When it comes to assessing Donald Trump’s post-election personnel decisions, many of his choices for key posts are linked. For example, the president-elect has announced plans to nominate a host of contributors to the right-wing Project 2025 blueprint. He has similarly tipped off a number of people who have faced allegations of sexual misconduct. He also apparently wants a variety of former television personalities and snake oil salesmen on his team.
The Republican also seems to have an inordinate fondness for people from Florida.
But as this week has progressed, another common denominator has come into sharper focus: the president-elect seems extremely eager to hire billionaires. NBC News reported the latest:
President-elect Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he plans to nominate billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman to lead NASA. … Isaacman, 41, is the founder and CEO of payment processing company Shift4. He has flown to space twice on commercial SpaceX missions, but has not worked for NASA or the federal government. Isaacman financed both space flights himself, for an undisclosed amount.
Isaacman will need to be confirmed by the Senate, where he will likely face many questions about his qualifications. As writer Kevin Drum summarized, “I hardly need to point out that being rich enough to afford vanity trips to space hardly qualifies you to run NASA. And being a buddy of Elon Musk is a huge conflict of interest for running an agency that Elon Musk does a lot of business with.”
And while these concerns will undoubtedly generate some fascinating lines of inquiry on Capitol Hill, it’s also worth taking a moment to consider the fact that if Isaacman is confirmed and members of the second Trump administration decide to form a Billionaires Club , this will probably have a significant impact. few members.
The New York Times noted earlier this week that the president-elect has chosen “at least five” billionaires to fill key roles in his new administration — Scott Bessent, Howard Lutnick, Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy and Steven Witkoff — and that article was published for the Isaacman announcement, bringing the total to six.
The Times report added that Trump’s reliance on billionaires raises questions “about whether his administration will deliver on promises to boost the working class.”
It would be foolish to suggest that billionaires should necessarily be that way ruled out from the public sector, but for all the post-election talk about Democrats and “elites,” it’s hard not to notice how many people with a net worth of more than $1,000,000,000 – each with large and diverse private sector interests – who are about to join the next elections. Republican government.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
