Howard Schultz, the former Starbucks CEO with a net worth of $3.4 billion, who last week announced he’s exploring a presidential run as a “centrist independent” (which would likely hand Trump a second term), told CNBC that he doesn’t like the term “billionaire” and would like the mega-rich to be called “people of means.”
Asked by CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin if he agrees with wealth-tax Democrats who say that “billionaires have too much power in American public life,” Schultz replied: “The moniker ‘billionaire’ now has become the catchphrase. I would rephrase that and I would say ‘people of means’ have been able to leverage their wealth and their interest in ways that are unfair. And I think that speaks to the inequality, but it also directly speaks to the special interests that are paid for by people of wealth and corporations who are looking for influence, and they have such unbelievable influence on the politicians who are steeped in the ideology of both parties…If I should run for president, I am not in bed with any party. I am not in bed with any special interest. All I’m trying to do is one thing: walk in the shoes of the American people.”
Last week, Schultz was asked if he knows the cost of a box of Cheerios. He didn’t.
