Last week, I had the opportunity to visit Bernie Marcus, the renowned entrepreneur, generous benefactor, and staunch advocate of the free market, at his expansive residence in Boca Raton, Florida. Right from the start, he was candid about his sentiments.
"I’m in a particularly pissed-off mood," Marcus confided as we took our seats. "I’ve got a lot on my mind. This is going to be some interview."
I assured him that was precisely what I was anticipating.
Widely recognized as a co-founder of The Home Depot, Marcus, alongside financial expert Ken Langone and the astute Arthur Blank, built a corporation from the ground up that now provides employment for close to half a million individuals in a multitude of stores nationwide.
However, to fully appreciate Marcus's influence, one must look beyond the foundational narrative of The Home Depot. He is an outspoken billionaire and an ardent conservative campaigner, having his beginnings in a humble fourth-story tenement in Newark, New Jersey.
“We were poorer than you could imagine. And my ambition in those days was to make $25,000 a year and take care of my family.”
Marcus accomplished much more than the initial founding. Through Home Depot, he established a venture that now generates annual revenues of $150 billion, alongside creating tens of billions in wealth — with him earning several billion in personal fortune. He has donated a substantial portion of his wealth to charitable causes and to political figures he trusts will contribute to reversing the nation's slide towards what he perceives as nearly socialism.
Though Marcus stepped down from his role at Home Depot in 2002, retirement did not translate to idle days on a beach. He remains actively engaged, channeling funds into the campaigns of candidates who support free-market policies at both state and national levels. Over ten years ago, he founded the Job Creators Network, an organization that champions the interests of entrepreneurs and small business owners.
"Charlie, I’m 94 years old. Unfortunately, I have a 60-year-old brain, a 94-year-old body," he expressed amid our extensive conversation, clearly troubled by the thought that his time to engage in this crucial battle is waning. "I’ve said this to all of my friends, anybody who would listen: if this election goes the way the last one went, this country will be a Third World country."
He attributes many of the nation's problems to President Biden, who surpassed Bernie's associate, Donald Trump, in the 2020 election and seems poised to challenge Trump again in 2024. He disparages Biden as a "dunce" and criticizes him as the "most divisive president we’ve ever seen." He believes that Biden's reference to a large swath of the country as backward MAGA Republicans did not align with his stated objective to unify the nation.
Marcus is equally critical of what he sees as Biden's cognitive challenges, suggesting that the President is being manipulated ("somebody is feeding him like a puppet"). He also points to Biden's fiscal and policy missteps, which he argues have resulted in heightened inflation and a surge in national debt.
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