Donald Trump did it. He crossed the line from real estate, tycoon-billionaire to the leader of the free world. Now, he has the keys to power.
Trump says he wants to repair the damage caused by career politicians so “America can win again.” But, what would be the reason Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg would run for president?
It’s likely the usual leftist agenda with one exception: automation. Revolutionizing the way we interact isn’t enough (re: Facebook). Now he wants to peddle pro-Silicon Valley policies.
In his Palo Alto home, Zuckerberg has created a robot butler and almost every element of it is operated by artificial intelligence. As a result, he would be the kind of president who would expedite policies that undermine American workers in favor of automation.
A coup is forming in Silicon Valley and Zuckerberg is either a ruse for it or the ‘chosen disciple.’
He’s looks like a candidate. Recently, he’s been posting pictures eating with local residents in early-voting states, touring local factories, and even playing basketball with (swing-state) North Carolina’s most popular NCAA coaches, Roy Williams and Mike Krzyzewski. It’s a summer vacation that looks more like a campaign tour the week before ‘Super Tuesday.’
Not convinced? Zuckerberg just hired former Clinton-pollster, Joel Benenson, to to do work at the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative (a philanthropic organization with his wife).
You hire pollsters to figure out what people want and what they are thinking - even learn their perceptions of you.
A potential problem for Zuckerberg’s presidential aspirations is that only one-third of Facebook’s employees are women. Is it a coincidence that there’s been a notable increase in women hired to work at Facebook in the past year?
Zuck’s attributes include the fact that he only takes a $1 salary as CEO of Facebook and that he has a net-worth of over $70 billion (plenty to buy an election). He’ll likely be of great appeal to the ‘Bernie’ crowd as Zuckerberg campaign engages into salary-shaming of so-called ‘greedy CEO’s.’
He and his wife Priscilla Chen have announced that they will give away most of their wealth for the “purpose of advancing human potential and promoting equality.” More taxes anyone?
While most of his friends were playing video games, he created them. This means his age (36 in 2020) will not be a setback.
Facebook’s roots were in a program called ‘Facesmash' which was a site (mostly for fun) where people would rank the looks of others: It placed two pictures, or pictures of two males and two females. Visitors to the site had to choose who was "hotter" and according to the votes there would be a ranking.
The college shut it down because it it overwhelmed one of Harvard switches. Many have claimed he was unethical, broke rules, arrogant, cheated them out of intellectual property and didn’t honor agreements. But, not Peter Thiel.
Peter Thiel (historically a big supporter of Trump) met Zuckerberg in 2004 and invested into Facebook. In recent days, Thiel’s support of Trump seems to be waivering. A recent report suggested that Thiel told close friends that “the Trump Administration is incompetent.”
"There is a 50% chance this whole thing ends in disaster," Thiel said regarding the Trump administration at a private gathering in January, according to two BuzzFeed sources. This report alone isn’t telling except for the fact that the timing of these stories and Zuckerberg’s ‘political tour’ seems suspicious. Peter Thiel is the co-founder of PayPal and current a member of the board of directors of Facebook (where he also owns $40 million in stock as of 2016).
Zuckerberg does have ‘political baggage.’
In January 2017, Zuckerberg filed eight "quiet title and partition" lawsuits against hundreds of native Hawaiians to get them to sell their land to him.
Zuckerberg is the modern Bill Gates of 1997. They are also very similar in that they are technical geniuses but that makes for awkward leadership and communication skills that may not connect to middle-class voters.
Zuckerberg apparently does believe in walls. Unfortunately, he's not in favor of walls to protect Americans. He purchased over $30 million in homes surrounding his primary residence with the intention to tear down the homes, replacing them with smaller ones. He wanted to add gates and walls to create a buffer zone to protect his home from outsiders (re: Walls).
He literally built a Trump-like wall to protect his 700-acre Luau estate in Hawaii which outraged many locals. This is the same'Zuck that said "instead of building walls, we can help people build bridges” (an obvious slam to president Trump).
I applaud the fact that on the surface Zuckerberg believes in private property rights. He certainly has a right to build the wall on his own property. However, if you look at the totality of his comments, he believes the most vulnerable Americans don’t deserve guns, walls or borders to protect themselves while he parades through life with estates surrounded by walls and armed guards.
Unlike Trump, who employed servers, busboys, caddies and butlers at his resorts, earning an average wage, Facebook employees earn an average of $300,000 per year.
How could he possibly have any sense of what the average middle-class American needs since most of his 17,000 employees are literally rich? He possesses zero experience of facing personal financial hardship (like Trump casinos, airlines, vodka, steaks, etc) or the challenges of dealing with employees on lower wages. How cold he possibly serve America?
Didn’t ‘the left’ tell us that you need political experience to become president?
A President Zuckerberg would mean millions more refugees, wide-open borders, more sanctuary cities, an attack on second amendment rights and a group of pro-Silicon Valley polices that would expedite the automation of average Americas into the unemployment line.
I hope I’m wrong about Zuck’s presidential aspirations because I think he could win.