Top 10 Powerful Bald White Guys (PBWGs) of 2024
This list is dedicated to the late radio host Austin Hill. He was a great guy who left us far too soon. He loved this list and gave it more attention than it ever deserved. May he never be forgotten.
This list was inspired by Dann Florek, who played Police Captain Donald Cragen on the “Law & Order” franchises for a couple decades.
A lot of people did not make the list. President Joe Biden is ineligible because he never admitted his baldness, choosing instead to hide behind hair plugs. Vladimir Putin is ineligible because he is a ruthless killer and I do not wish to die. If he asks, I think he has lovely hair. Congressmen Bob Good of Virginia and Chip Roy of Texas came up short. Let’s see if these House Freedom Caucus members do anything in 2025. If they get a conservative agenda passed, they will make the list.Rupert Murdoch seems to be retired. He was on this list for many years.
With that, here are the 2024 Austin Hill Awards dedicated to the Top 10 PBWGs of 2024.
10.) Jeff Bezos: He is no longer the richest man in the world or the CEO of Amazon. Being rich is not the same as being powerful. Bring powerful requires doing things. Bezos is now obsessed with space. He is determined to beat Elon Musk in the space race and retake his position atop the world’s wealthiest list. If he succeeds, he will move up the PBWG list as well.
9.) Kevin O’Leary: Shark Tank’s “Mr. Wonderful” is one of the sharpest investors around. He speaks plainly and with common sense. He actually ran to be the leader of Canada’s Conservative Party in 2017. He should have been on this list for years but 2023 was his breakout year in terms of exposure. He went from being almost everywhere to everywhere. His insights are valuable. He would rank higher except sometimes it is hard to figure out exactly what it is he does.
The next 4 guys are all incoming members of the Trump administration. Normally they would not make the list until they take office, but the Trump administration has gotten an unofficial early start. These guys are already up and running. If they succeed in passing the Trump agenda, they will rank much higher on the list.
8.) Stephen Miran: He is the incoming Charman of the Council of Economic Advisers. For those who have no idea what that even means, he is the head pontificator. Yet unlike many pontificators, he does real work. He is the senior strategist at asset management firm Hudson Bay Capital Management. This means that unlike the rest of the pontificators, he actually knows what he is talking about.
7.) Howard Lutnick: He is the incoming Commerce Secretary and the current head of Cantor Fitzgerald. That was the firm that lost 658 employees on September 11th, 2001. Lutnick will be a unique Commerce secretary. Unlike previous Republican Commerce Secretaries, Lutnick is pro-tariff. Lutnick will be the first Commerce Secretary who will have to navigate cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin. Lutnick is pro-crypto.
6.) Tom Homan: He is the incoming Border Czar. He has over 35 years of experience dealing with the Border. He came out of retirement to take this job. He has threatened to arrest elected officials who run illegal sanctuary cities. Time will tell if the Trump administration is truly willing to cross that bridge. That will drastically affect Homan’s position on the 2025 PBWG list.
5.) Steven Miller: He is the incoming Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy. He is seen as an immigration hardliner, a badge he wars with honor. Like Homan, his fate on the 2025 PBWG list depends on whether or not his tough talk can be transferred into substantive actions.
It’s one thing to be a powerful incoming member of the government. It’s quite another to be a current member of the government. Biden administration officials have a ton of power until they leave office. They will not be on this list in 2025, but they absolutely deserve to top the list in 2024. Three of the top four spots including the top two spots are the same as last year.
4.) Gary Gensler: The Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission is a political activist with a thirst for regulating everything in sight. With the stock market hitting all time highs, he again threw cold water on the party. Gensler implicitly mandated that corporations enact woke DEI policies. His calls to regulate cryptocurrencies gave Gensler even more power. He is a former Goldman Sachs guy, which propelled his access to power. Republicans will be firing him on January 20th, 2025. He would rank higher but most of what he has implemented is already being reversed, limiting his long-term impact.
3.) Alejandro Mayorkas: The current Border Czar will also be fired on January 20th, 2025, but he is implementing his border vision up until the last moment. Unlike Gensler, Mayorkas’s policies will have much longer lasting effects and be far more difficult to reverse. While he will not be on the 2025 PBWG list, he has the ability to completely derail Homan and Miller from the list as well. That is power. Until Inauguration Day, he is the highest ranking PBWG in the current Executive Branch.
2.) John Fetterman: The Pennsylvania Senator might be the most confounding member of Congress. He spent his early years as a rich white leftist doing hard drugs and leeching off of his parents. After getting elected, he was expected to vote leftist down the line. Then he shocked the political world by offering startlingly lucid thoughts that broke from leftist Orthodoxy. He came out as a staunch supporter of Israel in a Democrat Party with an increasingly influential and militant anti-Israel left wing. He also called for more border security. He even declared that he was not a progressive. When he was verbally accosted by an angry leftist who accused him of betrayal, he showed a surprising sense of humor. He pointed out his recent stroke and claimed that this left him unable to understand what the angry protester was saying. Senator Fetterman is less than two years into his term, and he has already angered people across the political spectrum. He has at least four more years to confound people without consequences. That is power. Yet for the third year in a row, Fetterman comes up one spot short.
1.) David Solomon: Normally the Head Sled at Golden Sachs is the top PBWG because Goldman Sachs runs the world. Goldman Sachs has a history of flitting in between corporate power and government power. Jon Corzine, Hank Paulson, and Lloyd Blankfein are all former Goldman Sachs PBWG top dogs. Solomon initially missed out on the top spot in recent years due to tough economic times, war raging across the world, and an anti-Wall Street climate. Yet in 2024, happy days are here again. The stock market hit an all time high. Goldman Sachs now has its usual level of undue influence over the government. The company that is too big to fail with executives who are too big to jail escaped scrutiny during financial meltdowns. They are not going to lose power when Wall Street is making money hand over fist.
For being the most powerful guy at the most powerful company, for the second consecutive year in a row, David Solomon is the Top Powerful Bald White Guy of 2024.
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