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submitted 5 months ago by Silverseren@kbin.social to c/news@lemmy.world

A group of billionaires and business titans working to shape U.S. public opinion of the war in Gaza privately pressed New York City’s mayor last month to send police to disperse pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, according to communications obtained by The Washington Post and people familiar with the group.

Business executives including Kind snack company founder Daniel Lubetzky, hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb, billionaire Len Blavatnik and real estate investor Joseph Sitt held a Zoom video call on April 26 with Mayor Eric Adams (D), about a week after the mayor first sent New York police to Columbia’s campus, a log of chat messages shows. During the call, some attendees discussed making political donations to Adams, as well as how the chat group’s members could pressure Columbia’s president and trustees to permit the mayor to send police to the campus to handle protesters, according to chat messages summarizing the conversation.

One member of the WhatsApp chat group told The Post he donated $2,100, the maximum legal limit, to Adams that month. Some members also offered to pay for private investigators to assist New York police in handling the protests, the chat log shows — an offer a member of the group reported in the chat that Adams accepted. The New York Police Department is not using and has not used private investigators to help manage protests, a spokeswoman for City Hall said.

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[-] girlfreddy@lemmy.ca 61 points 5 months ago

Business titans ... and they're not even using the term sarcastically.

Fuck business titans who want to rule the world.

[-] assassinatedbyCIA@lemmy.world 31 points 5 months ago

If they were foreign they’d be called oligarchs.

[-] nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 5 months ago

Just your normal Buisness Titans, who seem to have the mayor on speed dial and tell him what to do, nothing fishy there.

[-] Deceptichum@sh.itjust.works 52 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Tick tock, the worlds expiring.

[-] Nurse_Robot@lemmy.world 21 points 5 months ago

This is the bad future

[-] psvrh@lemmy.ca 17 points 5 months ago

The rich are scared that this could metastasize into anti-capitalism protests in general.

They know they've gone too far, pushed too much, been too greedy. They know their control is shaken for the first time in almost forty years and they're worried.

[-] APassenger@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago

Did you read the names with discernment?

While I absolutely think they're using capital to advance their cause, I don't think this was done out of concern for capitalism.

[-] PunnyName@lemmy.world 8 points 5 months ago

Peaceful protesting only works for so long. FTP

this post was submitted on 17 May 2024
224 points (98.3% liked)

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