I’ve been seeing an idea making the rounds that Mike Bloomberg should buy FoxNews instead of running for president. A lot of versions of it make it a team up with Steyer and Yang. So people clearly have no idea how much money a billion dollars is, or how the candidates wealth compares.
For reference, Rupert Murdoch is worth around $19 Billion and Fox News is around $23 Billion. That’s a lot.
Mike Bloomberg is worth an estimated $53 Billion. That’s even more money. So he could probably afford the sticker price without materially impacting his life.
Tom Steyer is next on the list, with an estimated net worth of $1.6 Billion. That’s a lot of money. But it’s also only about 1/33rd of what Bloomberg is walking around with. And it’s only around a 1/14th of the Fox News value. So even if he were to completely sell everything, he’d be a weekly market fluctuation off the purchase price.
And then there’s Yang. He’s harder to pin down, but most estimates range from $1 million to $4 million. That’s pretty good. I would not turn down that much money. But Bloomberg probably wouldn’t delay his commute 15 minutes to go pick it up.
So why do people think Yang is a oligarch? Is it because he’s vaguely involved in tech? Or because he’s vaguely involved in startups? Or because it’s bizarre that this random guy could come out of nowhere to make the national debate stage without buying donors or having a mysterious backer?
My personal vote is that it’s because this campaign season is so dumb that people are forgetting just how dumb it actually is. And he should still go away. Preferably with Steyer and Bloomberg going with him.
I just saw this Fox News/Bloomberg story today and definitely think that would be a much better thing for the world than a Bloomberg presidency. The problem is Murdock would probably never sell to him & Bloomberg probably has zero interest in doing this to help anyone! Bloomberg will only jump into the race to protect his own money & ego stroking, not saving us. I see this totally backfiring and helping Bernie & Warren which is great! As for Yang, I totally thought he had more money but could really careless. I think he has some great policy ideas and some stupid ones. If he can bring up some great ideas to the winning Dem, great.