A Second Gilded Age? Billionaires in American Politics
By FIONA LIU’28 and LARRY LYU ‘28
In former President Joe Biden’s farewell speech, he warned the U.S. of “the dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultrawealthy people, and the dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked.” Just a few weeks later, Senator Bernie Sanders remarked, “A little over a week ago, Donald Trump was inaugurated… behind him were the three richest men in the world… who have become over 200 billion dollars richer since Trump was elected and now who are worth almost one trillion dollars more money than the bottom half of American society.”
The increasing concentration of wealth and political power in the hands of a few ultrawealthy individuals poses a fundamental threat to American democracy. As billionaires gain greater influence over political decisions, the government becomes less accountable to the people it is meant to represent. Regulations should be enacted to curtail this corruption, or else the U.S. government will no longer serve its people.
The rich influencing politics is not a new concern. Big businesses formed in the Second Industrial Revolution used their money to influence government policies. This wealth inequality, coupled with excessive speculation (that parallels the current crypto deregulation boom), eventually led to the Great Depression.
However, in the past decades, changes in our laws have allowed for an unprecedented influx of money into politics. Landmark court cases such as “Citizens United v. FEC” and “SpeechNow.org v. FEC” have essentially removed the campaign donation limits set under the Federal Election Campaign Act, leading to the rise of so-called “Super PACs,” which can receive unlimited donations from the rich and corporate interests. Due to the rising monetary costs of running political campaigns and the lack of campaign donation restrictions, billionaires who donate to these Super PACs have an ever-increasing amount of influence in who gets elected to public office.
In the recent Trump administration, we have seen billionaires who supported his election appointed to positions of power within the government, such as Elon Musk. Trump’s cabinet now has a staggering total of 13 billionaires, with a combined net worth over $460 billion.
Musk was also a major donor to the Trump campaign, contributing $288 million in total. He also started his very own Super PAC, called America Pac, which contributed over $200 million more to the Trump campaign. (5) Trump was also promoted and favored on his social media platform X (formerly Twitter), which he purchased for approximately $44 billion. This move certainly paid off for Musk, as Tesla stock soared by over 12 percent on the Wednesday after the election, and he has gained about $200 billion in net worth since.
Musk is now the head of the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). This department seeks to eliminate “unnecessary government spending and regulations.” However, this could be easily abused. As the CEO of several large companies, Musk stands to gain a lot from cutting important regulations. For example, he recently stated on Twitter that he wants to “delete the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB),” likely in response to the CFPB proposing a regulation that would ban the sale of sensitive user data to prevent fraud. Musk, being the owner of X, would lose profits if these restrictions were enacted, as he recently updated the site’s Terms of Service to allow the sale of user data for AI training.
Musk can and is influencing the administration to fire officials he disagrees with and impede organizations that are harming his companies. The director of the CFPB, Rohit Chopra, was fired just recently. Tesla is currently under investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and Musk could potentially interfere in their operations. Additionally, the FAA was investigating SpaceX, and Michael Whitaker, the administrator of the FAA, was also recently pressured to resign. Countless more examples of these conflicts of interest exist.
Another billionaire currying favor with the Trump administration is Mark Zuckerberg, owner of Meta. Shortly after the election, Meta ended its fact-checking program, which President Trump and his supporters said they were pleased by. Meta also donated $1 million to President Trump’s inauguration, and Zuckerberg threw an inauguration party.
When the TikTok ban bill was being debated, Meta lobbied fiercely for it to be passed since it would eliminate a big competitor to Instagram. In fact, Meta spent nearly $25 million lobbying Democratic and Republican legislators to pass this legislation. This is another contradiction of the will of the people; in recent surveys, only 32 percent of adults support a government ban on TikTok.
These are only a few examples of billionaires using their massive fortune to influence politics for their gain. The ultrawealthy stand to gain unbelievable amounts of wealth, all at the expense of the common people. Housing and healthcare are becoming increasingly unaffordable, and income inequality is skyrocketing, with the bottom 50 percent of workers owning only 2.5 percent of the U.S.’s total wealth. Politicians increasingly do not represent the will of the common people, and it is clear that the influence of billionaires in politics needs regulation.