Billionaire Whose Letter Promised Mass Layoffs After Obama Win, Gives Workers Raises

Billionaire Whose Letter Promised Mass Layoffs After Obama Win, Gives Workers Raises

The private timeshare mogul and Mitt Romney supporter who swore mass employee layoffs if President Barack Obama won reelection has had a change of heart.

Earlier this year, David Siegel, the founder of Central Florida Investments and Westgate Resorts, emailed a letter to his employees warning them to vote for Romney or else. However, after Obama won the election on Tuesday, instead of firing some of his 65,000 employees, Siegel decided to give them raises.

The anti-Obama Siegel opened up about his change of heart. "I’m going to work my hardest to keep the company going and expand the best I can," Siegel told Bloomberg Businessweek. "We’ll see what happens. Meanwhile I gave everybody in the company a raise this week—the average was 5 percent. I wanted to help them handle the additional burdens the government will put on them."

Siegel, whose 90,000-square-foot Florida "Versailles" mansion may be the biggest in America (once it's finished being built), insists he did not influence his employees to vote in any way.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/08/david-siegel-westgate-letter-layoffs-firings-obama-win-victory-raises_n_2092582.html