AI Billionaires Say: Get Out of Our Way, Fools!

AI Billionaires Say: Get Out of Our Way, Fools!

Does becoming a billionaire turn one into an insufferable jerk, or is that an innate quality they bring to the position? Big-name billionaires – like Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerberg – literally flaunt their irrepressible jerkism, but the disease seems to inflict their entire class of über-rich corporate royals. Its telltale symptoms are not their grandiose mansions and yachts, but their sudden impulse to instruct us regular people on how to think. In particular, they’re now demanding that we get out of their way so they can remake society in their image. Jensen Huang, for example, a Silicon Valley techno-whiz who heads Nvidia, now the world’s richest corporation. He’s demanding that we transform our economy and social structure into a new order of AI dominance, piously chiding those of us who’re angry about AI’s destruction of our jobs, communities, water, farmland, and democracy itself. Tut-tut, the gabillionaire scolds, you petty people must “create new social norms [https://apnews.com/article/nvidea-huang-artificial-intelligence-8334abcbc6ed8d3d7889b640ec6fa05b]” to advance AI. Then there’s the little-known honcho of SoftBank, a multi-trillion-dollar Japanese tech powerhouse trying to impose AI supremacy worldwide. He’s now asserting a corporate “morality” of wealth, calling people who question AI “foolish.” He philosophizes that TechWorld “will transform our lives completely [https://fortune.com/2026/07/14/softbank-ceo-5-trillion-ai-demand-critics-bubble/]and do so in a way that generates profits [https://fortune.com/2026/07/14/softbank-ceo-5-trillion-ai-demand-critics-bubble/].” [https://fortune.com/2026/07/14/softbank-ceo-5-trillion-ai-demand-critics-bubble/] For whom? For billionaires, of course. So there you have a clear statement of the values and goals of AI profiteers: More for them, no matter the cost to everyone else. SoftBank’s imperious boss laughs at those of us who dare question his vision of an AI plutocracy, calling us fools who are “spitting upward.” No sir, look again. We are spitting straight at you. Do something! Want to join the rebellion against AI billionaires? Check out Public Citizen’s work on Big Tech and other corporate monsters: https://www.citizen.org/topic/consumer-worker-safeguards/big-tech/ [https://www.citizen.org/topic/consumer-worker-safeguards/big-tech/] Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe [https://jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

Ignorance + Arrogance + Power = Lunacy

Some presidents are known as uplifting orators; our present president is known for petulant putdowns. Periodically, Trump discovers a new pejorative that he considers clever, so he wears it out attacking his endless list of enemies. His current favorite is “lunatic,” hurling the slur at women reporters, most foreign leaders, all Democrats, protestors, and… well, everyone who offends him. But if he wants some real lunatics to belittle, why not that menagerie he’s appointed to top government positions? Such as Brendan Carr, Trump’s FCC attack dog who keeps yapping that he’s gonna abolish NPR. Failing at that, Carr has now gone from silly to ridiculous, pushing a phantasmagoric scheme that truly is lunacy. It comes from some Elon Musk protégés who apparently noticed that our planet gets dark as night falls. Eureka, they exclaimed, we need to “light the night!” Why? Well, they say, to illuminate all city streets and rural roads, make crops grow faster, and stuff like that. But how to generate the light? Easy, the geniuses explain: Mirrors. They want government support to deploy a global network of orbiting space mirrors that could reflect sunlight onto Earth’s rotating dark areas. [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/10/climate/fcc-space-mirror.html] Lots of mirrors – the schemers propose to put 50,000 in our skies by 2030, with each of the largest ones shining as bright as 100 full moons! Nothing could go wrong with that, right? Bedazzled, Carr didn’t ask. Instead, with no public input, he just rubber-stamped an initial launch of this “novel technology,” blandly assuring us that “harms are unlikely to occur.” To oppose this lunacy, connect with the American Astronomical Society: aas.org [http://aas.org]. Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe [https://jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

