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For the titans of industry in Nazi Germany and Trump’s America, silence and complicity enable authoritarianism
On a frosty February day in 1933, Adolf Hitler summoned 24 of Germany’s leading industrialists to a government palace in Berlin to enlist them in dismantling the last vestiges of democracy. When it was over, the high priests of commerce and industry had donated a total of 2.1 million Reichsmarks to the Nazi Party.
Last September, at the White House in Washington, D.C., 15 American tech executives sat down for dinner with Donald Trump. For eight months, Trump had been steering the country closer to authoritarianism. Yet instead of challenging him, the executives praised him. Google co-founder Sergey Brin lauded Trump for “supporting our companies instead of fighting with them.” Sam Altman, the OpenAI CEO, thanked him for being a “pro-business, pro-innovation president,” calling him “a very refreshing change.”
German industrialists’ money helped Hitler win enough support in the Reichstag to pass an Enabling Act granting him dictatorial power. American corporate executives’ silence about the path Trump has taken the country down has functioned as a different kind of currency — one that signals to the public that democratic backsliding is tolerable so long as the markets stay calm and the profits keep flowing.
While the political, economic and social circumstances surrounding Hitler’s meeting with industrialists and Trump’s with tech leaders are quite different, moments like these reveal the enduring symbiosis between political power and private capital — and the democratic vulnerabilities that emerge when corporate flattery eclipses civic responsibility.
After arriving at the imposing Reichstag Presidential Palace, the 24 industrialists were ushered into one of its heavily ornamented grand salons. When Hitler entered, he spent 90 minutes promising to smash the left, protect private enterprise, end lawlessness, lead Germany out of its economic crisis, and — most enticing of all — reward German companies with lucrative contracts as he rebuilt the military. The titans of industry were impressed.
Hitler then left the room, leaving Hermann Göring to pass the proverbial hat. The captains of industry had come prepared. Before they walked out of the palace, the Nazi Party had collected 2.1 million Reichsmarks to fuel its Reichstag campaign. The Nazis’ victory in that election gave Hitler the backing he needed to pass the Enabling Act. The Reichstag Fire Decree of February 28 had already gutted democracy by suspending civil liberties and unleashing mass arrests of political opponents. The March 23 Enabling Act supplied the final shovels of dirt, burying parliamentary democracy for the next 12 years.
Hitler came through with all of his promises, and in the process German companies became deeply complicit in his crimes against other countries and against civilians — setting up slave labor camps outside places of mass murder like Auschwitz, and feeding a war machine that killed tens of millions across Europe. These companies were the same ones represented at that fundraising meeting in February 1933. After the Nazis’ defeat, only a handful of German corporate executives were held to account. Most were able to resume powerful positions in postwar Germany.
America’s 21st-century tech titans are not war criminals, nor are they anything like the industrialists who built Hitler’s arsenal. They have thrived in a democracy that has rewarded their ingenuity, protected their freedoms, and made many of them fabulously wealthy. But that is precisely why their reluctance to call Trump to account for the damage he has done to democratic norms is so disconcerting — and so dangerous.
The video of their dinner at the White House makes that reluctance painfully clear. The executives sit around a long table in the State Dining Room, leaning forward, smiling, nodding eagerly as Trump speaks. They offer him compliments. They laugh at his jokes. No one raises a concern about democratic institutions, the rule of law, or the direction of the country.
The killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti appear to have jolted at least some tech leaders out of that posture of deference. Yann LeCun, Meta’s former chief AI scientist, reposted the video of Alex Pretti’s killing with a single, furious caption: “M U R D E R E R S.” Hemant Taneja, CEO of General Catalyst, warned that “what we are seeing in Minnesota is a threat to those core tenets and to the promise of America.” Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla condemned the federal agents as “macho ICE vigilantes running amuck,” while Google DeepMind’s Jeff Dean called on “every person regardless of political affiliation” to denounce the escalation of violence. James Dyett, a senior executive at OpenAI, noted that “there is far more outrage from tech leaders over a wealth tax than masked ICE agents terrorizing communities.”
Sam Altman and Apple CEO Tim Cook, both of whom had lavishly praised Trump at the tech titans’ dinner, also said ICE had gone too far.
This must be said about Corporate America: its leaders, unlike the industrialists of Nazi Germany, have not been actively complicit in any effort to topple democracy. In the American system, doing so would amount to corporate suicide. But they have weakened democratic culture in quieter ways — such as treating free expression as expendable if it threatens profits. You can see it in the major-network settlements that chilled political reporting at ABC and CBS, and in the efforts to sideline late-night hosts like Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert.
