 6 part podcast called “WeCrashed: The Rise and Fall of WeWork”. If Oscar winner Leto signs on to the TV show, he would be cast as the former boss of WeWork, Adam Neumann.
Neumann, who served as CEO for the company from 2010 to 2019 and later resigned. According to reports at the time, his “eccentric behavior” was one of the main reasons he was pressured to step down.
Leto, who is known for choosing equally eccentric and challenging characters, including his work in “Suicide Squad”, “American Psycho” and “Dallas Buyers Club”, could likely more than fit the bill to play Neumann.
Prior to WeWork’s collapse, it had an estimated value of $47 billion. The series has been in development since February with Leto currently in negotiations, with additional information to come in the future.
