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Article in the New York Times by By David Streitfeld, 10/30/24

Hedline:  “Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and the Billions of Ways to Influence an Election”

Subhead:  “The world’s richest men have their own rocket fleets, their own media and their own schemes to succeed with Donald J. Trump.”

“Mr. Musk, Mr. Bezos and other extremely rich people are confronted with unusual opportunities and invisible perils in the tightest, most dramatic, chaotic and highest stakes political battle in modern times. Everyone has a stake in this election, of course, but the very wealthy have so much at stake — or at least think they do — that they are perhaps inevitably trying to shape it, too.”

“. . . Many billionaires now are activists. One reason is there are more of them — the ranks of U.S. billionaires are up 38 percent by one estimate since Mr. Trump first took office in 2016 — and they have even more money. ”

“. . . On Friday, when The Post announced it would not endorse a presidential candidate, Blue Origin’s chief executive, Dave Limp, had a brief meeting with Mr. Trump in Texas. Mr. Bezos did not respond to a request for comment but said in a piece he wrote in The Post on Monday that he knew this “would provide ammunition to those who would like to frame this as anything other than a principled decision” and that the whole thing was a coincidence.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/30/technology/jeff-bezos-elon-musk-election.html