Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Tom Perkins: Billionaire venture capitalist ridiculed after writing letter comparing the treatment of rich Americans to the Holocaust

Thomas Perkins, who is thought to be worth around $8bn, made the startling comparison in a letter to The Wall Street Journal

Rob Williams
Sunday 26 January 2014 15:09 GMT
Comments
Thomas Perkins, who is thought to be worth around $8bn, made the startling comparison in a letter to The Wall Street Journal
Thomas Perkins, who is thought to be worth around $8bn, made the startling comparison in a letter to The Wall Street Journal (GETTY IMAGES)

Your support helps us to tell the story

This election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.

The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.

Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.

A hyper-wealthy billionaire venture capitalist has faced ridicule after comparing the treatment of super-rich Americans to the Holocaust.

Thomas Perkins, who is thought to be worth around $8bn, made the startling comparison in a letter to The Wall Street Journal in which he wrote of 'parallels' between the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany and what he describes as the "progressive war on the American one percent".

The letter, which was published by the WSJ earlier this week, begins: "Writing from the epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco, I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its "one percent," namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the "rich."

Perkins, who was a founder member of the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, continues: "From the Occupy movement to the demonization of the rich embedded in virtually every word of our local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, I perceive a rising tide of hatred of the successful one percent."

"There is outraged public reaction to the Google buses carrying technology workers from the city to the peninsula high-tech companies which employ them. We have outrage over the rising real-estate prices which these 'techno geeks' can pay," he adds.

Mr Perkins, who was educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard, concludes his letter by warning of a "very dangerous drift in our American thinking," before adding "Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendent 'progressive' radicalism unthinkable now?"

Kristallnacht, also known as the Night of Broken Glass, saw a series of coordinated attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany in November 1938.

The attacks were carried out by Sturmabteilung forces and non-Jewish civilians and were ignored by the German authorities. 91 Jews were killed and around 30,000 were arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps.

Mr Perkins, who controversially resigned from the board of Hewlett-Packard in 2006 following a row over the methods used in a crackdown on media leaks, faced widespread ridicule on social media following the publication of his letter.

One Twitter user wrote: "Serious rich-dude bubble to see "treatment" of rich by progressives as parallel to Nazi treatment of Jews...".

Other users described the businessman as a "rich idiot" and condemned the newspaper for printing the letter. New York Times writer Steven Greenhouse tweeted: 'As someone who lost numerous relatives to the Nazi gas chambers, I find statements like this revolting & inexplicable.'

Mr Perkins was recently in the news after spending $150million building a super yacht called the Maltese Falcon.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in