Friends:

When I first joined the Illuminati, I thought I’d work here forever.

I love orchestrating global financial events and mass media coverage in a way that is favorable to a cabal of ultra-wealthy power players; indeed, nothing tops the regular joy I get from chartering a chemtrail-emitting jetliner to Davos and informing a hedge fund billionaire I’d arranged for the assassination of his enemy.

But I recently received an offer I couldn’t pass up. So today, I’m saying goodbye to the Illuminati and its shadowy cohort of bank presidents, mortgage-lending tycoons, and heirs to the Asbestos fortune, and I’m starting a new job, as an advisor to President-Elect Donald Trump.

Ever since I first triggered a worldwide recession in order to profit a select group of industry titans and Connecticut-based financiers, I knew I wanted to work in American government.

I’ve manipulated the stock market, housing prices, and several seasons of Top Chef. Now, as the new Head Economic Advisor to the President, it’s time for me to manipulate America.

Now, I know that there will be some concern that I — a monocle-wearing tax evader who owns a mega yacht called the S.S. Poor People Deserve It — will not act with the interests of the lower class at heart.

To them, I will say the same thing I said at a 2008 emergency meeting of American bank CEOs worried they’d face jail time for crashing the economy: “Trust me.”

While I can’t promise that all of our proposals will go through — you’d be surprised how tricky it is to repeal child labor laws! — I can promise that I’m going to work just as hard to revitalize the American heartland as I did to establish a secretive country club for kleptocrats located 200 miles beneath the surface of Liechtenstein.

This was a difficult decision for me. When I told my Illuminati boss — a mysterious 9th-generation viscount who goes only by the symbol for the Swiss franc — he hurled his iPhone 14S so hard against the wall that he almost ripped through the real version of the Mona Lisa we keep at our headquarters.

“Who will send out subliminal messages during the Super Bowl halftime show?” the viscount pleaded. “Who will ensure the continued success of Ed Sheeran?”

But I had made up my mind. Our president’s campaign message really resonated with me: It’s time we drain the swamp of D.C. bureaucrats who do nothing for everyday Americans and replace them with people who really know how to make things happen — things like a Caribbean tax shelter, or a blimp explosion.

Yes, Donald Trump claimed he was looking out for the little guy. And many of his supporters assumed that this meant his cabinet appointees would be humble folks, and not business tycoons who haven’t been photographed in 43 years.

And while I’ve only ever come into contact with non-millionaires by watching the surveillance cameras pre-installed in every car radio, I’m confident that the policies we’ve designed to benefit reptilian plutocrats who own entire blocks of Manhattan real estate can also benefit regular Americans living in great states like Wyomington and East Flyover.

My experience at the Illuminati will always stay with me. Indeed, once you’ve been initiated via blood oath in the Satanic church behind Lloyd Blankfein’s Buenos Aires sex mansion, there’s really no turning back.

But I’m proud that Donald Trump chose me, out of millions of more empathetic yet much poorer Americans, to bring economic prosperity to the farmers and socialites who need it most.

Sure, my only public sector experience may be working in shadow governments. But I’m emerging from that darkness, ready to influence current events using as little strychnine as possible.

I’d like to thank my wife, my other wife, and my Cypriote wife for their support. And of course, I offer praise to Jæphomet, the goat-headed serpent worshipped by 98% of the world’s billionaires.

But mostly, I’d like to thank our next president for giving me a chance.

For too many years, my voice was only heard during bi-annual conclaves in the French Riviera that determine the course of human history over the next several years.

No longer. Whether you’re a Wyomingtonian or an East Flyoveridian, you’ve got a friend in the White House. I will always be watching over you — both metaphorically, and through your car’s radio.