Free Republic

Billionaires are putting their influence and money behind Donald Trump, a wave of support that is helping the former President narrow his fundraising gap with President Joe Biden. The latest example came last week with the news that Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman, after years of keeping his distance from Trump, is now a supporter. A collection of familiar GOP names announced their support for Trump in recent months. They include figures like Robert Bigelow and Nelson Peltz. Both have donated to Republicans for years. Both distanced themselves from Trump after Jan. 6. Both are now back on board. Robert Bigelow,...

It’s important to understand that SVB’s failure didn’t arise from risky startups doing risky startup things.It’s painful for me to watch so many smart pundits and politicians on both the right and the left buy into a media narrative that seeks to blame “wealthy speculators” or “tech bros” or venture capitalists for a banking crisis that ultimately started in Washington. Let me explain.If you want to understand the context for the crisis, look at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation chair’s March 6 testimony — a week before Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse — where he explains that banks were sitting on...

Elon Musk got in hot water again on Twitter—for proposing peace. On Monday, Musk proposed a peace deal to end the war in Ukraine, for which he was denounced as a pro-Putin puppet by the Twitter mob that has formed to police the discourse on all things related to Ukraine. The president of Ukraine himself, Volodymyr Zelensky, accused Musk of supporting Russia—even though Musk's company SpaceX donated Starlink to Ukraine's war effort at an out-of-pocket cost of $80 million. (Full disclosure: Musk is a friend and I am an investor in SpaceX.) Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany Andrj Melnyk was less...

Elon Musk got in hot water again on Twitter—for proposing peace. On Monday, Musk proposed a peace deal to end the war in Ukraine, for which he was denounced as a pro-Putin puppet by the Twitter mob that has formed to police the discourse on all things related to Ukraine.The president of Ukraine himself, Volodymyr Zelensky, accused Musk of supporting Russia—even though Musk's company SpaceX donated Starlink to Ukraine's war effort at an out-of-pocket cost of $80 million. (Full disclosure: Musk is a friend and I am an investor in SpaceX.) Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany Andrj Melnyk was less subtle,...

An American tech startup that once prided itself on being a fun place to work and play has had enough: no more drunken sex in the stairways of Zenefits, please! An e-mail went out to employees of the health-insurance brokerage this week asking they please tone down their frat house behaviour at all U.S. offices. "Cigarettes, plastic cups filled with beer, and several used condoms were found in the stairwell. Yes, you read that right. Do not use the stairwells to smoke, drink, eat, or have sex," the e-mail says, according to the Wall Street Journal. Zenefits has hit hard...