The enemy of my enemy is a billionaire. Get over it
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As soon as enough votes were counted to officially knock Tom Steyer out of the California governor’s race, the anti-billionaire schadenfreude kicked in.
Social media and legacy media, conservative and liberal, all seemed to have a rare melding of the minds, delivering endless variations of, “How dare he try to buy elected office! We showed him.”
“I hope you received the message from California that a power-hungry communist billionaire cannot buy the state!” wrote one detractor on social media. “How much money did you waste spamming Californians? Do you know how many hundreds of millions of dollars you wasted?”
“What a waste,” screamed a New York Times headline, slamming Steyer for not donating that money directly to building houses or funding Planned Parenthood — one-off actions that prop up broken systems instead of changing them.
I get it.
SpaceX shares rose 19% in the first day of trading Friday after the rocket company’s historic IPO.
In an age when income inequality is reaching serf-lord levels, hating the rich seems easy and reasonable. You could take several zeros off the $200 million Steyer spent on his campaign and it would still be more than most of us make in a lifetime. That’s a rage-inducing reality for many, if not most of us, for whom pairing a full tank of gas with a restaurant dinner seems like careless luxury these days.
I’m not here to defend the nine-zeros class. But maybe we should take a beat and make sure our outrage is working for us, not against us. While Steyer has spent the last few months advocating for universal healthcare, better pay and protections for workers, and putting curbs on out-of-control corporations from the energy sector to AI, other billionaires have spent that time actively undermining democracy and our financial system. Heck, some even seem to be undermining humanity. Why aren’t we raging at them?
Take, for example, a certain billionaire who seemingly would prefer to be a trillionaire: Elon Musk.
Last week, his SpaceX held an IPO in which somehow the rules of Wall Street meant to protect small investors and pension plans were set aside to his benefit. Like it or not, if you hold a public pension or a 401(k) in America that uses index funds (which most do) you will likely be an investor in his unproven and possibly risky business. I’m sure that will work out fine.
Or consider the hundreds of millions of dollars right-wing AI and surveillance-company billionaires, some Californians, are dumping into political races across the country right now to ensure that their dangerous and unpredictable technologies are not regulated, or regulated in largely meaningless ways. It’s a situation so dire that one wealthy insider last week warned in his own op-ed that if his former colleagues are successful, “It could concentrate economic power in ways that would make the Gilded Age look quaint.”
Then there’s our president, king of self-enrichment, whose wealth has skyrocketed to more than $6 billion during his time in office. Much of that moola is in opaque cryptocurrency holdings, an industry he has championed as his fortunes in it have increased.
But don’t think Trump is in it only for himself: He’s enriching his family, too.
His daughter Ivanka recently made her own “eat cake” headlines over an alleged $1.5-billion project that would convert an uninhabited Albanian island into a luxury resort. The Albanians are so mad, they’ve been protesting in the streets for nearly two weeks. Meanwhile, her brothers have coat-tailed off their dad’s crypto-ventures to make their own fortunes, as other investors suffered losses.
Those are our individual billionaires, never mind the corporations, who can dump as much money as they want into our politics thanks to the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision. In 2025, the oil and gas industry in California, led by Chevron and the Western States Petroleum Assn., spent about $34 million on lobbying. Not to be outdone, the Golden State’s water and electricity interests, including PG&E, spent about $35 million to bend politics to their will.
But sure, hate the goofy guy in the vintage Nikes pointing all this out.
“I’m proud of the enemies we made,” Steyer said in his concession. “In this race, those corporations revealed that they see a government that puts working people first as an existential threat — even when proposed by a billionaire. By spending $55 million — the most ever against a single candidate in a California primary — they showed the lengths they would go to in order to protect a status quo that only serves them and their profits.”
Despite spending a record-shattering amount of his wealth on his run for governor, Steyer failed to win enough votes in last week’s primary to advance to the November general election.
I don’t like the amount of money in our political system either, but the truth is, it’s there. And worse, the majority of those who have it seem intent on diminishing the political and economic power of those who don’t.
We are increasingly moving toward a country where the well-being of the majority of people will depend on the largesse of the few — Silicon Valley’s tech industry now talks about a universal basic income as a great boon for the coming mass unemployment they are creating.
But is existence off a charity-pittance really what we want for ourselves and our children? Do we really want these ultra-wealthy overlords to use their money unchecked to make decisions that will shape our future, diminish our rights and ultimately leave us without the power to fight back?
If Steyer wants to use his money to join this battle to keep power by the people and for the people, then the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Like it or not, we average worker bees need money to fight money. In this age when animus eats discernment like the rich eat caviar, the luxury we really can’t afford is hating the good guys just because it’s easy — even if they’re billionaires.
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Ideas expressed in the piece
The article argues that the glee over Tom Steyer’s loss in the California governor’s race reflects a broader, understandable anger at extreme wealth in an era of serf‑lord–level inequality, but contends that this anger is being misdirected at the wrong billionaire.
