Here’s how Kentucky Republican Congressman Thomas Massie responded on Sunday, during ABC’s “This Week,” to a question about the Trump regime’s handling of the Epstein files:
“This is about the Epstein class …. They’re billionaires who were friends with these people, and that’s what I’m up against in Washington, D.C. Donald Trump told us that even though he had dinner with these kinds of people, in New York City and West Palm Beach, that he would be transparent. But he’s not. He's still in with the Epstein class. This is the Epstein administration. And they’re attacking me for trying to get these files released.”
The Epstein Class. Not just the people who cavorted with Jeffrey Epstein or the subset who abused young girls. It’s an interconnected world of hugely rich, prominent, entitled, smug, powerful, self-important (mostly) men. Trump is honorary chairman.
Trump appears 1,433 times in the Epstein files so far. His billionaire backers are also members. Elon Musk appears 1,122 times. Howard Lutnick is a member. So is Trump-backer Peter Thiel (2,710 times), and Leslie Wexner (565 times). As is Steven Witkoff, now Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, and Steve Bannon, Trump’s consigliere (1,855 times).
The Epstein Class isn’t limited to Trump donors. Bill Clinton is a member (1,192 times), as is Larry Summers (5,621 times). So are LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman (3,769 times), Prince Andrew (1,821 times), Bill Gates (6,385 times), and Steve Tisch, co-owner of the New York Giants (429 times).
If not politics, what connects the members of the Epstein Class? It’s not just riches. Some members are not particularly wealthy, but they’re richly connected. They trade on their prominence, on whom they know and who will return their phone calls.
They exchange inside tips on stocks, on the movements of currencies, on IPOs, on new tax-avoidance mechanisms. On getting into exclusive clubs, reservations at chic restaurants, lush hotels, exotic travel.
They entertain one another, stay at each other’s guest houses and villas. Some exchange tips on how to procure certain drugs or kinky sex or valuable works of art. And, of course, how to accumulate more wealth.
Most members of the Epstein Class have seceded into their own small, self-contained, squalid world. They are disconnected from the rest of society. Most don’t particularly believe in democracy; Peter Thiel (recall, he appears 2,710 times in the Epstein files) has said he “no longer believes that freedom and democracy are compatible.”
Many are putting their fortunes into electing people who will do their bidding. Hence, they are politically dangerous.
The Epstein Class is the by-product of an economy that emerged over the last two decades, from which this new elite has siphoned off vast amounts of wealth.
It’s an economy that bears almost no resemblance to that of mid-20th-century America. The most valuable companies in this new economy have few workers because they don’t make stuff. They design it. They create ideas. They sell concepts. They move money.
The value of businesses in this new economy isn’t in factories, buildings, or machines. It’s in algorithms, operating systems, standards, brands, and vast, self-reinforcing user networks.
I remember when IBM was the nation’s most valuable company and among its largest employers, with a payroll in the 1980s of nearly 400,000. Today, Nvidia is nearly 20 times as valuable as IBM was then and five times as profitable (adjusted for inflation), but it employs just over 40,000. Nvidia, unlike the old IBM, designs but doesn’t make its products.
Over the past three years, Google parent Alphabet’s revenue has grown 43 percent while its payroll has remained flat. Amazon’s revenue has soared, but it’s eliminating jobs.
Members of the Epstein Class are paid in shares of stock. As corporate profits have soared, the stock market has roared. As the stock market has roared, the compensation of the Epstein Class has reached the stratosphere.
Meanwhile, most Americans are trapped in an old economy where they depend on shrinking paychecks and a diminishing number of jobs. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York just reported that mortgage delinquency rates for lower-income households are surging.
Affordable housing isn’t a problem that occurs to the Epstein Class. Nor is income inequality. Nor the loss of our democracy. Nor the deleterious effects of social media on young people and children.
When Silicon Valley’s biggest tech proponent in Congress — Rep. Ro Khanna — recently announced his support for a tax on California billionaires, to help fill the void created by Trump’s cuts in Medicare (which, in turn, made way for Trump’s second huge tax cut for the rich), the Epstein Class had a fit.
Vinod Khosla, one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent venture capitalists, with a net worth estimated at more than $13 billion (and who’s mentioned a mere 182 times in the Epstein files but is no friend of Trump), called Khanna a “commie comrade.”
Khosla, by the way, is best known by the public for having purchased 89 acres of California beachfront property in in 2008 for $32.5 million, then trying to block public access to the ocean with a locked gate and signs. Despite losing multiple court rulings, including a 2018 Supreme Court appeal, he carries on with the dispute.
Not classy, but, shall we say, a typical Epstein Class move.
Robert Reich is a professor at Berkeley and was secretary of labor under Bill Clinton. You can find his writing at https://robertreich.substack.com/.