Big Tech billionaire backlash: Protest billboards call out Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg
More Perfect Union has started a similar form of protest in multiple states. Here's what we know:
Message behind 'We Make, They Take' billboards
Fifty new billboards have gone up across eight states, according to an emailed news release. They are bright yellow-green and white, depict certain billionaires, and have messages calling out corporate and political exploitation of working-class Americans. The billboards are written with things like "We make minimum wage. They take our Medicaid," and "We make big tech rich. They take control of our lives."
Who is on the 'We Make, They Take' billboards?
There are four different designs of the billboards. Each one has a different billionaire including Elon Musk (CEO of Tesla), Mark Zuckerberg (CEO of Meta), Jeff Bezos (Amazon's founder) and Peter Thiel (PayPal's founder).
Welome to 'Billionaire Bunker': How Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez live in Florida's elite enclave
Where are the 'We Make, They Take' billboards?
The billboards are located in the following cities across nine states:
What is More Perfect Union?
More Perfect Union calls itself a nonprofit education, advocacy and journalism organization dedicated to building power for the working class.
"We're calling out a simple truth: Working people keep this country running, but corporations keep taking more and more," said More Perfect Union Founder and Executive Director Faiz Shakir. "What we're seeing today is politically sanctioned exploitation of America's working class − the nurses, teachers, warehouse workers and service employees who hold this country together − all to benefit a handful of billionaire oligarchs and multinational corporations. This campaign calls that out and is designed to start a conversation in the places where it matters most."
Miguel Legoas is a Deep South Connect Team Reporter for Gannett/USA Today. Find him on Instagram @miguelegoas and email at mlegoas@gannett.com.
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'We anticipate the tribe will work with Congress on a path forward to be formally recognized,' Interior spokesperson Elizabeth Peace said in a statement. Federal acknowledgement comes with a bevy of resources owed to tribal nations through treaty rights and acts of Congress, including health care through the Indian Health Service, access to certain federal grants, and the ability to create a land base such as reservations through the land-to-trust process. Many of the 574 federally recognized tribes in the U.S. have been acknowledged through legislation. Dozens more have been recognized through the Office of Federal Acknowledgement, which determines if applicants have a documented history of political and social existence as a tribe. Critics of the Lumbee Tribe, including several tribal nations, argue that it has not been able to prove its historic and genealogical claims and it should do so through the formal federal process. The tribe is recognized by the state of North Carolina. 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In 2011, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that recognizing the Lumbee Tribe and providing the necessary federal resources would cost the U.S. more than $840 million in the first four years. A 2022 CBO estimate put that number at more than $360 million. This month, a Brookings Institution report found that the Trump administration's directive to freeze federal grants could disrupt $24 billion that go to tribes. Tillis, the author of the bill, has also been the subject of the Trump's ire recently, after he voted against the president's tax bill in June. Trump threatened to campaign against him, and Tillis said he would not seek reelection. His bill, the Lumbee Fairness Act, was referred to the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs in January. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who chairs the committee, said she will work with Tillis on the bill. David Wilkins, a Lumbee author and professor at the University of Richmond, has advocated for federal recognition for decades. 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