Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is not a fan of billionaires like Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg publicly backing President Donald Trump.
She made that clear during a Thursday appearance on Jon Stewart’s “The Weekly Show” podcast, saying, “This is now a billionaire feeding frenzy. It is a kiss ass race.”
“Mannn,” Stewart sighed, before AOC continued: “It is, how can I show how much fealty I have to Donald Trump in order to get my digs? And I think what’s really important for people to understand — now and every day of this administration — is that you’re being ripped off. You’re being ripped off, dude.”
Musk, notably, contributed $277 million to help get Trump back in the White House. And he was joined by a number of other Big Tech CEOs who sat behind Trump at his inauguration on Monday, including Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
(You can read what the president’s supporters felt about the tech CEOs going to Washington, D.C., to “kiss Trump’s ring” by clicking here.)
Interestingly, Trump’s opponent in the 2024 presidential election received far more support from billionaires; Vice President Kamala Harris was backed by 83 billionaires, while Trump received support from 53 billionaires, according to Forbes.
More billionaires backed Joe Biden against Trump in 2020 as well. Biden received donations from 230 billionaires, Forbes reported, while Trump received donations from 133 billionaires.
Ocasio-Cortez, during her Thursday podcast appearance, added that Trump is a” quintessential New York con man.” She also said he is “much more dangerous” now compared to his first term because he has been “normalized.”
Still, the New York congresswoman had some criticism for her own party as well, saying the Democratic party needs to be able to give Americans a “clear answer” on what it stands for.
You can hear her full conversation with Stewart — which includes an intriguing section on lawmakers getting rich off of stock trading — on Spotify and on Apple Podcasts.