Jeff Bezos’ $40 million contract with the Trumps for the documentary Melania is another example of this instinct. In the same week that the Bezos-owned Washington Post announced it was laying off more than 300 journalists, the Amazon founder was photographed on the red carpet at the premiere of Melania, attending at the Trumps’ invitation.
One of the gravest threats to American democracy today is the fusion of state authority with the private empires of tech tycoons like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, whose control of critical communications and data-analytics infrastructure gives politically aligned capitalists the capacity to assist an administration intent on expanding executive power.
Civil-liberties activists and several members of Congress have warned that concentrating federal data systems — especially when augmented by advanced AI — creates a structural vulnerability for democracy. Such an architecture, they argue, could be turned toward political ends: monitoring critics, chilling dissent, or enabling forms of surveillance that become far harder to detect or challenge once they are woven into the machinery of government.
The German industrialists who helped Hitler consolidate power largely escaped accountability, their complicity swept under the carpet as Soviet Communism replaced fascism as the perceived greater threat to the West. Will our own era face a reckoning? When future generations look back, they may well ask what America’s most powerful corporate leaders did when democracy was faltering — and whether their silence helped steady the republic, or hastened its decline.
The post For the titans of industry in Nazi Germany and Trump’s America, silence and complicity enable authoritarianism appeared first on The Forward.
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New York Democrat Comptroller Candidate’s Plan to Divest From Israel Is Imprudent, Republican Opponent Says
Joseph Hernandez, Republican candidate for New York State Comptroller, speaking with voters. Photo: Hernandez campaign
The plan of a Democratic candidate for New York comptroller to divest the state of its holdings in Israel bonds violates the fiduciary duties of an office which oversees the management of hundreds of billions of dollars in pension funds and other assets, his Republican opponent, Joseph Hernandez, told The Algemeiner during an exclusive interview on Monday.
Hernandez, a Cuban refugee whose family fled the Castro regime, explained that the proposal, promised by former Kansas state Rep. Raj Goyle (who moved to New York after a failed bid for US Congress in 2010), would amount to an endorsement of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel while alienating a country widely regarded as arguably the most reliable US ally.
Israel bonds, he added, are one of the safest assets a government could own. He has promised to invest $1 billion in them if he is elected.
“From a purely financial perspective, these are good investments. You would put your own money in this for sure, and you shouldn’t apply politics to the equation,” he said. “Imagine if we stopped investing the bonds of other foreign countries or vice versa because of disagreements over policy. That’s just bad decision making.”
“The economic rationale for investing in Israeli bonds is impeccable,” Hernandez continued. “Israel has an exploding technology sector producing giant leaps in artificial intelligence and the next generation of health care and biotech. We should be partnering with them in these areas, beyond the bonds. I think the relationship, from an investment perspective, should be broader. As the fiduciary and ultimately as the sole trustee of the New York State pension fund, I will seek ways not only to increase investment on the bonds side but also to collaborate on bringing the next generation of technologies to New York and promote a new era of job growth in the state.”
In New York City specifically, records show that Israel bonds, historically yielding approximately 5 percent annually, have outperformed many alternatives.
As for the state overall, Israeli firms pour billions of dollars and tens of thousands of jobs into the local economy, and business experts have warned that a push for divestment could lead Israeli-associated and Jewish-owned companies to leave.
A study released by the United States-Israel Business Alliance in October revealed that, based on 2024 data, 590 Israeli-founded companies directly created 27,471 jobs in New York City that year and indirectly created over 50,000 jobs when accounting for related factors, such as buying and shipping local products.
These firms generated $8.1 billion in total earnings, adding an estimated $12.4 billion in value to the city’s economy and $17.9 billion in total gross economic output.
As for the entire state, the report, titled the “2025 New York – Israel Economic Impact Report,” found that 648 Israeli-founded companies generated $8.6 billion in total earnings and $19.5 billion in gross economic output, contributing a striking $13.3 billion in added value to the economy. These businesses also directly created 28,524 jobs and a total of 57,145 when accounting for related factors.
From financial tech leaders like Fireblocks to cybersecurity powerhouse Wiz, Israeli entrepreneurs have become indispensable to the innovation ecosystem. The number of Israeli-founded “unicorns,” privately held companies with a valuation of at least $1 billion, operating in New York City has quadrupled since 2019, increasing from five to 20.
However, anti-Israel activists in the US have been pushing for state and local governments, in addition to businesses, universities, and various cultural forums to divest all assets from Israel-linked entities in accordance with the BDS movement.
The BDS movement seeks to isolate Israel on the international stage as the first step toward its elimination. Leaders of the movement have repeatedly stated their goal is to destroy the world’s only Jewish state.
Goyle’s plan would enact the divestment component of BDS by aiming to limit Israel’s capacity to issue bonds for the purpose of borrowing money, a core function of government which raises capital for expenditures such as roads and bridges while contributing to economic health, market stabilization, and a high credit rating.
