Susan Glasser

This dinner at the White House, there's a photograph of the masters of the universe, as you put it, including Elon Musk and other tech tycoons in the White House for the state dinner.

And, you know, is there any more kind of summing up of the grotesque, corrupted oligarchy in which we find ourselves than this?

You know, I feel like it kind of sums it all up.

Well, I mean, grotesque is is a word.

I mean, what I'm struck by in the very, I think, calculated and largely opportunistic embrace by the tech tycoons of Donald Trump this year.

And remember, these are the people who were given prime seats at the inauguration, booting the political leadership of the country from from the stage and relegating them to the cheap seats.

so to speak.

I take your point that geopolitics requires a certain amount of business engagement with unsavory parts of the world, but it doesn't require you embracing the bone saw murderer.

We can stipulate to that.

It doesn't require you embracing Donald Trump in such public ways.

There are ways to keep integrity that do not involve this.

And when you see, I don't know, the

CEO of Apple, whose products you use every day.

You and I and all the people are funding this, right?

He doesn't have this power, this cloud, this agency in the world that prizes high agency individuals like him.

That's, my son informs me, a Silicon Valley term.

You know, they're what are they doing?

They're giving Donald Trump millions of dollars to knock down the East Wing of the White House with no process, no sense of history and gildify his environment.

The People's House knocked down our history.

You know, I'm not sure that business requires that.