The CEO of Shopify is contemptuous of democracy

Jake Landau is Getting Tired

SubscribeSign in

The CEO of Shopify is contemptuous of democracy<br>No, Tobi, rich people should not get to have multiple votes in elections.

Jake Landau<br>Jul 26, 2026

12

Share

Operating on a remote-first business model, Shopify has their staff diffused through various regional offices across Canada and the globe, including the one pictured here in mid-July 2026, located in downtown Montréal. | Copyright © Jake Landau, all rights reserved.<br>It’s no secret that Shopify’s C-suite is filled with right-wing sympathizers, going beyond just their apologetics for Trump and their defence of his ludicrous lie that we are a fentanyl den. There has been a fair share of controversy over the Shopify e-commerce platform explicitly removing the “hateful content” ban for merchants using their services, with the end result being that they now allow products to be sold which deny the Holocaust, with a cut of revenue going back directly to Shopify for providing the infrastructure.<br>In the most high-profile incidence of Shopify’s complicity with the sale of hate material, when Ye—formerly known as Kanye West—attempted to sell a t-shirt emblazoned with a swastika to promote his song “Heil Hitler”, Shopify initially refused to take down the listing, and in the end said they only did so not because it was Nazi merchandise, but because they were concerned about fraudulent transactions.<br>To have Harley Finkelstein, President of Shopify, feign concern over antisemitism in the National Post, for him to fearmonger about Canada no longer being safe for Jews like him and I, while at the same time he profits from Holocaust denial? Calling it a joke would imply that this is funny, but it is not. The absurdity of the Shopify C-suite is not amusing, it is dangerous to the fabric of Canadian democracy. Indeed, according to recent remarks by Shopify Founder and CEO Tobi Lütke, it appears he is openly contemptuous of our democracy.

Subscribe

Starting things off last night, Mr. Lütke tweeted that the reason the Billy Bishop jet expansion was blocked was because of the “retired, unemployed, unemployable, and useful idiots”, implying that the poor, the elderly, and the disabled do not have valid perspectives that belong in government consultations with the public.

tobi lutke@tobi

Exactly what just happened in Toronto.

Retired, Unemployed, Unemployable, and useful idiots are the only people who go to these town hall sessions.

Crémieux @cremieuxrecueil

'Community input' just means obese old people never letting young people have anything.

Forever.

11:13 PM · Jul 25, 2026 · 299K Views

164 Replies · 147 Reposts · 2.9K Likes

But in less than twenty minutes, Mr. Lütke would stop merely implying that some votes shouldn’t count, and start to outright say it. Here, he posits that anyone who is retired and receiving their pension should explicitly be categorized as a “dependent” and stripped of the right to vote.<br>@cafedujord New deal: when you get your pension deal it’s locked in and guaranteed. But now you are a dependent and that means no voting, just like dependents under age. Enjoy the deal, let people with a stake in the future decide.","username":"tobi","name":"tobi lutke","profile_image_url":"https://pbs.substack.com/profile_images/1999293930936909824/_HWYanot_normal.jpg","date":"2026-07-25T23:29:45.000Z","photos":[],"quoted_tweet":{},"reply_count":58,"retweet_count":27,"like_count":876,"impression_count":59842,"expanded_url":null,"video_url":null,"video_preview_media_key":null,"belowTheFold":false}" class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-flexDirection-column pc-gap-12 pc-padding-16 pc-reset bg-primary-zk6FDl outline-detail-vcQLyr pc-borderRadius-md sizing-border-box-DggLA4 pressable-lg-kV7yq8 font-text-qe4AeH tweet-fWkQfo twitter-embed">

tobi lutke@tobi

@cafedujord New deal: when you get your pension deal it’s locked in and guaranteed. But now you are a dependent and that means no voting, just like dependents under age. Enjoy the deal, let people with a stake in the future decide.<br>11:29 PM · Jul 25, 2026 · 59.8K Views

58 Replies · 27 Reposts · 876 Likes

Riffing off this in a back and forth with Eric Thor, a banking executive working for TD in Ottawa, Mr. Lütke described it as a “good system” when Mr. Thor proposed that those who have an annual income higher than $100K should get additional votes for electing government officials, scaled to their income level, while those below the basic personal amount would not be allowed to vote at all. When interrogated about this today, Mr. Lütke doubled down, mounting a defence that he would want only five votes “max”, not over a hundred. He claims that by giving the wealthy more of a say over who governs the country, we will “reward productive people with leverage”.<br>@BrassicEyeRedux @EricSThor @cafedujord 5 max. Or make it go back to 1 above a certain level, doesn’t matter. Reward productive people with...