The supplication of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has been both transparent, disappointing, and pathetic — a desperate attempt to gain the good graces of Donald Trump.
He’s not alone. Immensely wealthy people — mostly men — are now bending the knee to Trump in an attempt to protect their vast fortunes and curry future favor with the administration.
Last week, Zuckerberg posted a video on Instagram explaining Facebook’s new policies, which essentially signaled to Trump that he — like many of his wealthy counterparts — was in his pocket.
But here is what I found most interesting about the video:
Zuckerberg is wearing a $900,000 watch in the video
Almost a million dollars is prominently strapped to his wrist as he awkwardly talks about Facebook’s new policies.
The world knows that Mark Zuckerberg is a billionaire many times over. They know the story of his rise to power well. Yet he still needs to display a $900,000 clock on his body to demonstrate his wealth.
I find this astounding.
And yes, I understand that prices and dollar amounts differ for a man worth over $200 billion.
Two hundred billion equals 200,000 million, so $900,000 is a fairly insignificant amount to someone like Zuckerberg.
But some things in this world stop improving regardless of how much time, effort, and money you invest in an object. A watch, for example, which only tells time, can only be adorned with so many precious gems and be only so technologically advanced before the amount of money you spend is nothing more than a signal of wealth.
In this case, Zuckerberg is wearing a Greubel Forsey Hand Made 1. It reportedly requires 6,000 hours to construct by hand, and only two or three are made each year. It’s not encrusted with any precious stones or any next-generation technology.
It simply tells time.
Its price is derived entirely from its exclusivity.
Wearing it tells others that you own something that almost no one else on the planet can own.
This is only one of a multitude of similar watches that Zuckerberg has recently begun wearing, amounting to tens of millions of dollars of timepieces on his wrist.
But in each case, Zucjerber’s watches do nothing more than keep time. No diamonds, rubies, or kryptonite. They don’t connect to the internet, confer superpowers upon the owner, or grant wishes. They are precious because they are rare and purchased by wealthy peers who also want to display their wealth on their bodies.
All of this reminds me — and slightly astounds me:
A lot of money does not make you a confident, happy person.
Great business success does not always equate to great self-esteem and a sense of self-worth.
Enormous power does not make a small, fragile person feel any better about themselves.
Ostentatious displays of wealth almost always signal the desperate desire for attention, acclaim, and acknowledgment.
We see this with Donald Trump every day. His relentless attempts to compliment himself, praise himself, lie about himself, demonstrate his wealth, and demand praise from others are like a beacon of his sadness, fragility, and lack of self-esteem.
The examples abound,
Trump commissioned the design and printing of fake Time magazine covers featuring his face, which he displayed in his country clubs and pretended were real.
Trump wrote to and called journalists pretending to be his own spokesperson — using the aliases John Barron and John Miller — to brag about his success in business and with women.
Trump stole $60,000 in charitable donations from his own foundation to purchase a portrait of himself for his home. As a result, he can no longer operate a charity in New York State.
Trump has repeatedly lied about the height of his buildings. He’s pressured Forbes magazine to rank him higher on their billionaire lists, inflating his wealth by providing fraudulent figures. He has repeatedly claimed to make large charitable donations that records later showed did not exist.
On September 11, 2001, during a phone interview with a local news station, Donald Trump said:
“40 Wall Street actually was the second-tallest building in downtown Manhattan, and it was actually, before the World Trade Center, was the tallest. And then, when they built the World Trade Center, it became known as the second-tallest. And now it’s the tallest.”
The depths of his desperation, sadness, and fragility know no bounds. It’s astounding that so many Americans chose to vote for a man who is clearly lacking in self-esteem and self-worth.
Zuckerberg’s newfound displays of wealth don’t come close to Trump’s pathetic failings for attention — Trump wears watches similar to Zuckerberg’s — but Zuckerberg is clearly signaling wealth and power by displaying these items on his wrist. A man who once wore tee shirts and hoodies almost exclusively is now wearing a $900,000 watch while arguing for the democratization of Facebook.
He’s both tone-deaf and desperately seeking attention and acclaim, unaware of how fragile and weak he looks in the process.
