Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., criticized CEOs as narcissistic and dishonest on Monday while retweeting an opinion piece that says data shows 20 percent of business leaders may be psychopaths.
“Justifying psychopathy because low empathy, narcissism, dishonesty + lack of deep emotional attachments are traits that have made a tiny handful of people billionaires (yet land many more people in prison while not getting adequate mental healthcare) is very 2019,” Ocasio-Cortez said on Twitter.
Justifying psychopathy because low empathy, narcissism, dishonesty + lack of deep emotional attachments are traits that have made a tiny handful of people billionaires (yet land many more people in prison while not getting adequate mental healthcare) is very 2019. https://t.co/IDKm4qWkqn
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) April 8, 2019
The article she linked to was by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, a professor of business psychology at University College London and at Columbia University, who wrote “many wildly celebrated character traits, such as courage and risk-taking, often coexist with psychopathic tendencies.”
Chamorro-Premuzic singled out tech giants Steve Jobs and Elon Musk as two examples of people displaying these “disruptive personalities.”
“Jobs got fired from his own company and displayed clear patterns of low empathy and antisocial behavior: Parking in the disabled parking spots and bullying and intimidating his employees,” Chamorro-Premuzic said.
“Musk’s narcissistic side has also been manifested — rather often — in his combative rants with investors, the media and his employees, as well as his confrontational and erratic social media presence,” he added.
Chamorro-Premuzic concluded that because these traits sometimes drive innovators, they have the potential to be a “catalyst for good.”
Ocasio-Cortez has been an outspoken critic of billionaires, questioning earlier this year why anyone should have more than $10 million.
Her senior policy adviser Dan Riffle’s Twitter handle is “Every Billionaire Is A Policy Failure.”
[Related: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: It’s ‘immoral’ to have billionaires when some don’t have healthcare]
