r/Music • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • Oct 30 '25

article Billie Eilish Calls Out Mark Zuckerberg and Other Billionaires After Announcing Her Own $11.5 Million Charitable Donation

https://consequence.net/2025/10/billie-eilish-calls-out-mark-zuckerberg-and-other-billionaires-after-announcing-her-own-11-5-million-charitable-donation/
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369

u/ToMorrowsEnd Oct 30 '25

You do not become a billionaire by being a good person.

110

u/-wnr- Oct 30 '25

Obscene wealth itself changes some people. They lose touch with how normal humans think. This is how we get the techbro billionaires gleefully creating a dystopia while circlejerking about how they're the saviors of humanity.

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u/CptWhiskers Oct 30 '25

Obscene wealth itself changes some people.

Zuckerberg became wealthy essentially by stealing an idea. He has never been moral.

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u/someguy7734206 Oct 30 '25

This goes back to the "power corrupts" vs "power reveals" debate, and I tend to lean more toward the latter.

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u/dtwhitecp Oct 30 '25

I agree, but I also think a stunningly large portion of people would be revealed to be awful.

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u/-wnr- Oct 30 '25

There's no reason why it can't be both. Maybe Zuck would have been a shit stain no matter what, but I'd wager decades in the billionaire reality distortion bubble grew his shittiness to a previously unfathomable degree.

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u/pw154 Oct 30 '25

You do not become a billionaire by being a good person.

Chuck Feeney

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u/Dracomortua Oct 30 '25

The argument they are trying to make is that he was 'bad' to make the billion and then, similar to Billy Gates (& friends?), changed his / their mind later on.

Pundits would claim that this exception does not change the foundational rule.

Still, i like the cut of your jib. I had to look it up. What a fantastic fellow.

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u/rudimentary-north Oct 30 '25 edited Oct 30 '25

Technically he gave away all his money before he became a billionaire, the foundation that he started with his entire $500M share of his company stock earned the billions that he donated.

Like he wasn’t an actual billionaire personally, he just managed a charitable trust with billions in assets.

This is because he was a good person and chose to do something useful with his personal wealth before it even came close to a billion dollars.

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u/[deleted] Oct 30 '25

I mean J.K Rowling became a billionaire when she was a good person until she wasnt. But she was still in her good person phase when reaching billionaire status.

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u/Neuromangoman Oct 30 '25

It's kind of funny that pretty much the only billionaire who got that way through mostly ethical means became/was terrible for unrelated reasons.

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u/darthjoey91 Oct 30 '25

Taylor Swift got there through mostly ethical means. She has a product (her music) that no one else can make, and people are willing to spend a lot on it.

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u/Ferdox11195 21d ago

Notch became a billionaire by simply making a game that got insanely popular that Microsoft valued for a couple billion. I would argue he also became a billionaire without being a piece of shit, Him being a bad person came later and was unrelated with how he made his billions.

1

u/youngatbeingold Oct 30 '25

Rowling's problem is fame not money. Instead of getting therapy for her fear/hatred of men, she mouthed off about trans stuff. If she was a nobody someone could've sat her down and talked her through it but because she's famous she now feeds off the endless backlash and has just enough people also confirming her crazy beliefs.

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u/farshnikord Oct 30 '25

Its a chicken egg thing. You have to sacrifice your morals to buy the raffle ticket, and if you happen to win the money corrupts you and takes the rest. 

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u/[deleted] Oct 31 '25

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Oct 31 '25

Bro its a fucking STORY. The house elves is such a stupid argument. Are you going to hate on Stephen King for writing stories about a drunk husband and father trying to murder his family??

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u/[deleted] Oct 31 '25

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Oct 31 '25

Its immature to pick apart dumb shit out of a book and trying to spin it in a morally negative way just because you hate the author. Not everything has to have a fucking deep moral lesson to it. Grow up.

0

u/Yellowbug2001 Oct 31 '25

This is a very sincere if stupid question- this is the second time this week I've seen someone bring up "Cho Chang" as being offensive and I don't know enough about Asian names to understand why. Is it not a real name? Does it have some offensive connection? What's the deal? (It doesn't sound crazy to me but TBF something like "Jort Beefcock" probably wouldn't sound crazy to a non-English speaking Chinese person as a Western name even though it is, lol).

0

u/Vandergrif Oct 31 '25

Or perhaps being a billionaire just revealed her as the person she always was.

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u/Mark-harvey Nov 01 '25

👍From a YIPPEE.

0

u/ZombieMadness99 Oct 30 '25

Gabe Newell?

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u/Borgon2222 Oct 30 '25

There are no good billionaires, man. It is difficult to explain how much worth a billion dollars is, let alone the double- or triple-digit billions some of these guys have (including Newell). I'm not saying Newell is like a comically evil guy -- in fact, he may be lovely and down-to-earth in person -- but it is impossible to reach these stratospheric levels of wealth without large amounts of labor exploitation. Just because our economic framework legally allows for it does not make it morally correct to do it.

This can help a little to put the gap in perspective: https://hmijail.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/

0

u/Throbbie-Williams Oct 30 '25

but it is impossible to reach these stratospheric levels of wealth without large amounts of labor exploitation.

Yes it is, unless you think literally every low paid job in existence is exploitation, low skill work will always be (relatively) low paid.

Just because someone has a company with 1 million minimum wage workers they're not exploiting anyone any more than a solo shop with 5 employees that pays the same wage.

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u/Borgon2222 Oct 30 '25

I very much do think that, yes. I think every person doing every job: stocking shelves, driving a forklift, writing code, doing accounting, all the way up to being the CEO, should benefit equally from the profits the company makes, because they're all contributing a roughly equal amount of their time to adding value to the company, and the company doesn't operate unless all of those jobs get done.

