Combination with Taylor Swift (L) and Ray Dalio.
Getty Images (L) | CNBC(R)
Hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio attended Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour in Singapore and posted a selfie from the packed venue along with a caption explaining why he thought the megastar should be the next President of the United States.
“@TaylorSwift for President!” Dalio wrote on Instagram on Thursday.
“I just saw her at her concert in Singapore and realized that she can bring Americans and people in most countries together much better than any of the candidates, and that bringing people together is the most important thing,” Dalio wrote.
“Seeing this concert with people from all over the world made me and them feel good and connected and reminded me how powerful this universal culture is,” he added. “Wouldn’t it be great if we had two candidates who could lead this culture and also make smart leadership decisions?”
While the post was likely written in jest, politicians and pundits know all too well about the record-breaking Grammy Award-winning singer’s powerful influence and enormous fan base.
Dalio later tweeted an update detailing and explaining his mood when he made the initial post.
“Subject: my Taylor Swift for president! Comments, “No, I wasn’t drunk (although of course I need to work on my selfies) and yes, it was a joke, which is a half-truth,” Dalio wrote in the post on social media site X.
“The half truth is that I think she can bring people together much better than any of the presidential candidates…”
Swift’s efforts to get out the vote prompted tens of thousands of young people to register to vote in a single day in 2020.
And the reputation she gained through her support of Joe Biden’s campaign against former President Donald Trump this year has fueled right-wing conspiracy theories that she is being used as a tool of Democrats or even the Pentagon and CIA in this year’s presidential election.
While some Republican lawmakers and television pundits claim that Swift is part of an elaborate conspiracy to achieve the Biden administration’s end goal, her fans responded with “You need to calm down.” Swift has not spoken out in favor of the 2024 election, but her 228 million Instagram followers encouraged to vote in the Super Tuesday primaries in a post on Tuesday.
Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, has previously stressed that he believes a more centrist approach to American politics is needed. Many voters have not expressed excitement at the prospect of a rematch between Trump and Biden, bracing for a potentially gruesome summer and fall campaign season as the candidates’ bad blood risks further polarizing the country’s politics to stir up.
“What we need is a very strong middle,” Dalio said at a financial forum in November.
“We have irreconcilable differences between sides that will not accept defeat.”
He said at the time that he viewed former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley as the most likely candidate. Perhaps he now hopes Swift will fill the void left by Haley’s recent departure from the race.
Taylor Swift performs during her Eras Tour in Cincinnati, Ohio on June 30, 2023.
Taylor Hill/tas23 | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images
The Eras Tour is the highest-grossing concert tour in history, comprising 152 shows on five continents over 21 months.
Since her tour began, Swift has become a billionaire and has boosted the economies of numerous cities and states, exceeding many forecasters’ wildest dreams. The Federal Reserve called its 2023 concerts a significant economic boost for American cities, and some analysts estimated that the shows and subsequent gold rush in travel and fan spending by October of that year would add $5.7 billion to the U.S. economy -dollars brought in.
In Singapore alone, six consecutive days of concerts in the first quarter of this year are estimated to have contributed between $225 million and $300 million to the city-state’s economy, according to a survey of economists published by Bloomberg.
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2024-03-08 17:13:15
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