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Time of India
13 hours ago
- Business
- Time of India
Why are Venetians mad at Jeff Bezos? Giant banner unfurled in city ahead of his wedding demands he pay more taxes
As Jeff Bezos prepares for a luxurious wedding in Venice, activists have crashed the party. Venetians publicly and loudly voice their displeasure with growing citywide protests, triggered by the couple's extravagant event. In the midst of Venice's ongoing battle with overtourism, residents are objecting to Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez's lavish wedding, claiming it is disruptive. Why are Venetians against Jeff Bezos' luxurious wedding? A massive banner of the billionaire was unfurled on Monday in St. Mark's Square, urging him to pay higher taxes. Locals are unimpressed with rising living costs and overtourism, as per a report by Newsweek. Ahead of Jeff Bezos' $15-20 million wedding in Venice, Greenpeace and "Everyone Hates Elon" activists displayed a banner demanding that he pay more taxes. Locals are frustrated because billionaires like Bezos crowd the city with events that benefit only a wealthy few, making life difficult for ordinary Venetians. Live Events Although the city and regional officials who approved the wedding claim that it will boost the city's reputation and economy, locals who are already dealing with excessive tourism and growing housing expenses are dubious. Will protests disrupt The Big Day? According to Marta Sottoriva, an activist with the group "No Space for Bezos," "life is getting increasingly difficult in Venice," reported Newsweek. This weekend, the demonstrators intend to interrupt the wedding by plunging into the canal's waters, claiming that the groom is the target of their ire rather than the ceremony. They contend that Bezos is the third richest man in the world and that he has amassed his fortune by taking advantage of workers and resources. "It's a protest against Bezos; he's not welcome in Venice," she stated. ALSO READ: Ariana Grande amplifies AOC's call to impeach Trump — fans say she should be deported; what is her descent? What do the activists want? The massive wealth of Bezos, which demonstrators claimed should be taxed more than it is now, is the main focus of the new banner that was unveiled in St. Mark's Square on Monday. "Jeff Bezos can afford to close half a city for days on end just to get married, while governments struggle to pay for public services and discuss difficult decisions. This is a clear indication that billionaires like Bezos ought to pay wealth taxes," a representative for Everyone Hates Elon told Newsweek in a statement. There are more billionaires than ever before, while regular people find it difficult to make ends meet. There is a clear correlation between their increasing wealth and our struggles. Sea levels are rising at an alarming rate, and human activity and climate change are causing Venice to sink. Protesters are demanding equitable, inclusive regulations to stop billionaires from avoiding accountability. Greenpeace activist Clara Thompson contends that the true problem is a flawed system that lets billionaires avoid paying taxes while everyone else is forced to pay the price. According to reports, Bezos pays a 1.1% true tax rate, despite being the second-richest person in the world after Elon Musk. FAQs Why are the Venetians upset about Jeff Bezos' wedding? They argue that it only benefits a wealthy few and puts a strain on the city, which is already dealing with overtourism and rising costs. What are the activists demanding? Increased taxes on billionaires like Bezos, arguing that it is unfair that ordinary people bear the economic burdens.
