Top bosses split over President

AMERICA'S two richest men - Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett - are firmly in different camps for today's Presidential election.

With pro-Bush Gates fretting about Kerry's protectionist and anti-outsourcing rhetoric, Buffett, together with Apple's Steve Jobs, is advising Kerry on economic issues, even though he is said to have bet big that the dollar will tumble thanks to the vast deficit run up under the present administration.

Other big business leaders are equally entrenched on opposite sides. And because campaign finance reforms have curtailed the amount of money fat cats can pour into a candidate's coffers, they are more eager to break cover and come out publicly in support of their favoured candidates.

While California will definitely vote Democrat, the chief executives of some of the state's biggest technology companies are split.

Jim Clark, who founded Netscape and Silicon Graphics, is strongly for Kerry and has derided Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy. Intel's Andy Grove is also fervently against Bush but for a different reason. He is angry that the government let the crisis over the lack of flu vaccines happen.

'This government can't even prevent an ordinary failure of the business market from causing probably more American deaths than terrorism. It is a manifestation of a government that has no appreciation for science and technology,' he told USA Today.

Donors to Bush's campaign include Cisco chief John Chambers, IBM boss Sam Palmisano, eBay chief Meg Whitman and Dell chairman Michael Dell. They all gave the maximum allowed under the new rules - $2,000 (about £1,100).

There is no agreement on Main Street, either, as to who would be better for the country. Wal-Mart chief H Scott Lee is for Bush while Costco's James Sinegal is pro-Kerry and very much anti-Iraq.

An analysis of donations to the election campaigns shows that Wall Street generally is solidly behind Bush. But Kerry has a few big supporters such as Bank of America chairman Charles Gifford and Citigroup vice president Lou Susman, who is chairman of the Democrats' finance committee.

Nine of the top 10 companies whose employees have given financial support to Bush are from the finance world and the 10th is PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Kerry, who has won the backing of hedge fund billionaire George Soros, has a more eclectic top 10 that includes academics and lawyers as well as Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.