'The clock is ticking': Trump adviser gives ominous warning to CEOs who haven't backed him

A small circle of billionaires, including Elon Musk and Timothy Mellon, have become notorious for pouring millions into getting former President Donald Trump elected. But according to The Washington Post, some billionaires who have been critical of Trump in the past are now keeping quiet for fear that a second, far more authoritarian Trump presidency could come after them in revenge.

"With the White House appearing increasingly up for grabs, and especially as polls have tightened, numerous billionaires and other leading executives have taken steps in recent months to stay out of the race — even if they had criticized Trump after the Capitol insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021, calling his encouragement of the riot a threat to American democracy," said the report.

Meanwhile, even some billionaires who overtly backed Democrats in the past "have stayed silent this election, which some critics and Trump supporters alike have interpreted as a peace offering to the GOP presidential nominee."

One of the most notorious recent examples is Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who owns The Washington Post itself and whose space exploration company has contracts with multiple federal agencies. Bezos has denounced Trump's immigration policies in the past, but in the run-up to this election, he reportedly took the extraordinary intervention of blocking the editorial side of the paper from endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris, which has triggered outrage and a wave of cancelations from the paper's generally left-leaning subscriber base.

But Bezos is not an outlier — other billionaires are voicing the same kinds of concerns, and the Trump campaign is boasting about how many are coming to them hat in hand.

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“I’ve told CEOs to engage as fast as possible because the clock is ticking … . If you’re somebody who has endorsed Harris, and we’ve never heard from you at any point until after the election, you’ve got an uphill battle,” one unnamed Trump adviser told The Post. “People are back-channeling, looking at their networks — they’re talking to lobbyists to see what they can do to connect with the president and his team.”

All of this comes as Trump has ramped up threats against the free press, even demanding that CBS News have its broadcast license revoked and threatening legal action because he didn't like the way they presented Kamal Harris' candidate interview.