Los Angeles Times
15 hours ago
- Business
- Los Angeles Times
Greenpeace joins anti-Bezos protest with Venice banner complaining about billionaire tax breaks
Greenpeace on Monday joined the smattering of protests in Venice against the upcoming wedding of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez. A half-dozen protesters unfurled a giant banner early Monday in St. Mark's Square reading: 'IF YOU CAN RENT VENICE FOR YOUR WEDDING YOU CAN PAY MORE TAX.' Local police quickly folded it up and took it away. The demonstration followed other anti-Bezos initiatives last week including a banner draped from the San Giorgio bell tower, one from the lagoon city's famous Rialto Bridge and posters plastered up around town complaining about the upcoming wedding and the effects of overtourism on Venice. The 'No Space for Bezos' movement — a play on words also referring to the bride's recent space flight — has united a dozen Venetian organizations including housing advocates, anti-cruise ship campaigners and university groups. Activists argue the wedding exemplifies broader failures in municipal governance, particularly the prioritization of tourism over resident needs. Greenpeace said it teamed with the British group 'Everyone Hates Elon,' which has smashed Teslas to protest Elon Musk, for Monday's banner. Greenpeace said it wanted to draw attention to the comparitively low taxes many billionaires pay while allegedly exacerbating the climate crisis with environmentally unsustainable lifestyles. Italian and Venetian officials have strongly criticized the protests and welcomed the Bezos-Sanchez nuptials, which are scheduled for later this week. Over the weekend, as the protests continued to make headlines in Italy, a Venetian environmental research association, Corila, said Bezos' Earth Fund was supporting its work with an 'important donation.' Corila, which unites university scholars and Italy's main national research council in researching Venetian protection strategies, wouldn't say how much Bezos was donating but noted contacts began in April, well before the protests started.
Boston Globe
16 hours ago
- Business
- Boston Globe
Greenpeace joins anti-Bezos protest with Venice banner complaining about billionaire tax breaks
The 'No Space for Bezos' movement — a play on words also referring to the bride's recent space flight — has united a dozen Venetian organizations including housing advocates, anti-cruise ship campaigners and university groups. Advertisement Activists argue the wedding exemplifies broader failures in municipal governance, particularly the prioritization of tourism over resident needs. Greenpeace said it teamed with the British group 'Everyone Hates Elon,' which has smashed Teslas to protest Elon Musk, for Monday's banner. Greenpeace said it wanted to draw attention to the comparitively low taxes many billionaires pay while allegedly exacerbating the climate crisis with environmentally unsustainable lifestyles. Italian and Venetian officials have strongly criticized the protests and welcomed the Bezos-Sanchez nuptials, which are scheduled for later this week. Over the weekend, as the protests continued to make headlines in Italy, a Venetian environmental research association, Corila, said Bezos' Earth Fund was supporting its work with an 'important donation.' This photo released by Greenpeace shows a large banner against Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' planned wedding, in St. Mark Square, in Venice, Italy Monday, June 23, 2025. Greenpeace/Associated Press Corila, which unites university scholars and Italy's main national research council in researching Venetian protection strategies, wouldn't say how much Bezos was donating but noted contacts began in April, well before the protests started. Advertisement
New York Times
06-04-2025
- Automotive
- New York Times
‘0 to 1939 in 3 seconds': Why Anti-Elon Musk Satire Is Flourishing in Britain
The mischievous posters began appearing all over London in the past two months. On the side of an East London bus stop, one of them shows Elon Musk, the world's richest man, emerging from a Tesla's roof with his hand pointing upward in a straight-armed salute. 'Goes from 0 to 1939 in 3 seconds,' the ad reads. 'Tesla. The Swasticar.' Another mock ad shows Mr. Musk and President Trump in front of a red Tesla with the words: 'Now With White Power Steering.' In North London, a fake movie billboard blares: 'The Fast and the Führer,' with a picture of Mr. Musk saluting beside a Tesla with a DOGE license plate, a reference to the budget-slashing federal agency he currently leads on behalf of Mr. Trump. 'Parental Guidance,' warns the billboard, put up by a group calling themselves Everyone Hates Elon. 'Tesla's CEO is a far-right activist. Don't give him your money.' Across the British capital and in several European cities, Mr. Musk's signature business has become the target of the same kind of political anger that has fueled vandalism of Tesla cars in the United States and sometimes violent protests at his dealerships. There have been some instances of unruly protests and vandalism in Europe. But much of the anti-Musk sentiment has taken the form of political satire, of the kind that has flourished in Britain since at least the 18th century. Just outside Berlin, a group called the Center for Political Beauty used high-power lights to project the word 'Heil' onto the side of a Tesla factory so that it read 'Heil Tesla,' along with a picture of Mr. Musk saluting during a speech in Washington. In Italy, street art depicts Elon Musk taking off a mask to show Adolf Hitler's face underneath. The words 'Elon Mask' appear above the picture. 