Politics

Elizabeth Warren’s Campaign Says Asian, Indian And Middle-Eastern Billionaires Are ‘White’

Elizabeth Warren stands at a podium. By Tim Pierce from Berlin, MA, USA (Elizabeth Warren) [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s campaign website labeled Asian-American, Indian-American, Iranian-American and Pakistani-American billionaires as “white.”

The Massachusetts senator’s campaign website includes a page on “wealth inequality,” which featured a since-deleted graphic breaking down the 400 wealthiest Americans by race. The graphic included three categories: black, white and Latino (the campaign uses the left-wing term “Latinx”).

According to the graphic, only six of the top 400 wealthiest Americans are non-white — but that’s not accurate. The campaign appears to have classified at least 14 American billionaires of Asian, Indian, and Middle-Eastern descent as “white.”

A Daily Caller News Foundation review of Forbes’ list of the 400 wealthiest Americans, which the campaign relied on for its findings, includes many non-white billionaires the Warren campaign classified as “white.”

Pierre Omidyar, for example, is ranked 36th on the Forbes list. Omidyar, the founder of eBay, is the son of Iranian immigrants. Pakistani-American billionaire Shahid Khan, the owner of the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars, is number 61 on the list. Number 85 on Forbes’ list is Patrick Soon-Shiong, who was born in South Africa to Chinese parents.

Taiwanese immigrant David Sun, the co-founder of Kingston Technology, is number 119 on the Forbes list with a net worth of $5.5 billion. Sun is tied at 119 on the list with his business partner, Chinese immigrant John Tu.

Taiwanese-American billionaire Jensen Huang is number 168 on the Forbes list. Rakesh Gangwal, the Indian-American founder of IndiGo airline, is tied at 207 with Min Kao, the Taiwanese-American co-founder of Garmin Corporation.

Romesh T. Wadhwani, the Indian-American CEO of Symphony Technology Group, is number 261. Tai Lee, the Korean-American CEO of SHI International, is number 287.

Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, a Taiwanese-American billionaire, is number 333 on the Forbes 400. Indian-American billionaire Kavitark Ram Shriram, an early backer of Google, is tied at 370 on the list with another Indian-American billionaire: Aneel Bhusri.

Vinod Khosla, also an Indian-American billionaire, is ranked number 388 on the Forbes list.

Intercept reporter Lee Fang first pointed out the Warren campaign classified Asian-American billionaires as “white.”

The Warren campaign didn’t return a request for comment on why the 14 billionaires noted above were listed as “white,” though the campaign removed the inaccurate graphic after the DCNF sent a request for comment.