One of the most memorable images of President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January was the row of tech billionaires arrayed behind him, which included Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. As the Associated Press noted at the time, their prominent placement at the ceremony departed from tradition, as “seats so close to the president are usually reserved for the president’s family, past presidents and other honored guests.”
An excellent new report from the Washington Post, which crunches data on the growing influence of billionaires in politics, shows that Trump’s row of billionaires was more reflective of trends in national politics than we knew at the time. “More than 80 percent of the federal campaign spending by the 100 wealthiest Americans in 2024 went to Republicans,” the Post found in its analysis. And that was in an election in which the wealthiest Americans donated a record-breaking $1.1 billion to federal elections.
The U.S. is currently trending toward a government of the billionaires, by the billionaires and for the billionaires.
The Post’s analysis, which tracks data going back to 2000, captures two striking political trends. First, the ultrawealthy are significantly more influential in American political donations than a quarter century ago. “Since 2000, political giving by the wealthiest 100 Americans to federal elections has gone up almost 140 times, well outpacing the growing costs of campaigns,” the Post reports. There are several factors that explain that jaw-dropping spike in donations, but a major one is the change in campaign finance law, especially the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling in 2010, which allowed corporations to make unlimited contributions to elections through super political action committees.
Second, the Post’s data shows that the 100 wealthiest Americans donated to both parties in significant numbers, with an intermittent tendency to give more money to Republicans than Democrats. A chart at the Post suggests that in 2020, Democrats received approximately $300 million, while Republicans received roughly $400 million; in the 2022 midterm elections, both parties received about the same amount, somewhere in the neighborhood of $350 million. In 2024, though, there is a colossal divergence: Donations to Democrats plunge to around $200 million, whereas Republicans receive around $900 million. “Trump himself raised 15 times as much from the 100 richest Americans in 2024 than he did during his first presidential campaign, in 2016,” wrote the Post.
The Post’s billionaire data tracks broadly with the data showing that lucrative American industries donate money to both sides of the aisle, though the contributions are often somewhat weighted toward Republicans. The basic reason is that the business class has a lot of money to throw around, likes to hedge its bets, and has for decades had tremendous influence over the policy view of both parties due to its resources and the parties’ shared ideological friendliness to big business. But something changed in the 2024 election, with the business community pivoting aggressively toward Republicans. A rightward cultural shift in Silicon Valley and a vastly increased interest in political activism among its power players is a factor. Trump’s promises to create friendly regulatory environments for burgeoning and money-filled tech sectors like cryptocurrencies and artificial intelligence is another one. Trump’s demands of patronage and displays of loyalty probably played a role as well. Whatever explains it, the numbers that the Post report puts together are telling a clear story of the degradation of democracy. Make no mistake: Even if the richest Americans swung toward the Democrats, it would still mean our polity is dominated by oligarchs and it would drown out the voice — and material interests — of ordinary voters. The U.S. is currently trending toward a government of the billionaires, by the billionaires and for the billionaires. And the rest of us need to find a way to fight back.
Zeeshan Aleem is a writer for MS NOW. Sign up for his newsletter. 