'There's never been a target exactly like this,' said John Gorenfeld, a software engineer who helped start a London-based group called 'Takedown Tesla.' The group has organized protests of several dozen people for the past several weeks. They hold posters along freeways that say 'Honk if you hate Elon.' And they have printed bumper stickers for Tesla owners with phrases like 'Don't make the same mistake' and 'Pre-2020 Model.' 'Nobody who is that rich and powerful has behaved that outrageously,' Mr. Gorenfeld said. 'There's something campy and ridiculous about Musk's brand of toxicity. And it opens up a real space to ridicule.' In Europe, Mr. Musk is not just a faraway example of American wealth and power. Over the last year, he has become a frequent political meddler, often weighing in on behalf of far-right causes on X, his social media platform, where he has 218 million followers. In Britain, Mr. Musk is known for sharing misinformation about a child rape scandal and calling for Prime Minister Keir Starmer to be jailed. He has called for the release of Tommy Robinson, a far-right, anti-immigrant agitator who is in prison for contempt of court. And he criticized the seven-year sentence of a neo-Nazi who incited and took part in anti-immigrant riots last summer. The small anti-Musk groups that have popped up around Europe have the same basic goal: Tank Tesla's stock price and sales as a way of sending a message to Mr. Musk and other super-wealthy people who are thinking of promoting far-right politics around the world. Some groups declined to be interviewed about their actions, citing concern about becoming a target of Mr. Musk's ire on social media. But others were more open about their aims. 'The point of this is to show Musk and other billionaires that they are vulnerable and can't act with impunity,' said Ben Stewart, a founder of a British satirical activist group called Led by Donkeys, which worked with the Center for Political Beauty to project Mr. Musk's image on the Berlin factory. 'We have to harness global public opinion to push back.' Organizers think it's working. Tesla's stock price has almost halved since its high in December, around the same time that Mr. Musk began his high-profile role overseeing the firing of government workers and slashing federal agency budgets. This week, Tesla reported a 13 percent drop in sales compared with a year ago. 'What they're trying to do is put massive pressure on me, and Tesla I guess, to you know, I don't know, stop doing this,' Mr. Musk said last week in Wisconsin where he was campaigning for a state supreme court candidate. And yet, he added with a shrug, 'Long term, I think Tesla stock's going to do fine, so maybe it's a buying opportunity.' The protesters who spoke about their aims said they wanted to challenge Mr. Musk's influence without resorting to the vandalism that the billionaire has called out in the United States as 'coordinated violence against a peaceful company.' Theodora Sutcliffe, a London resident who helped organize Tesla Takedown, said none of the people she works with are participating in violence. Instead, they have sought to find other ways to capture public attention. At one of their protests, a wavy, 20-foot balloon man who vaguely resembled Mr. Musk saluted into the air. At other times, Ms. Sutcliffe and her fellow protesters have left fliers on the windshields of Tesla cars. 'Once upon a time, Teslas were cool,' one flier says. 'Now, sadly, that's not the case. Driving a Tesla and using Tesla chargers means you're propping up Elon Musk, a man who promotes climate deniers and fossil-fuel junkies.' 'If you want to go viral in the U.K., you have to be smart, I think,' Ms. Sutcliffe said. 'That's our sense of humor normally.' The anti-Musk efforts in Berlin were led by Philipp Ruch, the artistic director for the Center for Political Beauty, a German activist group. In an interview, he said that much of the anger at Mr. Musk in Germany stems from the billionaire's support for the country's far-right party, the Alternative for Germany. 'The first day that the administration comes in, he does the Hitler salute,' Mr. Ruch said. 'This is something we couldn't tolerate, politically and artistically.' Mr. Ruch performs many of his protests by 'overwriting' one image with another. At the Tesla dealership, he used lights to superimpose his words and images of Mr. Musk to create a new artistic creation. (He said the police are now investigating his efforts, which were visible for about an hour.) Pictures of the building were spread widely on social media. Other efforts have gone viral, too. There are mock car air fresheners called 'Musk-B-Gone' that promise to cover 'the stench of fascism.' And cardboard cutouts of Mr. Musk and Mr. Trump, thanking Tesla owners for their support when they top up their cars at the company's supercharger lots. 'There are some people who are coming at Musk as though he's some sort of passive agent of Trump and that really, this is just another way of getting to Trump,' said Ms. Sutcliffe. 'There's other people who perceive Musk as somebody who's a unique type of threat that we really haven't seen before in terms of his economic control and control of the information space.'
