Numerous elected Democratic officials have criticized the wealthy despite taking funding from billionaires in the past.
Railing against billionaires has been a popular Democratic rhetorical device for decades, but the criticism has come to the forefront since Elon Musk took the lead of the Department of Government Efficiency and has made many substantial government changes in President Donald Trump’s administration.
Though there is a long list of Democratic officials who have condemned the ultra-rich, here are just seven high-profile Democrats who have recently made anti-billionaire statements despite having accepted support from billionaires in the past.
Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren
Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren has criticized billionaires throughout her career, making policies on taxing the wealthy a staple of her political campaigns. Since 2019, Warren has even sold mugs branding the words “billionaire tears” for $28 on her campaign’s website. When she began selling them in 2019, they were $25.
Despite her strong anti-billionaire sentiments, Warren accepted funding from at least 30 billionaires from 2011-2019, according to a New York Post review of her campaign donations.
Warren posted on X during President Donald Trump’s presidential run that he “promised” his “rich as hell donors” tax cuts that won’t “help working people one bit.”
On Feb. 12 Warren told Rolling Stone that Trump is trying to “distract” people from his “failure to cut costs for families” and that he is “play[ing] up to the billionaires.”
George and Alex Soros, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Susan Pritzker, wife of Hyatt heir Nicholas Pritzker II, Christopher Sacca, a venture capitalist who went on “Shark Tank,” GitHub founder Tom Preston-Werner’s wife, Theresa, and David Geffen, co-founder of DreamWorks and many more all donated thousands of dollars to Warren’s presidential and senatorial campaigns, according to the New York Post.
Former President Joe Biden
Former President Joe Biden began his presidency calling for “unity” in his inaugural address but left office warning that an “oligarchy” was “taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy ” in his farewell speech.
Biden took funding from at least 230 billionaires during his 2020 presidential campaign, which amounted to 25% of America’s billionaires at the time, according to Forbes. Trump received money from only 14% of American billionaires that year.
Biden’s menagerie of ultrarich backers included George Soros, Ralph Lauren, Mellody Hobson, wife of George Lucas, Eric Schmidt, former CEO at Google, the founders of companies like DoorDash, Patagonia, and Netflix, as well as the family heirs to the Walmart fortune. Some billionaire donors gave a few thousand dollars, and others gave up to 1.7 million.
Forbes noted that at least 60 Biden donors also gave to some of Biden’s super-PACs, Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz contributing $47 million, and Mike Bloomberg rolling out $100 million.
Biden also presented his billionaire donor George Soros the Presidential Medal of Freedom last month, along with Hillary Clinton and Denzel Washington.
I’m so grateful my father was honored for his lifetime of work devoted to freedom and human rights. It was humbling to be with such an astounding group of honorees. Especially poignant to be alongside Bono and @HillaryClinton, two of the people my father has the highest regard… pic.twitter.com/Vx3KrQ4ELj
“I love Bernie, but I’m not Bernie Sanders. I don’t think 500 billionaires are the reason why we’re in trouble,” Biden said in 2018 at the Brookings Institution. “The folks at the top aren’t bad guys. I get in trouble in my party when I say wealthy Americans are just as patriotic as poor folks. I’ve found no distinction.”
Democratic Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison
In a video posted to X on Feb. 5, Democratic Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison repeated former President Joe Biden’s “oligarch” claim. He concluded the video with a call to action, “the small, tiny little group of oligarchs that are trying to destroy our democracy, we can stop them if we band together. We are the many, they are the money and we can overwhelm them.”
In 2018, Ellison accepted $100,000 from Alex Soros, George Soros’ son and business successor, according to the Washington Free Beacon. This amount represents a little less than half of funds raised by an independent expenditure committee devoted to Ellison’s campaign success.
Alex Soros, like his father, is a left-wing billionaire philanthropist. “He’s a lot more on the fringe than his dad was,” Joseph Vazquez, associate editor and George Soros expert at the Media Research Center told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “He’s going to be a much more potent political threat.”
Vazquez said that Alex Soros might use his father’s business like “a wrecking ball,” and that he may “take that $32 billion empire and smash it against wherever he needs to in order to turn his father’s vision into reality.”
