Bremmer Suggests Musk Became the First Trillionaire Due to Trump Donation
14th June 2026
When Elon Musk’s SpaceX went public on the Nasdaq on Friday, he became the first trillionaire in history. Later that night on HBO’s Real Time, host Bill Maher wondered if you could still be a good capitalist and believe in “some cap on wealth.” Eurasian Group President Ian Bremmer responded not by answering the question but by suggesting that Musk’s history-making day was a result of his donation to President Trump’s 2024 campaign.
Maher wondered, “Is it going to be, like, five people who have all the money in the world, and can you be a good capitalist? Here’s my question: Can you be a good capitalist, because I think I am, or a believer in capitalism and still think there should be some cap on wealth?”
Bremmer began his response by waxing poetic but not answering the question, “Well, you have to—Americans believe that people should be able to make it, they should be successful. It’s one of the things that really makes our country work. We don’t think necessarily that someone who’s worth 100 million, even a billion, maybe even a trillion is necessarily a bad thing where in many other countries they do, but there has to be opportunity for the average American and their kids to get there.”
Turning more negative, Bremmer recalled, “We saw Graham Platner came out immediately today, ‘There should never be another trillionaire.’ You know, you see Elizabeth Warren, you’ll see Rob Reich, ‘Every billionaire is a policy failure.’ That reflects the fact a whole bunch of Americans feel like they don’t trust their leaders. They don’t trust these elites.”