The piece notes that Steyer spent roughly $200 million of personal money on his campaign, a sum far beyond what most people will ever earn, yet emphasizes that during the race Steyer championed universal healthcare, better wages and protections for workers, and stricter checks on powerful corporations from fossil fuels to artificial intelligence.
In contrast, the column highlights other ultra‑wealthy figures as far more deserving targets of public rage: Elon Musk is portrayed as benefiting from Wall Street rules bent in favor of a risky, unproven SpaceX IPO that ordinary pension holders are effectively dragged into; right‑wing AI and surveillance billionaires are described as pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into races nationwide to block serious regulation of their “dangerous and unpredictable” technologies.
The article further points to Donald Trump as “king of self‑enrichment,” arguing that the presidency has coincided with a surge in personal wealth to more than $6 billion, much of it in opaque cryptocurrency holdings that Trump promotes politically even as his portfolio grows, while Ivanka Trump’s proposed $1.5‑billion luxury resort on an Albanian island and the Trump sons’ crypto ventures are cited as examples of a family profiting while others bear the risks and losses.
Moving from individuals to institutions, the piece underscores that corporations already wield immense financial power in politics, citing Citizens United and pointing to California oil and gas companies, led by Chevron and the Western States Petroleum Association, spending tens of millions on lobbying, along with water and electricity interests like PG&E spending similar amounts to shape state policy in their favor.
The column stresses that this moneyed landscape is already the reality: most people’s political and economic power is being eroded by those with massive resources, and the rise of Silicon Valley talk about universal basic income is framed as an ominous signal that ordinary people may end up living on “charity‑pittance” while tech oligarchs profit from mass unemployment.
Against that backdrop, the article contends that rejecting any billionaire who enters politics on the side of workers and regulation is self‑defeating; if Steyer wants to spend a fortune to challenge corporate power and defend a government “that puts working people first,” the columnist concludes that the enemy of such entrenched interests is, by necessity, an ally.
Ultimately, the piece suggests that in a system already dominated by big money, “us average worker bees need money to fight money,” and that the real mistake is letting a generalized animus toward the rich blind the public to potential “good guys,” even when those allies come from the billionaire class.
Different views on the topic
Many critics across the political spectrum view Steyer’s campaign as a textbook example of a billionaire attempting to buy high office, arguing that his massive personal spending undermined the spirit of democratic competition; social media detractors cast Steyer as a “power‑hungry communist billionaire,” insisting the primary result showed voters’ rejection of plutocratic politics.
National commentators skeptical of Steyer’s run have echoed this sentiment, framing his nine‑figure outlay as wasteful and suggesting that, in a country with severe inequality and frayed safety nets, hundreds of millions of dollars would have been better spent directly on affordable housing, reproductive health services or grassroots organizing rather than on television ads and consultants.
Coverage of the race has emphasized that Steyer, a billionaire former hedge fund manager, invested a record‑setting sum—about $215 million of personal funds—into the governor’s contest but still finished behind Xavier Becerra and Steve Hilton, who advanced to the general election; this outcome has reinforced a narrative among skeptics that voters are wary of self‑funded moguls and that no amount of money should entitle someone to the governor’s office.[2][3][1]
Campaign‑finance reform advocates and some progressives argue that embracing “good billionaires” in order to counter “bad billionaires” concedes too much to an oligarchic model, normalizing a system in which elected offices and public priorities depend on the whims of a tiny, ultra‑wealthy class rather than on broad‑based participation and small‑donor support.
These critics contend that billionaire‑funded candidacies, even when pursuing progressive goals, can crowd out grassroots voices, distort what issues receive media attention, and make policy agendas overly dependent on what remains acceptable to a single wealthy patron, whose interests may diverge from those of ordinary constituents over time.
Opponents of the “money must fight money” logic also warn that relying on benevolent plutocrats is inherently precarious: wealthy allies can change their minds, shift their priorities, or withdraw funding entirely, leaving movements hollowed out; from this perspective, lasting democratic power is better secured through systemic reforms that curb big money in politics—such as public financing, tighter contribution limits, and efforts to roll back Citizens United—rather than by recruiting more billionaires into the arena.
Regarding the column’s portrayal of other rich figures as primary villains, some supporters of tech and crypto industries argue that entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and major AI or cryptocurrency investors drive innovation, create high‑paying jobs and strengthen U.S. competitiveness, and that heavy‑handed regulation or vilification of their political spending could stifle economic growth and technological progress.
Additionally, critics of the column’s framing argue that focusing on identifying “good” versus “bad” billionaires risks personalizing what is fundamentally a structural issue; instead of choosing which tycoon to cheer, these voices urge the public to build institutions and legal frameworks that reduce dependence on wealthy donors of any ideology and restore more equal political influence for non‑wealthy citizens.
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