El Chisme

A real-estate agent who sells luxury properties in the tristate area is seeing the same thing. “It’s a weird time to be rich right now,” she says. “All the wealthy people I know are keeping their cards closer to the chest.” Sure, maybe they’re a smidge unnerved by the economy’s flashing red warning signs, but they’re largely immune to such things. “When people have that much money, stuff like inflation doesn’t really affect them,” she says. What they do care about, though, is being judged for their conspicuous consumption. “When the whole world is crying poor and you’re living your life in this wealthy bubble, it’s really frowned upon,” she says. They’ve all seen The White Lotus. “No one wants to be like that.”

Obviously, the idea of the über-wealthy wringing their hands about looking too rich is maddening in itself. But many of them don’t know exactly where to turn. One multimillionaire I spoke to, who owns about $15 million in Florida real estate, told me that he’s taking extra precautions to be low-key. “We’re just kind of standing around with our hands in our pockets, not sure what to do,” he says. “We’re not taking any vacations this year. I’d like to, but my wife thinks it’s a better idea to just stay close to home and not spend a lot.” They’re not anxious about their expenses, he says. “It’s more that we don’t want to rub it in people’s faces or draw attention to ourselves.”

Some might even view this swing away from ostentation as an extension of the quiet-luxury trend, but there’s a distinction. These people aren’t going for an IYKYK, old-money aesthetic, which conveys status in its own “tasteful” way; they’re genuinely trying to downplay what they have. It’s not just quiet — it’s silent. In an era of rising economic tension and class rage, a rich person’s privacy has become the ultimate commodity. They don’t want to be seen at the Chanel store. If they go to St.-Tropez, they’ll keep their circle tight.

Cockrell started noticing an undercurrent of nervousness among his clients after the UnitedHealthcare CEO was shot this past December. “I heard a lot of, ‘We’re getting gunned down in the street now,’” he recalls. Then came the inauguration, that striking display of American oligarchy. “There’s been a mood shift since everyone saw that row of billionaires sitting with Trump,” he says. “In times past, wealthy people were considered aspirational figures. Now, it’s more like, ‘If you’re wealthy, you did something wrong. You cannot be a billionaire without being a criminal. The system is stacked against the rest of us.’ And that has gotten louder and louder, and my clients are hearing it, and it’s disturbing to them.”

Katherine Fox, a financial adviser who caters to people who have inherited money (and has inherited money herself), says that many of her clients hide their wealth because they’re worried about how it might be perceived. “A lot of younger inheritors have this huge amount of internalized guilt and fear that has no outlet because they can’t talk about these things with anyone,” she says. “Especially over the past couple of months, when they’re faced with the overwhelming scope of problems in the world, they feel like they should be doing a bigger part to make a difference. But then it’s like, Well, what does that even look like?”

Unlike most of her clients, Fox is public about her inheritance and posts frequently about it online. “I know it’s rage-bait,” she says. “I get a ton of comments like, ‘Eat the rich,’ or ‘Just give it all away.’ But I am careful to moderate the more controversial stuff I post with captions that recognize the privilege and nuance of the situation.” Most people don’t read those, but she’s made her peace with that. “If I was the type of person who was bothered by angry trolls, I could never put myself out there the way I do. But I’m confident enough in what I’m actually saying that I can live with it.”

Her honesty has also been great for her business. Fox used to work in wealth management at Wells Fargo, where she realized that clients with multigenerational wealth — like she also had — came with a unique set of needs, financially and psychologically, that weren’t being met by more traditional advisers. So she broke off and started her own firm, Sunnybranch Wealth, a few years ago. “My impetus was to use my personal and professional expertise to help these people and also to normalize the fact that their problems are real,” she says. “They may only affect the top one percent of the one percent, but they are still problems. It’s just that no one talks about them because it’s not socially acceptable.” Sure, she gets a lot of hateful messages online, but she also hears from fellow inheritors with no one else to talk to. “I’m just the one saying the quiet parts out loud,” she says.

If you’re wondering, she does encourage her clients to donate to charity. “But you can’t just give it all away tomorrow,” she says. “First of all, it’s not that simple. It’s logistically difficult. Then you’re still going to be dealing with the same guilt and uncertainty of, Did I make the right decision?”

Of course, there are plenty of rich people who don’t have any qualms about enjoying their money as visibly as possible, who have even made excess their personal brand. As Cockrell points out, those usually aren’t the types who reach out to him or lie awake at night fearing a Marxist revolution. “Great wealth can make empathy challenging, let’s put it that way,” he says. Studies even show that wealthier people tend to be less compassionate; researchers postulate that it’s because their money insulates them from needing to cultivate and rely on (and care about) their communities. Cockrell notes that many of his clients live cloistered lives, cut off from the economic realities of tariffs and inflation and a looming recession.

He’s also seen that popular sentiment toward the über-rich is cyclical. “The last time the backlash against the wealthy was this strong was probably at the beginning of the pandemic,” he says, alluding to the stark divide between the people who quarantined in their country estates with live-in staff and those who had to risk their lives to deliver takeout. Before that, the lowest moment was probably the Great Recession, when he was just starting his career as a therapist and had a few clients who worked on Wall Street. “Societal attitudes toward the wealthy ebb and flow,” he says. “There will be moments when people get more comfortable, take their diamond bracelet out of the safe and start wearing it again.”

The real danger of times like this, he says, is not that rich people will face actual harm from the ravaging masses. (“Or at least, it’s extremely unlikely,” he clarifies.) Rather, it’s that their fears of public judgment and animosity — no matter how much they might deserve it — drive them further into their sequestered, comfortable worlds, away from a sense of accountability or responsibility. “For a lot of my clients, there’s a degree of confusion. Like, ‘One day I’m looked up to, and the next day, I am vilified. But I haven’t done anything horrible, and nothing has changed. What do I do?’”

The answer, he believes, is encouraging them to understand why regular people might feel so angry about the concentration of wealth, and to get involved in their communities. “I try to get them to be curious and to connect with people outside their orbit. Don’t just write a check — hand out blankets, ladle soup, have an impact, and interact with people in a way that’s meaningful,” he says.

But for some, stepping out of their manicured lives is just too intimidating — or, in this climate, feels too risky. They’d prefer to hole up and retreat into their money instead. “They can lead incredibly isolated lives,” Cockrell says. “It’s not good for anyone.”