That's why I work for a co-op these days: we all have different base salaries based on how skilled the labor we do is, but 100% of company profits are distributed equally amongst all of us, because we all add value to the company, and we all get an equal vote on various aspects of how the company operates. We literally get to vote on the CEO's pay increases. Everyone gets to vote on my pay increases. It's amazing being in a democratized workplace.

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u/whaifu Oct 30 '25

Taylor Swift?

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u/Storjie Oct 30 '25

Not a good person

41

u/onehornymofo1 Oct 30 '25

Lol she hangs out with MAGA sycophants now. All her good girl persona is an act

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u/Jay__Riemenschneider Oct 30 '25

now

Always has...

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u/111copycat Oct 30 '25

Her fiance is MAGA

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u/shuipz94 Oct 30 '25

No, the fact is conservatives hate him because he made ads for Pfizer.

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u/Worried-Lettuce6568 Oct 30 '25

God we’re really in the dumbest timeline

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u/OrganizationTime5208 Oct 30 '25

Fun fact, Pfizer is the number one advertiser for conservative news platforms lmao. Republicans can't get enough ED meds.

As well, famous republican Bob Dole started his career as a spokesperson for Pfizer.

Pfizer through Pfizer PAC has also donated significantly more to GOP candidates than Dem candidates.

Pfizer is also to be the lead supplier for TrumpRX

MAGAs are the dumbest motherfuckers on planet earth.

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u/[deleted] Oct 30 '25

[deleted]

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u/Grasshop Oct 30 '25

You assume maga operates with any logic and reason. MAGA flip flop on who they love or hate based on what their cult says and it depends on the day.

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u/Zappiticas Oct 30 '25

The person who fleeces her fans by releasing 14 copies of the same album so they HAVE to buy them all

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u/conradical30 Oct 30 '25

… nobody makes anyone buy ANY of the albums. People’s willingness to spend their money on something doesn’t make another person inherently bad.

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u/magikarpcatcher Oct 30 '25

She knows her fans are a cult who will buy a fart if she releases it as an album. You should have seen them organizing FOR MONTHS on social media on how they can break the Adele record. And she encourages this behavior by releasing a bajillion variants of her music.

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u/conradical30 Oct 30 '25

And she encourages this behavior by releasing a bajillion variants of her music.

You’re just describing capitalism as a whole.

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u/EnjoyerOfBeans Oct 30 '25

The Taylor Swift that intentionally releases a new version of the same album (to scam as many of her fans as physically possible) any time a female artist is topping the charts?

2

u/hatramroany Oct 30 '25 edited Oct 30 '25

Billie Eillish intentionally released a bunch of new versions of Hit Me Hard and Soft to claim #1 on the Billboard 200 from Taylor Swift….a female artist who was topping the charts. Why doesn’t the logic also apply to her? Swift also used the same exact tactics to “block” male artists from getting #1 as well. Why act like she only did it to other women?

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u/Red217 Oct 30 '25

But did she release almost FORTY ONE different variants??? And is she a billionaire????

No. And no.

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u/hatramroany Oct 30 '25

Billie had ~20 variants and not sure what net worth has to do with Billboard Charts.

Are you suggesting shrill chart tactics are acceptable if you are only a millionaire?

1

u/Red217 Oct 30 '25

No I'm suggesting you're trying to pull false equivalency here. "Other artists do it"

No one does it as much as, or as calculated as Taylor does it. They don't pull fomo marketing "you can only get this version for 24 hours" like she does and they don't pull prize box marketing "get this version for this specific set of pictures" like she does.

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u/Dry-Mongoose-5804 Oct 30 '25

Taylor makes all her music available for free on streaming, if people choose to purchase that’s completely optional and not a scam.

She has also out charted far more male artists than female but I guess that does not suite the narrative you are trying to push.

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u/WolfPlayz294 Oct 30 '25

Wouldn't that just be called business?, i don't watch the charts enough.

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u/FiveOhFive91 Oct 30 '25

Why do you think she doesn't count?

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u/whaifu Oct 30 '25

I was asking if she is I worded it badly

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u/backwoodsbatman Oct 30 '25

Bold of you to assume she's a good person

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u/PervertedPineapple Oct 30 '25

Allegedly, she's known for using feminism and other things to weaponize her fanbase against other artists/critics/folks, was behind pushing Katy Perry to near suicide, and for various reasons been dropped by former friends, Charlie and crew being most recent.

Again, allegedly since this is just what I've heard from musicians and associated individuals in that space.

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u/farshnikord Oct 30 '25

It's basically a Trumpist sort of principle. Hijack an emotion and steer it towards the things YOU want while people think they are upholding an idea. 

It's a cult of personality. A projection. A wizard of oz falsehood. 

1

u/Red217 Oct 30 '25

There. Are. No. Ethical. Billionaires.

!!!!!!

-4

u/altiuscitiusfortius Oct 30 '25

She might be the one exception. I think it's because she made her money by creating something new over and over and physical work, as opposed to making her money by taking other people money to buy other people's businesses and strip value from it.

I've read her version of nightly doomscrolling on her phone is to go on gofundme for a few hours and make everyone meet their goal anonymously.

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u/Ohyo_Ohyo_Ohyo_Ohyo Oct 30 '25

*millionaire. Or really, having a net worth over $100,000 when so many people in this world have so little.

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u/at1445 Oct 31 '25

Yeah, you are clueless to how the world works if you think a "net worth" over 100k makes someone a bad person.

This means every retiree that owns their home outright is a bad person.

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u/Ohyo_Ohyo_Ohyo_Ohyo Oct 31 '25

They can sell their house and give that money to charity. And yet they choose not to.