Billionaires, you need a change of tack

Even as we wait for the advent of the world's first dollar trillionaire, the world is awash with billionaires - last count being 3,028 of them, according to the 2025 Forbes World's Billionaires List, with a combined wealth of $16.1 tn. The US leads this Sinatra-ian rat pack with 902, followed by China with 450, and our very own 'sovereign socialist secular democratic republic' with 205. Not to get too nit-Piketty about it, this plethora of billionaires in an ocean of non-millionaires has led to bad press. Which is understandable, if you think about human psychology. It has been so at least since the time of 18th-c. wine merchant-philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who quite logically stated, 'When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich.'

The 'people' have not yet come to such a pass but, undoubtedly, conspicuous consumption of megacapitalists has led to a backlash in the age of social/antisocial media. Even if the wealthy are not on the menu of the '99%', demands for downsizing billionaires is growing in loudness, with the likes of NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani even wishing for 'no billionaires'. Instead of getting into economics, and pros and cons of existence of billionaires, the narrative can change in the public imagination from being meme fodder back to industrial titans.

The problem is not wealth, but optics. Where once wealth signified aspiration, it now signals alienation. Billionaires tweeting about 'hard work' while their companies pay peanuts have less credibility than a broccoli endorsement from Big Mac. Philanthropy now raises eyebrows. Is that donation altruism, or tax jujitsu? Did they fund climate research, or just offset their third rocket launch? Billionaires should pivot from tech-bro enlightenment to something resembling earthly humility. In an age where influence is measured not just in net worth but in net likeability, the super-rich must adapt their storytelling. Or risk being cast as cartoonish oligarchs in the public's grim fairy tale. Even Gatsby had better parties.