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Mad Men star Jon Hamm has said he believes billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are “buying” their way into the cultural conversation.
Hamm, 53, is currently starring in the Apple TV+ drama series The Morning Show as Paul Marks, a tech billionaire who seeks to purchase the fictional news network UBA.
The character of Marks has drawn comparisons to Musk, who bought tech platform Twitter in 2022.
Speaking to Variety, Hamm said: “They’re kind of buying their way into the conversation at this point, aren’t they?
“[Jeff] Bezos controls many online transactions in the world and bought the Washington Post, so he’s got a megaphone in some way.
“Elon Musk bought Twitter, renamed it and changed it, and now it’s a different entity. And so, he bought his megaphone in some way.”
Hamm went on to share his concerns about unchecked wealth and power: “These guys, instead of being the kind of benevolent overlords that they used to be when there were steel barons and robber barons in the old days, and they would just build a giant building and call it Carnegie Hall, now they’re buying these massive legacy media corporations and using them as megaphones to get their opinions out in the world. And it’s an interesting choice.
“We used to have a little more stringent litigation against monopolizing things like that, but that seems to have gone the way of the dodo in many, many ways.
“We’re living in a very interesting inflection point, it seems, about where this massive amount of money concentrated in very few people is really having the effects that we were all afraid it was going to.”
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Earlier this year Hamm reprised his iconic Mad Men role as suave advertising executive Don Draper in Jerry Seinfeld’s breakfast comedy Unfrosted.
The film fictionalizes the events around the invention of Pop Tarts, and is set during the 1960s. At one point, Hamm parodies his role as Draper alongside John Slattery, who plays Don’s friend and boss Roger Sterling.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Hamm said that he discussed the decision to return to the role with his co-star.
“I was of two minds,” said Hamm. “I told Jerry, ‘I don’t enter into this lightly. I’m not trying to be too precious about this, but I don’t want to devalue it.’ He goes, ‘I understand that, but this would be very funny.’
“Then I called Slattery and said, ‘If you don’t do it, I won’t do it, but it could be really funny.’ He goes, ‘Why wouldn’t we do it?’”
