When a billionaire campaigns for Donald Trump, we know what’s in it for the billionaire. What’s in it for Trump? Not votes from the watching electorate, that seems clear. Big business is the least trusted institution in America other than Congress. Donations, then? But those can be collected without the public fanfare of an Elon Musk stage appearance or an endorsement quote from a private equity nabob.
At this point, I should, and dearly want to, issue the old liberal warning to business: that capitalism depends on independent courts and other institutions, that Trump menaces these, that billionaires are therefore shortsighted to back him. If you ride the tiger, you’ll end up as its dinner, and so on. But I don’t quite believe this any more. What the magnates stand to gain — tax cuts, deregulation, a standoffish Federal Trade Commission — is immediate.