Why American Oligarchs Secretly Root for Putin

This is why the EU scares them more than Russia.

Yesterday, the European Commission handed down its first Digital Markets Act fines: €500 million to Apple for blocking developers from telling users about cheaper alternatives, and €200 million to Meta for its “pay or consent” ad model.

The fines matter. But what matters more is the reaction — pure disbelief from companies used to doing whatever they want in the United States. These are firms that have lived for years without rules, now stunned that someone—anyone—would dare enforce them.

What if that enforcement spreads? What if the EU’s spine filters across the Atlantic, and the next time a pandemic hits, misinformation doesn’t fuel billions in ad revenue?What if someone tells Apple it can’t take 30% just for existing? What if Meta is stopped from buying its competition before it becomes one?

When Trump says “the EU was created to screw the U.S.,” he’s not talking about America—he’s talking about GOP megadonors. The ones who see the European Union as a real threat, not to the country, but to their ability to extract wealth, dodge accountability, and bend markets to their will.

That’s why they back Russia. That’s why they dress up oligarchy as “freedom” and cheer for “sovereignty” while quietly rooting for the Kremlin to break Brussels. Because the EU, with all its bureaucracy and flaws, still does the one thing they fear most: it makes rules—and enforces them.

And that’s the tell. When billionaires panic at the idea of rules, you don’t walk away from that fight—you double down. Because if the EU still makes them sweat, even after all their lobbying, all their reach, all their power, it means something rare is still standing: a democratic system with enough backbone to say no. And that alone makes it worth protecting.