OP-ED: Why I’m so Proud of Eric Tse and All of His Money

It is truly a rags to riches story. Imagine: One day Eric is posing with Lily Aldridge at a Bulgari party in Venice but is not a billionaire. The next moment, he is posing with Lily Aldridge at a Bulgari party in Venice and is a billionaire. It almost makes me tear up when I think about it.

And yet, when The Daily Pennsylvanian published an article about his accomplishments, I was shocked by the response. Students were harassing the young entrepreneur saying his accomplishments were nothing special. It made me upset. I am here to say firmly and unabashedly that I am proud of Eric and all of the money he has. 

At Penn, we talk about money all day long. We believe in the power of money and we believe in the consolidation of money. We believe that big pharma has the right to all of the money because the markets would correct for that if they didn’t have the right to all of the money. Eric Tse is an amazing example of Praxis. He believes in the values he learned at the Wharton School (the #1 business school in the country) and isn’t afraid to live by those values. 

I am also impressed by his family’s values. Some people with extreme wealth would try and give away their money to other people who are not in their family, such as non-profit charitable institutions. The Tse’s know that family is the most important thing in life. As I have learned over my time on this earth, families that hoard wealth together, stay together. The Tse’s have effectively hoarded billions, and that is not something that every family can say.

Some Penn students have been quick to judge Tse and the way that The Daily Pennsylvanian, among other news outlets, has framed his wealth accumulation as if it were some incredible fete of hard work. To them I say, you don’t know his life until you have walked in his Balenciaga dress shoes. He worked hard to make sure his parents knew he was deserving of his family’s fortune — helping out around the house by reminding the maids to wash the dishes and by taking his shoes off before stepping on his mother’s white mink area rug. 

On top of all of that, in order to get to this point in his life, he has had to survive incredible challenges including escaping from the angry Bengali tigers he was posing with during his 21st birthday in Vegas. I bet many of you have never had to escape two semi-domesticated Bengali tigers you hired for Instagram photos at your 21st birthday party.

So, I urge the Penn community to take a step back from our judgmental world views and our cancel culture. I will stand up for Eric Tse and young billionaires like him getting marginalized in our society. I will celebrate him and his money and my school that allows me to be associated with him and his money. 

Congrats to Eric Tse! I hope you can celebrate with three Bengali tigers today.