Billionaire Howard Schultz, who is worth over one billion dollars, hence the reason the nomenclature "billionaire" is often applied to him, is trying, in his billionaire way to let people know he would prefer not to be known for his billions of dollars. The billionaire is even seeming to want the entire term eliminated, so that billionaires like him and other billionaires are no longer called billionaires.
The former CEO of Starbucks made this statement last week during an on-stage Q&A with CNBC host Andrew Ross Sorkin at a Barnes & Noble in New York, where he laid out his philosophy on wealth and the 'American Dream'.
In an interview with Sorkin, who I can only assume is NOT a billionaire, another person who is also probably not a billionaire (author Anand Giridharadas) sent in a question to ask Howard Schultz, the billionaire. "Do you agree that billionaires have too much power in American public life?"
The billionaire opined, "The moniker, 'billionaire,' has become the catch-phrase. I would rephrase that, and say that people of means have been able to blah blah blah and people of wealth bling bleep bloop blah blah blah."
Well, out of respect for the billionaire's desire to completely misrepresent himself via this pathetic and transparent attempt at rebranding, the C&L staff and I have come up with some other suggestions he might use. Of course, Twitter had their own suggestions, too...
Crooks & Liars Staff Suggestions:
Wealth-adjacent
Poverty-averse
Baby Got Billions
Knobs
Millionaires Thousand-fold
Some of our favorite Twitter Suggestions:
Well, at least his polling sucks. And he is creating unity...