Yahoo
26-02-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Anti-Elon Musk Poster 'Don't Buy a Swasticar' in London Goes Viral
It appears Elon Musk has enemies all over the world. The tech billionaire — currently the planet's richest man and CEO of Tesla — has integrated himself into U.S. politics, becoming Donald Trump's head of a new Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) and aligned himself with far-right politicians in Europe. More from The Hollywood Reporter Vice and ITV Join Forces in Distribution Deal as Freddie Flintoff Makes TV Return With 'Bullseye' Amazon, SkyShowtime Execs Talk Partnerships, Influencers, Content Cadence, Windows Max and Tubi Executives Outline U.K. Strategies at MIP London In Bethnal Green in East London, a poster has now emerged at a bus stop garnering significant online attention. 'Goes from 0 to 1939 in 3 seconds,' the image says, with a picture of Musk in a Tesla below. The photo is taken from the moment Musk, also the founder of SpaceX, made what looked like a Nazi salute at Trump's January inauguration rally, drawing criticisms from all over the globe. The poster dubs Tesla 'The Swasticar.' Behind the poster seems to be a U.K.-based group calling itself Everyone Hates Elon. 'Elon Musk just helped the far-right in [Germany] win their best result since WW2,' the group wrote alongside a TikTok of a man in high-vis clothes putting the sign up. That comment was a reference to the 20.8 percent share of the vote for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in the recent election, 'So don't buy his f*king cars, yeah?' the group concluded. The TikTok video has garnered more than 980,000 likes and nine million views. Everyone Hates Elon group has a GoFundMe page where proceeds go to the costs of campaigning against the mogul. Its statement on the fundraiser reads: 'Not happy with fueling the far-right in the USA, Elon Musk is now doing the same in Europe. We can't let the richest man in the world poison our politics. While nurses use food banks, his wealth grew by $200 billion last year.' It continues: 'We've plastered 'don't buy a swasticar' stickers across hundreds of Teslas in London and taken a cardboard cutout of Elon Musk to a Tesla dealership…' They have so far raised over £4,300 ($5,400). Meanwhile, Tesla sales have almost halved in Europe in January amid Musk's work for Trump, his support for Germany's AfD party and his barrage of social media attacks on the continent's top politicians and left-wing groups. The carmaker sold 9,945 vehicles in Europe in January, down 45 percent from 18,161 in January 2024, according to data from the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association (ACEA) published on Wednesday. Tesla's share of the market dropped from 1.8 percent to 1 percent. Musk has denied a 'hostile takeover' of the U.S. government. 'The people voted for major government reform and that's what the people are going to get,' he said as he defended his cost-cutting plans from the White House on Feb. 11. 'That's what democracy is all about. I fully expect to be scrutinized,' he added. 'It's not like I think I can get away with something.' The latest in a slew of actions includes freezing international aid programs, which research and policy NGO Guttmacher has predicted will lead to the deaths of several thousand women and children. Best of The Hollywood Reporter Most Anticipated Concert Tours of 2025: Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar & SZA, Sabrina Carpenter and More Hollywood's Highest-Profile Harris Endorsements: Taylor Swift, George Clooney, Bruce Springsteen and More Most Anticipated Concert Tours of 2024: Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny, Olivia Rodrigo and More
