The Trump billionaires who run the economy and the things they say

Sometimes the billionaires running the US federal government sound like they’re talking to other billionaires.

“THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!” President Donald Trump wrote on social media last week, offering a stock tip that appeared aimed at the investor class rather than ordinary Americans watching their plummeting 401(k)s (retirement savings).

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, left, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, right, in the Oval Office with President Trump this month. The three men are each worth billions of dollars.Credit: Eric Lee/The New York Times

Howard Lutnick, the secretary of commerce, has said his mother-in-law wouldn’t be worried if she didn’t get her monthly social security check. Elon Musk, who is slashing the Social Security administration’s staff, has called it a “Ponzi scheme”. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has asserted that Americans aren’t looking at the “day-to-day fluctuations” in their retirement savings.

And if automakers raise their prices because of Trump’s tariffs? “I couldn’t care less,” the president told Kristen Welker of NBC.

Democrats say the comments show how clueless Trump and his friends are about the lives of most Americans, and that this is what happens when billionaires run the economy. Republicans counter that highlighting the quotes is unfair cherry-picking, and that in the long run everyone will benefit from their policies, even if there’s pain now.

Psychologists say that extreme wealth changes people and their views of those who have less.

Whoever is right, it is safe to say that almost no one thinks the comments have been politically helpful for Trump or calming for Americans.

“You have to laugh to keep from crying,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster.

For the record, Forbes put Trump’s net worth at $US4.2 billion ($6.6 billion) on April 8, down $US500 million from April 2, the day the president rolled out his tariffs. Forbes estimated the net worth of Musk, the world’s richest man, as $US364 billion on April 17 and Lutnick’s as $US3 billion the same day. Bessent, formerly the top investor for billionaire liberal philanthropist George Soros, listed assets of more than $US700 million on his financial disclosure form this year but is thought to be worth much more.

Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla, during a cabinet meeting at the White House. Credit: Bloomberg

The opposition has swiftly pounced on their comments. Senator Chuck Schumer (Democrats, New York), the minority leader, said that Trump and his rich friends lived in a “billionaires’ bubble”, while Senator Bernie Sanders (independent, Vermont), called out Lutnick on social media.

“Maybe your mother-in-law wouldn’t complain if she didn’t get her social security check, but tens of millions of seniors struggling to survive would,” Sanders wrote. “How out of touch are you not to realise that?”

A lot, at least according to pollsters.

“If someone is concerned about their financial well-being, take them at their word,” said Frank Luntz, a long-time focus group leader, pollster and consultant, speaking about the widespread fears of rising prices and falling stocks brought on by Trump’s tariffs. He said the president understood voters’ anxieties during the 2024 campaign, in which he repeatedly promised to bring down grocery prices, but seems to have forgotten them now.

“If you knew they were struggling in October, why do you dismiss their struggling in April?” Luntz asked. He added that “the word that is missing in all of this, from Elon and the president, is empathy.”

Paul K Piff, an associate professor of psychological science at the University of California, Irvine, has studied the psychology of the rich for nearly two decades. He said that research shows that as a person’s wealth increases, more often than not empathy and compassion for others decreases. Piff cautioned that there were exceptions, and that he was not speaking specifically about the billionaires in the Trump administration.

But he said excessive wealth had profound effects on a person’s character. “You certainly have more power and more influence over people in your life,” he said. Money, he added, “buys you space and distance from people, and alongside that comes this increased focus on your own self. It’s not a difficult stretch to say that you lose touch for what it’s like for lots and lots of people.”

A demonstrator holds a banner reading “We the people” as people protest outside the US embassy against US President Donald Trump and adviser Elon Musk on April 5 in Berlin, Germany. Credit: Getty Images

Susan Pinker, a Canadian psychologist who was a writer for The Wall Street Journal’s Mind & Matter column about human behaviour and earlier wrote The Business Brain column for The Globe and Mail, said the rich live in their own world.

“The reason why the super-wealthy at the helm of government can’t imagine how people might be distressed by some of their policies is that they don’t really see them that clearly,” she said. “We’re not really built from an evolutionary perspective to feel like we’re at home with everybody. The stronger our in-group, the more likely we are to exclude others.”

Steven Pinker, a Harvard psychologist who is Susan Pinker’s brother, said he was not convinced that the billionaires’ comments were because of their wealth. “A more immediate cause may be cognitive dissonance,” he said, referring to the psychological state that can occur when people’s actions don’t align with their beliefs.

“In the case of the Trump administration,” Pinker said, “they have little choice but to twist themselves into artisanal pretzels in order to defend the indefensible.”

A White House spokesperson, Kush Desai, said in response to the criticism of Trump’s remarks about the sharemarket and potentially higher prices that “the only special interest guiding President Trump’s decision-making is the best interest of the American people – such as addressing the national emergency posed by our country running chronic trade deficits.” White House officials also point out that Trump has vowed not to cut social security benefits.

Recent polls show that Trump’s approval rating has declined since his inauguration, including a Quinnipiac survey conducted in early April that found that 53 per cent disapproved of Trump and 41 per cent approved. It was a significant shift from a Quinnipiac poll at the start of the administration, when 43 per cent disapproved and 46 per cent approved.

LIV Golf, the Saudi-backed league, has sponsored a tournament at the Trump family’s Miami golf resort four times.Credit: NYT

Although Trump’s drop in recent polls is similar to those of presidents Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton at this point in their terms, he has had a sharp decrease in support among independents. In the recent Quinnipiac poll, 58 per cent of independents disapproved of Trump and 36 per cent approved, compared with 46 per cent who disapproved of him in January and 41 per cent who approved.

The polls do not show how much the recent turmoil over tariffs and the sharemarket has affected voters’ views of Trump. But Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said most current surveys gave Trump negative marks on his handling of the economy, a source of his strength against Biden during the 2024 campaign.

In her view, the remarks of the Trump billionaires show how much they talk among themselves.

“They play golf with billionaires, they have dinner with billionaires, they go to Mar-a-Lago,” she said. “When was the last time any of them bought a dozen eggs or a quart of milk?”

Or as Trump said when he kicked off a Mar-a-Lago dinner with friends after his tax cuts became law in December 2017, “you all just got a lot richer.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

The Business Briefing newsletter delivers major stories, exclusive coverage and expert opinion. Sign up to get it every weekday morning.