Billionaire Tom Perkins under-fire for likening criticism of the super-rich to the Holocaust now says the Occupy movement is like Nazism



Thomas Perkins, 82, originally wrote a letter to the Wall Street Journal of the 'parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to [San Francisco's] war on [the rich]

His second letter to Bloomberg further compared the 'Occupy' movement to German fascism before the Nazis rose to power



Perkins is worth $8billion and recently built a superyacht worth $150million

Not backing down: Billionaire Tom Perkins clarified his Saturday Nazi reference by comparing the 'Occupy' movement to pre-Nazi rise to power fascism in Germany

The California billionaire widely ridiculed after the Wall Street Journal published his letter comparing criticism of the super-rich to the Holocaust is at it again.



Venture capitalist Thomas Perkins - worth about $8billion - wrote another letter Sunday, this time to Bloomberg, in which he compared the 'Occupy' movement to pre-Nazi rise to power fascism in Germany.

' In the Nazi area it was racial demonization, now it is class demonization,' wrote the Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers venture capital firm co-founder.

He also expressed 'shock' over the windows broken at luxury dealerships and banks in San Francisco while the press 'focuses its wrath on the 1 percent.'



The letter was written as a KPCB spokesperson immediately moved to distance itself from Perkins.



'Tom Perkins has not been involved in KPCB for years,' the firm tweeted. 'We were shocked by his views expressed today in the WSJ and do not agree.'

The letter was written after Bloomberg contacted Perkins to clarify what he meant in his original letter to the Wall Street Journal, according to Business Insider.



Perkins opened his letter to the Journal: 'Writing from the epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco, I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its "one percent," namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the 'rich.'

Mr Perkins describing the hatred attracted by Google workers in San Francisco and an incident in which his former wife author Danielle Steele was branded a 'snob' in the San Francisco Chronicle in a row over the height of her hedge.

'This is a very dangerous drift in our American thinking. Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendent "progressive" radicalism unthinkable now?' He continued.



Kristallnacht translates as 'The night of broken glass' and refers to coordinated attacks on Jews in Germany on November 9 1938, as authorities looke on and did nothing.



Superyacht: Mr Perkins commissioned the $150m yacht Maltese Falcon which he later sold

Mr Perkins, 82, was educated at MIT before gaining an MBA from Harvard. He founded Venture capitalist firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in 1973 and has served as a director on boards of companies including Compaq.



He recently spent $150million building a super yacht called Maltese Falcon and lives on a 60th floor, 5,500ft penthouse overlooking San Francisco Bay.

Before that, he was a general manager credited with building Hewlett Packard into the huge company it is known as today and started a successful laser company based on his own invention.

Comparisons: Mr Perkins referenced the Kristallnacht attacks on Jews in Germany in 1938

Protests: Mr Perkins also discusses the protests in San Francisco against Google buses and tech workers driving up the area's cost of living

His comments comparing criticism of the rich to the Nazis persecution of the Jews that resulted in six million deaths raised many an eyebrow.



'The parallel of Nazi Germany and some people getting kind of annoyed by the tech bro dudes is exactly ZERO,' Kaili Joy Gray wrote on the Wonkette blog.

Author and New York Times writer Steven Greenhouse tweeted: 'As someone who lost numerous relatives to the Nazi gas chambers, I find statements like this revolting & inexplicable.'









