David Siegel was one of those bosses who told their employees to vote for Mitt Romney in the presidential election. Siegel, 77, is the owner of a private time-share company, Westgate Resorts, in Orlando and says he employs some 7,000 people. “I wanted to let my employees know what will come if they make the wrong choice. They need to worry if Obama gets reelected,” he told me in an Oct. 10 interview. He also said he might have to lay off some of them, maybe he might even retire. So now what?
Siegel and his wife Jackie are also owners of what could be the biggest home in America (it’s still under construction.) Their story has been very publicly chronicled, in the documentary The Queen of Versailles, as well as in a story I wrote in Bloomberg Businessweek in March. When Siegel and I spoke Wednesday afternoon, he was initially, and uncharacteristically, reticent. Then he started talking. Here are edited excerpts from our conversation.