Corporate Stupidity Sidetracked by Mad-as-Hell Farm Rebels

Executives climbing the corporate ladder to the top seem to lose IQ the higher up they get. That might explain why John Deere’s top corporate bosses have imposed an astonishingly stupid policy on America’s farmers. For years, they’ve decreed that while a farmer “technically owns” a tractor or other John Deere product, the owner is prohibited from making any repairs when the machinery breaks down, stalls out, etc. Instead, owners must call an authorized Deere dealer to fix what most farmers could handle by themselves. The monopolistic profiteer refuses to make its repair manuals available to customers or local repair shops, so… gotcha! But in 2020, Walter Schweitzer rallied with other mad-as-hell farmers and ranchers to rebel. The Montana rancher’s tractor had gone kaput in hay baling season – but, “no,” said a Deere dealer, a technician is not available; and “no,” you can’t have access to the diagnostic computer to do it yourself. So, he had to wait weeks before Deere finally got his tractor running – a fairly basic job worth about $600… but they billed Walter nearly $4,000. That’s what’s called “a monopoly fix.” But they messed with the wrong farmer. Schweitzer, president of the Montana Farmers Union, mobilized grassroots pressure from five states, forcing federal officials to sue Deere. This month, Deere’s aloof executives settled that suit, [https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/deere-settles-lawsuit-by-us-ftc-states-over-equipment-repair-restrictions-2026-07-08/] finally letting its farm customers take charge of the equipment that – hello! – they own! Schweitzer points out that this landmark win over the arrogance of Deere executives is just one stepping stone to a right-to-repair law for all products. To help push this right forward, go to repair.org [http://repair.org]. Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe [https://jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

Let’s Increase Social Security, Not Cut It!

Here they come again: Billionaires, wailing that Congress must – MUST! – act immediately to slash the monthly Social Security checks that middle-class and poor retirees count on. Plutocratic elites and their anti-government ideologues periodically erupt in outrage that elderly Americans who’ve earned retirement benefits are depleting the Social Security Trust Fund. So, they exclaim, government must cut the payments these old folks are getting. But wait – it’s not “the government’s money.” It belongs to the retirees themselves. They’ve paid monthly payroll taxes into the fund for years on the guarantee that they would later draw benefits out. Maybe so, bark opponents, but the money well is going dry, so the only way to “save” the program is to chop payments owed to beneficiaries. In three words: That’s a lie. What the superwealthy don’t want us to notice is that the Social Security tax is spectacularly unfair. If your yearly income is less than $185,000 (which includes 95% of us) – every penny of your earnings is subject to retirement tax. But if you’re paid a million a year, or a billion, or even more – everything over $185,000 is tax free. [https://www.ssa.gov/faqs/en/questions/KA-02387.html] Sweet! Wait, there’s more. Instead of being paid wages, most über-wealthy people draw their annual income from a Wall Street scheme called “unrealized capital gains.” Big surprise – those gains are totally exempted [https://www.financestrategists.com/tax/tax-planning/capital-gains/impact-of-capital-gains-and-social-security/] from our nation’s retirement tax. This is Jim Hightower saying… So, let’s make Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos, and other tax-dodging billionaires pay on all of their income like the rest of us do. That’s only fair. Then America can increase benefits so everyone can have a dignified retirement. Now that’s true fairness! Do something! To get involved with the fight to make sure Social Security and other social safety net programs stay strong, check out Social Security Works at socialsecurityworks.org [https://socialsecurityworks.org/]. Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe [https://jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

Beware of Billionaires

What a show, huh? Big-name corporations went all out this July 4th with a patriotic ad blitz professing their devotion to America’s democracy. But it amounted to a Firecracker of Hypocrisy, for many of these showboat patriots have been backroom funders of the Trump regime’s repression of our people’s democratic rights. Also, there’s an internal level of cynical dishonesty in their flashy show-of-support for egalitarian values. In the past few years, a clique of these Silicon Valley and Wall Street giants have been monkeywrenching the rules of their own corporate governance to crush the very idea of “shareholder democracy.” Yes, such a concept has existed, at least in theory. For decades, big business profiteers have been given special privileges over the rest of us by claiming to be “democratic enterprises,” governed by masses of common shareholders who get one vote for each share of stock they own. (Actually, that makes a corporation more of a plutocracy, since the more stock you own, the more votes you get.) Today, though, even plutocracy is too democratic for monarchial billionaire bosses like Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX. So, they’ve invented a super-class of shareholders – mostly themselves and their cronies. These elite owners get domineering voting power, exceeding all other investors combined. For example, Musk owns about 40 percent of the stock in SpaceX, but in his self-created system, he gets more than 80 percent of shareholder votes. Among other advantages, his skewed voting power makes Musk “unfireable” -- unless he votes to fire himself. This is Jim Hightower saying… Beware of billionaires professing any allegiance to America’s democratic values. In fact, just beware of billionaires, period. Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe [https://jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]