The New York Post reported last month that Goyle wants to fully divest $338 million in foreign assets, including Israel bonds, from New York’s retirement fund.
“I’m here to tell you that when I am comptroller, we will not renew the foreign bond portfolio of the state comptroller’s office and that includes Israel bonds,” Goyle told a gathering of supporters of the left-wing Working Families Party. “We will not send a blank check for [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu’s war crimes in Gaza.”
The state comptroller’s office manages pensions for state and municipal workers and runs the Common Retirement Fund, one of the largest pension funds in the country with a $291 billion investment portfolio. It currently holds about $337.5 million in Israel bonds.
“I live in New York, the largest Jewish population outside of Israel. I see what this community contributes to America and to our society,” he said. “The relationship that we have is unbreakable and it is one we should continue to invest in both socially, politically, and financially.”
Across the political spectrum, Israel bonds are widely considered wise investments.
“They’re stable, they’re guaranteed, they’ve never had a problem, and it’s a good investment,” state Assemblyman David Weprin, a Democrat and former chair of the New York City Council Finance Committee, told the Post.
Goyle is not the only New York Democrat advocating a rupture in the state’s financial relationship with Israel. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who entered office last month, has been an outspoken supporter of the BDS movement.
Mamdani, a far-left democratic socialist who has made anti-Israel activism a cornerstone of his political career, has repeatedly accused Israel of “apartheid” and refused to recognize its right to exist as a Jewish state.
Such positions have raised alarm bells among not only New York’s Jewish community but also Israeli business owners and investors, who fear a hostile climate under Mamdani’s leadership.
His election came after former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander refused last year to renew some Israel bonds in the city’s pension fund, which is a separate entity. The office of then-Mayor Eric Adams accused Lander of pushing a political agenda by moving to withdraw millions of dollars in city pension funds from bonds issued by the Jewish state.
On Monday, Hernandez pledged to be beholden to New York’s taxpayers and not fringe ideological groups.
“There’s a reason that this is an independent elected role,” he concluded. “It’s supposed to be a role that doesn’t take political filters or use politics for decision making. This is about fiduciary duty and what it is in the best interest of the taxpayers, and I intend to execute to that effect.”
Both Goyle and Hernandez are vying to unseat incumbent state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, a Democrat.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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After 3-hour White House meeting, Trump says he ‘insisted’ to Netanyahu that Iran talks should continue
(JTA) — Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu met with President Donald Trump at the White House on Wednesday in an effort to push the U.S. leader to widen negotiation with Iran to include Israeli security priorities.
“Nothing definitive” came out of the highly anticipated meeting between the leaders, which lasted roughly three hours, Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social immediately afterwards. But he signaled that he had resisted a push to end direct talks with Iran.
“There was nothing definitive reached other than I insisted that negotiations with Iran continue to see whether or not a Deal can be consummated. If it can, I let the Prime Minister know that will be a preference. If it cannot, we will just have to see what the outcome will be,” wrote Trump.
Prior to boarding a flight on his way to Washington D.C. on Tuesday, Netanyahu told reporters that his meeting with Trump would center “first and foremost” on negotiations with Iran.
“I will present to the president our views on the principles in the negotiations, the important principles, and in my opinion they are important not only to Israel — but to everyone in the world who wants peace and security in the Middle East,” Netanyahu told reporters.
During Wednesday’s meeting, which was closed to the press, Netanyahu was expected to push Trump to widen negotiations with Iran beyond its nuclear program, including imposing restrictions on Iran’s ballistic missile program and ending Iranian support for Hamas and Hezbollah.
The talks Wednesday were also expected to center on developments in the ceasefire in Gaza, with Netanyahu officially joining the Board of Peace during a meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier in the day.
Met with U.S. Secretary of State @marcorubio at Blair House in Washington.
Ahead of my meeting at the White House with President Trump, I signed Israel’s accession as a member of the “Board of Peace.”
We will continue strengthening the unbreakable alliance between Israel and… pic.twitter.com/CJ4Lw92WdX
— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) February 11, 2026
Netanyahu’s visit Wednesday was his sixth to the United States since the beginning of Trump’s term. Trump surprised him at an earlier meeting by announcing that he planned to open direct talks with Iran, which has vowed to destroy Israel.
The visit shortly followed talks in Oman on Friday between Iran’s foreign minister and Trump administration officials on reaching a potential nuclear deal. Those talks came a month after Iranian leaders ordered a crackdown on civil protesters in which an estimated 30,000 Iranians or more were murdered.
On Tuesday, Trump told Axios that he was “thinking” about sending another aircraft carrier strike group to the Gulf where he has already assembled a large military buildup, adding, “Either we will make a deal or we will have to do something very tough like last time.”
