Derk Sauer on CEOs Final Days



Elon Musks Final Day

Elon Musk should not be surprised if, like the Russian CEOs, he ends up in jail sooner or later

Derk SauerApril 11, 2025

When Elon Musk – and other American CEOs – started squeaking about the trade war unleashed by Trump in recent days, I immediately thought of Russia. A little history lesson could have taught them a lot.

After his first election as president in 2000, Putin summoned the leading oligarchs to the Kremlin. Most of them had dug deep into their pockets to fill Putin’s campaign coffers and thus helped him to power. At a large round table, Putin laid out the new rules of the game: I let you do business and you do not interfere in my politics.

It seemed like a good deal. In the decade that followed, Russia’s economy boomed and fortunes were made. Tech pioneers like banker Oleg Tinkov and Yandex founder Arkady Volozh built empires from scratch. Others reorganized semi-bankrupt state-owned companies they had snapped up for a song.

Every now and then the Kremlin would knock on the door with a request, such as at the Winter Olympics in Sochi. One oligarch had to finance the ice hockey team, the other the cross-country skiing. Refusing was not an option, but hey, it was for a good cause.

As early as 2003, Putin showed that he took his rules very literally, when he had Russia's richest businessman, Mikhail Chordorkovsky, arrested. Chordorkovsky advocated more openness and less corruption. It earned him an eight-year stay in a Siberian prison camp.

His fellow CEOs shook their heads but quickly returned to business as usual. And they watched as Putin manipulated the judiciary, muzzled the press and, in complete violation of the Russian constitution, awarded himself a third term.

And then, in February 2022, Putin invaded Ukraine. The men who helped Putin to power had not counted on that. Sanctions rained down, their Western assets were frozen and their villas in the South of France became out of reach. This was a disaster for their business. A few fled, but most stayed in Russia, gritting their teeth, hoping that it would all blow over soon.

Even silence was no longer enough, as Putin's hungry and corrupt war machine began to swallow up the supposedly untouchable companies of Russia's most famous CEOs. Researchers at the London School of Economics counted 200 companies that had been taken from their owners through judicial machinations since the war began.

And more and more famous CEOs – who never spoke a bad word about Putin – are ending up in jail these days. Like the 'sunflower oil king' and philanthropist Vadim Moshkovitch, who until recently had a seat in the Russian upper house.

In the Financial Times, columnist Gideon Rachman compared Trump and Putin (and Xi) to mafia families for whom power equals sowing fear. We know the images from The Godfather – one moment you are being treated to a feast, only to be dumped in a rubbish dump with a bullet in your head a moment later.

That fear is well-ingrained in Russian entrepreneurs. Musk should not be surprised if he too ends up in jail sooner or later. Certainly if Trump gets into more trouble, he – just like Putin – is capable of anything.

Derk Sauer is publisher of The Moscow Times and columnist for Het Parool.

He is also the founder of the Russian newspaper Vedomosti and former publisher of RBK Gazeta.

Pubishes now via Telegram to 60 milion Russian Readers.

  
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