- Jesse Eisenberg has criticized top tech leaders for getting involved in politics.
- The actor, who once played Mark Zuckerberg, said tech leaders should focus their money and attention elsewhere.
- Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos were among the tech billionaires who attended Trump’s inauguration.
Jesse Eisenberg has said that “tech bros” who have involved themselves in politics would be better off “doing good things for the world.”
The actor, who portrayed Mark Zuckerberg in the 2010 film “The Social Network,” made the comments during a recent episode of “Real Time With Bill Maher.”
Eisenberg was asked by the show’s host what he thought of the array of “tech bros” who attended President Donald Trump’s inauguration earlier this month.
The actor-director responded: “I look at it from a very specific perspective, which is if you’re so rich and powerful, why are you not just spending your days doing good things for the world? So it’s hard for me to understand the specifics of what they’re doing.”
“You know, I married a woman who’s like this amazing activist. All she thinks about all day is, ‘How can I help the people who are most in need?'” he said of his wife, Anna Strout, who works for a number of nonprofits.
Eisenberg, who directed and starred in the Oscar-nominated film “A Real Pain,” continued: “So when I watch these incredibly powerful people, I just think, ‘Why are you not spending your day helping people?'”
“Why are you getting mired into this weird stuff — stuff I don’t really understand — and taking privacy concerns away, hurting people who are already hurting, marginalized people?”
“I’m just thinking, ‘Why are they not spending every day helping people?'” Eisenberg added.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos were among the tech leaders to attend Trump’s inauguration.
Musk spent millions of his own money supporting Trump’s election bid last year and has since been tapped to lead the new Department of Government Efficiency.
Both Meta and Amazon have also offered their support to Trump, donating $1 million each to his inaugural fund.
Speaking a The New York Times’ DealBook Summit last month, Bezos — who has been at odds with Trump in the past — said that he was “actually very optimistic” about another Trump term and that he would like to help Trump with his deregulation plans.
For Zuckerberg’s part, he has made a series of sweeping changes at Meta that appear to be remaking the company at least partly in the image of Trump and Musk.
Trump’s inauguration also saw Apple CEO Tim Cook, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, TikTok exec Shou Zi Chew, and Google boss Sundar Pichai in attendance.
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