That's how the word is/was used by the Russians, but isn't really how it's used by the western media. Any Russian billionaire is called an oligarch; it's used as a substitute for plutocrat.
Musk, Bezos, the Koch brothers, Soros, and a few other billionaires are plutocrats, ergo, they are oligarchs.
> That suggests people hand out equal hate to all billionaires
I don't think it suggests that, or at least I certainly didn't mean to communicate as such. I was responding narrowly to the parent's remarks (explicitly rationalizing targeting billionaires as a group) and not trying to imply anything broader.
> So both Elon Musk or Trevor Milton are not billionaires? So I am not allowed to say they are billionaires? What wrong with that? It is a fact, not 'some political element'.
You're telling others to stay on point yet your pointing out that Musk and Milton are billionaires is just as much beside the point.
> I mean, there are plenty of billionaires who make ridiculous statements from time to time. Donald Trump being one of them, for example.
I think it was established during the election that he isn't a billionaire. He also makes ridiculous statements on a weekly if not hourly basis, so "from time to time" is misleading.
> I can't think of a single billionaire who made their wealth while in politics, or after.
Common in extremely corrupt authoritarian regimes; Putin would be an obvious example. But yeah, less common in democracies; I'm struggling to think of a modern example.
> He's wrong to suggest that the billionaire class and founders
What? How did you get billionaire class and founders? He specifically says founder led companies and family owned businesses. Unless you reduce that group to the Waltons, how does family owned businesses equate to the billionaire class?
"Only founder led companies and family owned businesses can stand up to the immense pressure from the dogmas of modern finance."[1]
> I find attacking the people and company that made you a billionaire, and went to an unprecedented extent to shield and accommodate you for years, low-class,
Facebook didn't make him a billionaire. He & co. made a 19 billion dollar business. Anything after that, facebook can take credit for. But everything right up to the contract signing/announcement can't be attributed to them.
Do not refer to them as 'billionaires' since they're oligarchs. I have expunged the word 'billionaire' from my vocabulary.
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