Vazquez and Tom Olohan outline why Alex Soros “could be even worse” than his father in an MRC special report titled “Meet the New Boss.” The authors conclude in the report that Alex Soros might be “more radical than his father on everything from abortion to climate change to the weaponization of race to demonize his political opponents.”
Ellison was one of the several democratic officials that filed a federal lawsuit against Trump’s executive order banning child sex-changes. He said in a statement on Feb. 7 that “our children deserve so much better than to be targeted … by the President of the United States and his billionaire cronies,” pointing to how child sex-changes are “evidence based” and this executive order is “mean-spirited and deeply hurtful.”
Democratic Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar
Democratic Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar recently joked about Trump being “for sale,” though records show she has accepted funding from at least 21 billionaires.
“What is the difference between Greenland and Donald Trump? Greenland is not for sale,” Klobuchar said at the Washington Press Club Foundation Annual Congressional Dinner, according to the Huffington Post.
During Klobuchar’s 2020 presidential campaign she accepted donations from 15 billionaires and 6 of their spouses, including LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, according to a Forbes analysis of federal election findings.
DNC Chair Ken Martin
Newly-elected Democratic Party Chair Ken Martin has contributed to this anti-billionaire narrative multiple times. “Trump and the billionaire cabinet … bought this country,” he wrote on X on Feb. 7. George Soros gave at least $250,000 to Martin’s Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) party in 2022, according to the Center of the American Experiment, a Minnesota-based think tank.
“Are we on the side of the robber baron, the ultra-wealthy billionaires, the oil and gas polluter, the union buster, or are we on the side of the American working family?” Martin asked the DNC crowd during his acceptance speech on Feb. 1.
On Jan. 19, while Martin was still a DNC Chair candidate, he went on record saying he will only take money from “good billionaires” going forward.
Former Vice-President Kamala Harris
Former Vice-President Kamala Harris critiqued the Washington Post and the LA Times for not endorsing her 2024 presidential run and suggested that her opponent only cares about “billionaires in Donald Trump’s club” during a podcast appearance with Charlamagne tha God.
A total of 83 billionaires supported Harris’ presidential campaign, according to a Forbes FEC filings analysis.
Notable Democratic PAC backers included George Soros, Laurene Powell Jobs, Gordon Getty, as well as Bill Gates, who donated $50 million.
Democratic California Rep. Nancy Pelosi
Democratic California Rep. Nancy wrote on X on Feb. 10 that “Republicans are enabling financial predators to rip off hardworking Americans to reward their billionaire donors.”
The Golden State Representative is tied to House Majority Forward, a dark money nonprofit that received $3 million from Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss in 2020, according to Fox.
Pelosi has received much criticism for her own high net worth over her career, as some estimates rank her as one of the wealthiest members of congress.
Many have suspected that Pelosi, along with her husband, Paul Pelosi, have participated in insider trading. Paul Pelosi has refuted these claims.
BONUS: Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders
Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders announced plans to fight “the oligarchy” on Feb. 12. His spokesperson Anna Bahr told Politico that Sanders will support “working-class people” while “Donald Trump and Elon Musk march us toward authoritarianism, oligarchy, and kleptocracy.”
The Washington Free Beacon reported the senator’s change in rhetoric from critiquing both “millionaires and billionaires,” until dropping the “millionaire” once he became one in 2019.
Federal filings show that Sanders received just under $500 from one billionaire donor, Marta Thoma Hall, the wife of billionaire Velodyne founder David Hall in 2019. After Forbes notified Sanders’ campaign, they claimed they wouldn’t keep the money.
“Most Americans should believe that as a citizen, you’re allowed to attempt to influence the political process,” Brian Doherty, Los Angeles Times bestselling author and senior editor at libertarian magazine Reason told the DCNF. “You’re allowed to have your voice.”
Doherty expressed skepticism regarding this anti-billionaire narrative. “I don’t think the democrats complaining about Elon Musk really have a political objection to … billionaires funding political causes,” Doherty said. “It’s a rhetorical red herring.”
Doherty added that when voters are “aware of the range of really rich people funding both parties and both causes,” they are likely to “lose that sense of anger” regarding wealthy donor influence.
The offices of Warren, Ellison, Pelosi, Martin, Harris, Klobuchar, Newsom and Sanders did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
Featured Image Credit: Frank Plitt
