The big tech news of the week remains Elon Musk’s offer to buy out Twitter for a massive $44 billion — a deal that looks all set to go ahead provided nobody backs out at the last minute. This huge acquisition has provided a ton of material for hot takes and despair, though as Late Show host Seth Meyers points out, it also highlights issues about the overwhelming power of billionaires.
“I mean, with money like that you could do something about poverty, or climate change, or world hunger, and still have enough left over to, I don’t know, get a decent haircut?” Meyers quipped, taking a dig at Musk’s sizable forehead.
“Regardless of whether you’re pro-Musk or anti-Musk, let’s maybe take a step back and reconsider whether it’s a good thing that everyone’s just rooting for different billionaires like sports teams — which are also owned by billionaires,” Meyers continued.
“Maybe, just maybe, it’s not healthy for our democracy when Twitter, Facebook, and The Washington Post are all owned by some of the richest men in the world — not to mention the fact that Fox, The Wall Street Journal, and a network of right-wing media outlets are owned by another right-wing billionaire who’s on the list of the 100 richest people in the world. That’s not a free market, that’s an oligarchy.”
