Lewis Hamilton doesnt think billionaires should exist? Thats pretty rich from an F1 driver
Lewis Hamilton doesn’t think billionaires should exist? That’s rich.Over the past few days, comments the F1 driver made in a 2023 interview with Jay Shetty have resurfaced and stirred up controversy on social media.“You shouldn’t be able to have billions,” Hamilton said on Shetty’s “On Purpose” podcast.“I think there should be a limit to how much you can have because there’s enough to go around for everyone.”Tell that to his girlfriend, Kim Kardashian, who is worth nearly $2 billion, according to Forbes. Or to the billionaires who fund his career.
Formula 1 is one of the most expensive sports in the world and overwhelmingly funded by billionaire owners.Self-made chemical tycoon Jim Ratcliffe bankrolled Hamilton for over a decade at Mercedes before the driver switched to Ferrari, which is controlled by the Agnelli-Elkann family — who have an estimated $18 billion fortune.Or to Hamilton himself. While not a billionaire, the driver is worth an estimated $550 million, according to Forbes.
He pulls in an annual salary of $60 million from Ferrari (not to mention brand deals with Lululemon, Dior, Puma, Tommy Hilfiger, IWC Schaffhausen and Perplexity), maintains six homes across the world (including a $44 million condo in Manhattan), and keeps a 90-foot yacht.Several years ago, Hamilton moved from England — where he was born and where income over £125K is taxed at 45% — to Monaco, where, conveniently, his hundreds of millions of dollars are shielded from taxation.So an anti-billionaire sermon is pretty ironic coming from a man whose fortune and, indeed, entire career wouldn’t exist without them.But Hamilton is just the latest celebrity to trash a system that made him one of the richest people in the history of the world. It’s a tired shtick meant to make the privileged seem relatable and empathetic.It’s lip service with no action.See also: Al Gore, who collected an Oscar and a Nobel Prize for climate activism while his Nashville ma...