Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci warned that today’s technology billionaires have forgotten a basic lesson of capitalism, arguing that workers must believe the system still gives them a fair shot.
Scaramucci Warns Capitalism Needs A Fair Shot
“Henry Ford was generally a racist and a bad person, but he understood something our current broligarchs have completely forgotten,” Scaramucci wrote in an X post on Monday, using the term often applied to powerful male tech and finance figures.
Scaramucci said Ford understood that workers needed to earn enough to buy the products they made. Ford Motor Co. (NYSE:F) has said its 1914 “Five-Dollar Workday” more than doubled daily wages, helped stabilize its workforce and eventually allowed employees to afford the cars they built.
“Capitalism works, but only if people believe the game is worth playing,” Scaramucci wrote. “Right now they don’t and history is very clear about what comes next.”
Broligarchs Critique Points To Modern Tech Power
The SkyBridge Capital founder did not name names. But the phrase “broligarchs” is widely used to describe figures such as Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and their circle of venture capitalists and technology executives who now shape debates over regulation, artificial intelligence, space, crypto and national politics.
Musk has become the clearest modern example of that fusion of wealth, politics and technology with his political swing back toward Republicans, his influence over deregulatory arguments and the way Democrats have struggled over whether to confront or re-engage him. Scaramucci himself recently called Democratic leaders “clueless” for not reaching out to Musk as he returned to Trump’s camp.
Thiel also sits near the center of that discussion. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich has previously warned that Thiel and other billionaires could shape major parts of Trump-era policy through what Reich called a “billionaire brain trust.”
SpaceX Praise Complicates Broader Billionaire Criticism
Scaramucci’s criticism is not simple anti-billionaire populism. He has said he owns SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX) and participated in a private round, while arguing that Musk’s “cult of personality” gives his companies a valuation premium that can move “off the charts.” He still called SpaceX compelling because of Starlink and possible orbital data centers.
But Scaramucci has also warned that “checks and balances are failing,” that corruption risk is rising and that political elites are enabling dangerous behavior. His latest post folds those concerns into a broader economic warning about a system that produces would-be trillionaires while ordinary workers lose faith.
Photo courtesy: Al Teich / Shutterstock.com
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