What does a billionaire most want that most of the rest of us somehow manage without? An American stratospheric net worther is currently advertising via a Kensington recruitment company for an “exceptional” nanny to oversee canine care, diet and play dates with a salary well over £100k for the right candidate. It is one small reminder that the very rich are not simply “different” by virtue of having more money but that at some level, probably around a billion, the money itself stops being the point.
This week, the Cannes Lions festival (a transatlantic media and advertising shindig like Davos-in-the sunshine) is a vivid illustration. Persol sunglasses allow monied folk to mingle, entertained by Paris Hilton and rent-a-rappers. A club sandwich costs an absurd £60 in the posh hotels — but then no sensible billionaire would eat there.
“I’m heading home,” a West Coast AI entrepreneur yawns after cocktails on the Croisette. “To Paolo Alto?” I ask, bemused. “No, I have a house in the hills near here that I use at this time of year.”
And here is the truth about modern billionaires. Few of them really want to meet anyone else, unless it is part of an M&A deal. While international watering holes feature big-name players ranging from James and Katherine Murdoch and Axel Springer boss Mathias Döpfner, who enjoy jousting ideas about their businesses, another group of “super” billionaires is emerging — the kind you rarely see at all.
So Jeff Bezos moors his yacht off the coast here — but his only visible venture onshore has been lunch with his fiancee. Evan Spiegel, the Snapchat founder, hosts a dinner but has vanishingly little interest in hitting the late-night parties that his company sponsors. In London, the “quiet billionaire” class includes property magnate and Cliveden hotel owner Ian Livingstone and Ineos CEO Jim Ratcliffe. Neither, I would guess, would be recognised, because today’s mega-wealthy prefer low profile to bling.
The days of the noisily engaged public billionaire are also in the rear-view mirror. I first encountered Bill Gates at Davos, when he would appear in a red bobble hat (which styled him as the super-rich nice guy who (shock!) wore ordinary clothes). But too much exposure led to tainted glitz — Gates found himself in the headlines for having become too friendly with serial abuser Jeffrey Epstein, who was not a billionaire but behaved as if he was.
An elite, monied class has been part of urban society since Trimalchio described the banquets of ancient Rome. But at least this version of “High Society” was in plain sight to be ogled at, envied or mocked. The new era billionaires stay out of the way. They are also advised to keep their alliances out of sight — or, indeed, cancel inconvenient ones. Crispin Odey, one of the City’s best connected hedgefunders, is now the target of multiple accusations of sexual assault against women (he denies them all). Then there is former Barclays CEO Jes Staley, who had close links to Epstein. Few peers now recall knowing them — but they surely did.
By no means are all very wealthy people sleazy — many (including the ranks of British-born tycoons) are self-made souls who do “boring” things in business, very well, and sustain businesses on which we all rely for work (and pensions). The rising stars of wealth are a different breed from the hedgefunders in cufflinks or Silicon Valley crowd of the Google and Facebook goldrush. Not so long ago, I met Aleksandr Wang, the founder of Scale AI, who describes himself, aged just 24 with a company valued at $7 billion, as “the picks and shovels generation of artificial intelligence”.
High-end designers weep: this breed does not wear tailored black suits (that is for the sales team). They hang out in “gorpcore” hiking clothes, blurring the line between work and leisure.
But these details are also demarcators which mean the rich can hide in plain sight. And however noisy the backlash against the 0.1 per cent, it is growing, not least because “big tech” enables those with resources to expand, while restrictions on capital flows from Russia and China create more opportunities for the Western wealthy to prosper.
If all goes to plan, you can join the “have yachts”, in the vast parking lot of shipping hardware off the Côte D’Azur, this week buzzing with party-goers. The real billionaires, however, will be somewhere else — out of sight and very quiet.
Anne McElvoy is Executive Editor at Politico
