Thoughts and prayers to the thousands of Norwegians who have just had one of the best weekends of their lives, followed by one hell of a comedown. Thanks to a currency conversion snafu by the state lottery operator, numerous people were incorrectly informed on Friday that they had won life-changing amounts of money in the Eurojackpot. On Monday, a text message was sent to playersinforming them of the mix-up.
It seems Norwegians are a prudent bunch; I haven’t found any examples of people spending Jeff Bezos-levels of money as soon as they were told they had won big. Me? I would have gone into evil billionaire mode immediately.
First, I would have done what all rich people appear to do these days: bought myself a friend in high places. Judging by Elon Musk’s investments in the US election, a compliant president seems tocost about $291m. However, considering therecent public Musk-Trump bickering, even that doesn’t guarantee you long-term loyalty. So I might have contented myself with a mayor. Billionaire Bill Ackman recently said he is “gravely concerned” by the possibility of Zohran Mamdani being elected mayor of New York and is ready,alongside his wealthy friends, to spend “hundreds of millions of dollars” getting a corporate-friendly candidate elected instead. Because that’s what democracy looks like, folks!
While politician-purchasing is all the rage among the 1%, philanthropy is so last-century. Today’s robber barons have given up pretending to give a damn about the poor and are spending their cash on tacky Venice weddings and apocalypse bunkers instead. Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan’s, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI)recently stopped fundinga number of social causes, including a school for low-income families. While CZI said it would throw a little cash to the students, 400 children were abruptly left in the lurch.
What I would really like to do (apart from cloning my dog), however, is execute the Led By Donkeysidea of banishing billionaires to Mars. I would build a big spaceship and lure the worst people in the world into it with promises of a multimillion-dollar wedding party. Then off they would go to circle the solar system, leaving the rest of us in peace. Pedants and peasants, please don’t @ me and tell me that the Eurojackpot doesn’t pay out that kind of money. This is just fantasy, OK? Which is pretty much the only thing that is still free these days.
Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist