Kim Kardashian’s profession has been one huge guessing recreation. Since founding the extraordinarily profitable shapewear firm Skims in 2019, the reality-star-turned-lifestyle-influencer has launched into a lot of stunning if not completely puzzling ventures, from making an attempt to turn into a lawyer to starring in a poorly rated season of American Horror Story to filming an eerie “Santa Child” music video. Because of her current Instagram exercise, although, her followers have already began to suspect her subsequent transfer.
The idea is that Kardashian is making a rightward flip, cozying as much as these at present in energy as she continues to develop her financial empire and align herself with the world’s strongest enterprise leaders. Whereas not a foregone conclusion, it’s all within the tea leaves. Let’s again up.
Earlier this month, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a cheery photograph of himself on Instagram carrying a hoodie that learn “Kim is my lawyer” with the caption “My solely applicable hoodie.” Kardashian commented with “Hahaha I like it!!!” earlier than sharing the selfie on her Instagram Tales.
It nonetheless isn’t clear what impressed Zuckerberg’s shoutout. Did household momager Kris Jenner, who’s tagged within the caption, ship Zuckerberg the hoodie? Was this some kind of poorly executed promotion for Kardashian’s upcoming Ryan Murphy authorized drama All’s Honest? Will Kardashian, not really a member of the bar, be representing Zuckerberg in his subsequent lawsuit?
Just some years in the past, the queen of selfies having a digital giggle with a fellow billionaire like Zuckerberg wouldn’t have raised many eyebrows. Nonetheless, Zuckerberg has spent the previous yr publicly ingratiating himself to President Donald Trump: altering Fb’s speech insurance policies in his favor, donating to his inauguration fund, and attending the ceremony in January.
Together with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Zuckerberg has been labeled a member of the “broligarchy,” a moniker for a number of tech billionaires making an attempt to curry favor with the Trump administration with the hopes of influencing deregulation insurance policies or attaining authorities energy. Musk has already torn via the federal workforce along with his Division of Authorities Effectivity.
Extra damning, although, has been Kardashian’s public ties with Musk, including further suspicion to her current interplay with Zuckerberg. Final yr, she repeatedly shilled for Musk, who’s had a lengthy, storied friendship along with her ex-husband Kanye West. Along with being noticed round Los Angeles in her Tesla Cybertruck, she posted the corporate’s Optimus Bot on X lower than two weeks after the presidential election, in addition to staging a weird, attractive photoshoot with the android on Instagram. (In an odd effort to stave off backlash, she clarified that she wasn’t paid to publish the robotic.)
She’s even broadcast her affinity for members of the Trump household. Along with her well-documented friendship with Ivanka Trump, she shared a caption-less photograph of first girl Melania Trump on her Instagram Tales the day of the inauguration. All these pointedly apolitical however public interactions with Trump’s household and associates have Kardashian’s followers questioning if she’s getting ready to go all in on the president himself.
In distinction to Trump’s first time period, it’s turn into extra frequent to see standard celebrities work together with the Trump administration or, on the very least, withhold essential opinions. A slew of rappers, together with the beforehand anti-Trump Snoop Dogg, carried out at certainly one of Trump’s inaguruation galas. When requested about Trump attending the Tremendous Bowl this month, Kansas Metropolis Chiefs’ Travis Kelce had nothing however well mannered phrases to supply.
Finding the Kardashian-Jenner clan’s politics has all the time been a complicated, perhaps even thankless activity. Any point out of social points or electoral politics has felt principally inorganic coming from members of the privileged household, certainly one of whom unabashedly claimed that they don’t even learn the information. The remainder have spent the higher a part of their careers offending numerous demographics on-line.
Nonetheless, the Calabasas influencers rose to energy on the web within the 2010s, across the identical time that social actions like Black Lives Matter and Me Too had been resounding on-line and demanding the engagement of celebrities. The household’s proximity to Black tradition, whether or not via their romantic companions or their affinity for Black magnificence traits, additionally put them within the place of being pressured to talk on racial points and known as out after they didn’t. Arguably, these had been opinions we didn’t really need to listen to.
For probably the most half, Kardashian has related herself with left-leaning politics, utilizing her platforms to help help Black Lives Matter, calling for stricter gun legal guidelines, and criticizing the Supreme Courtroom’s choice to overturn Roe v. Wade. She additionally supported Hillary Clinton within the 2016 election.
Notably, she’s the one member of the family to fold social justice work into her model, particularly round legal justice reform. Starting in 2018, she efficiently advocated for the discharge of Alice Marie Johnson and Chris Younger from jail. She additionally helped persuade the Trump administration to signal the First Step Act, geared toward altering sentencing legal guidelines and lowering jail populations. Since then, she’s advocated for the clemency of a number of prisoners on loss of life row and different incarcerated folks, together with the Menendez brothers.
As witnessed by her prison-reform efforts, she hasn’t been afraid to do direct enterprise with Trump to advance her personal causes. As a lot good as Kardashian could have performed for the pardoned inmates, the clemency deal additionally simply occurred to redirect consideration from her ex-husband’s feedback about slavery and produce some goodwill to the Kardashian model.
The world’s most well-known enterprise leaders are additionally making what appears like a unified transfer to the fitting — and being thought to be a critical participant within the enterprise world has lengthy been a priority for Kardashian. On her Hulu actuality present The Kardashians, she’s mentioned her obsession with proving herself as a businessperson and her need to be seen as a company disruptor on the extent of a Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs.
In an episode of season 2, Kardashian says: “All the huge banks and VCs — everybody says, ‘Apple, Nike, Skims.’ We’re in that dialog, and it simply makes me actually proud.”
For a high-powered billionaire like Kardashian, it’s maybe solely a matter of time earlier than she kisses the ring, a lot the best way her techier brethren have.
It’s not evident that Kardashian personally aligns with the views of MAGA. Her attendance at a Black enterprise gala earlier this month means that she’s most likely not in help of Trump’s sweeping anti-DEI agenda. Her personal companies have relied on the help and compliance of Black and nonwhite celebrities and fashions, who are sometimes featured in her Skims and KKW magnificence campaigns. Plus, it arguably nonetheless wouldn’t be the neatest transfer for a actuality star making an attempt to earn their stripes in Hollywood to begin donning a purple cap.
No matter Kardashian’s intentions, her makes an attempt to attraction to either side of the aisle have already been undermined. The identical day that Kardashian posted a photograph of Melania Trump’s inauguration outfit on Instagram, President Trump signed an government order titled “Restoring the Demise Penalty and Defending Public Security,” a direct blow to the jail reform efforts she’s been combating for for years.
