Michael Bloomberg Rules Out Run For President, Announces New Climate Initiative

Photo: Depositphotos.com/LeeSnider

“I believe I would defeat Donald Trump in a general election,” Bloomberg wrote in an editorial posted to his eponymous news site. “But I am clear-eyed about the difficulty of winning the Democratic nomination in such a crowded field.”

In the editorial, the former New York City mayor called Trump “a threat to our country” and emphasized the need to nominate a Democratic candidate who could beat him in the general election. Bloomberg, a former Republican himself, also castigated congressional Republicans, who he says have “failed—and are still failing—to fulfill their constitutional duty to hold the president accountable.”

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Even without running, Bloomberg will likely influence the race. In January, he obliquely criticized the possible candidacy of Howard Schultz, the billionaire founder of Starbucks, saying that “the great likelihood is that an independent candidate would just split the anti-Trump vote and end up reelecting the president.”

Moreover, he plans to spend $500 million of his own money to defeat Trump, adding to the $100 million he spent on behalf of Democrats in the 2018 midterms. Bloomberg is worth an estimated $55.6 billion; he placed ninth on Forbes’ 2019 rankings of the World’s Billionaires.

In lieu of running, Bloomberg will devote the next two years to a new initiative, Beyond Carbon, “a grassroots effort to begin moving America as quickly as possible away from oil and gas and toward a 100 percent clean energy economy.” His foundation has already worked to shutter coal-fired power plants and reduce air pollution.

Noah Kirsch, Forbes Staff