Iran has said it will retaliate if the United States strikes to curb its nuclear program, sparking concern of a war. Last June, the United States struck three nuclear sites in Iran amid the country’s 12-day war with Israel, damaging but not destroying them.
In an interview Tuesday with Fox Business Network’s Larry Kudlow, Trump said that a good deal with Iran would mean “no nuclear weapons, no missiles.”
“We’ll see what happens. I think they want to make a deal,” said Trump. “I think they’d be foolish if they didn’t. We took out their nuclear power last time, and we’ll have to see if we take out more this time.”
The post After 3-hour White House meeting, Trump says he ‘insisted’ to Netanyahu that Iran talks should continue appeared first on The Forward.
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Nazi Symbols Appear at Northwestern University as School Seeks to Turn Page on Campus Antisemitism Crisis
Illustrative: Signs cover the fence at a pro-Palestinian encampment at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. on April 28, 2024. Photo: Max Herman via Reuters Connect
Northwestern University said on Monday that it has identified the non-student who graffitied Nazi insignia on the campus earlier this month, pledging to file criminal charges against the suspect through the local police department.
The Schutzstaffel (SS) symbol representing the notorious paramilitary group under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Germany was spray-painted on Northwestern’s campus in Evanston, Illinois. The SS played a central role in the Nazis’ systematic killing of 6 million Jews during the Holocaust.
After the symbol’s discovery, students reported others like it on the north side of campus even as university maintenance staff rushed to repair the first defacement.
“Despicable and hateful graffiti were found on several signs of our Evanston campus, and the university immediately removed or painted over them,” the university told a local outlet, The Evanston RoundTable, in a statement on Feb. 6. “Northwestern has launched an investigation to identify the individual responsible for this vandalism, utilizing camera footage, forensics, and other methods. Based on that investigation, we have identified a suspect who we belief is unaffiliated with Northwestern.”
It added, “The university is working with local law enforcement on next steps, including potential criminal charges.”
On Feb. 10, The Northwestern Daily reported that the Evanston Police Department is involved in the investigation. “The department takes reports of hate-based incidents seriously and continues to pursue investigative leads,” a spokesperson for the department said.
Northwestern University has been the site of dozens of antisemitic incidents and the center of the federal government’s efforts to combat campus antisemitism.
During the 2023-2o24 academic year, former university president Michael Schill reached a shocking and unprecedented agreement with pro-Hamas organizers of an illegal encampment, agreeing to establish a new scholarship for Palestinian undergraduates, contact potential employers of students who caused recent campus disruptions to insist on their being hired, and create a segregated dormitory hall to be occupied exclusively by Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) and Muslim students. The university — where protesters shouted “Kill the Jews!” — also agreed to form a new investment committee that would consider adopting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.
In late November, Northwestern University agreed to pay $75 million and end the controversial agreement in exchange for the US federal government’s releasing $790 million in grants it impounded in April over accusations of antisemitism and reverse discrimination.
“As part of this agreement with the federal government, the university has terminated the Deering Meadow Agreement and will reverse all policies that have been implemented or are being implemented in adherence to it,” the university said in a statement which stressed that it also halted plans for the segregated dormitory. “The university remains committed to fostering inclusive spaces and will continue to support student belonging and engagement through existing campus facilities and organizations, while partnering with alumni to explore off-campus, privately owned locations that could further support community connection and programming.”
Northwestern had previously touted its progress on addressing the campus antisemitism crisis in April, saying that it had addressed alleged failures highlighted by lawmakers and Jewish civil rights activists.
“The university administration took this criticism to heart and spent much of last summer revising our rules and policies to make our university safe for all of our students, regardless of their religion, race, national origin, sexual orientation, or political viewpoint,” the university said at the time. “Among the updated policies is our Demonstration Policy, which includes new requirements and guidance on how, when, and where members of the community may protest or otherwise engage in expressive activity.”
The university added that it also adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, a reference tool which aids officials in determining what constitutes antisemitism, and begun holding “mandatory antisemitism training” sessions which “all students, faculty, and staff” must attend.
“This included a live training for all new students in September and a 17-minute training module for all enrolled students, produced in collaboration with the Jewish United Fund,” it continued. “Antisemitism trainings will continue as a permanent part of our broader training in civil rights and Title IX.”
Other initiatives rolled out by the university include an Advisory Council to the President on Jewish Life, dinners for Jewish students hosted by administrative officials, and educational events which raise awareness of rising antisemitism in the US and around the world. Additionally, Northwestern said that it imposed disciplinary sanctions against several students and one staff member whose conduct violated the new “Demonstration and/or Display Policies” which safeguard peaceful assembly on the campus.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.