Bernie Sanders Warns of US Government of, by, and for the 'Billionaire Class'

As U.S. President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk take a wrecking ball to the federal government—sparking lawsuits, protests, and calls for congressional Democrats to serve as a true opposition party—Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday delivered an impassioned floor speech decrying "America's dangerous movement toward oligarchy, authoritarianism, and kleptocracy."

"The Trump administration is moving this country very aggressively into an authoritarian society where the rule of law, and our Constitution, are being ignored and undermined in order to give more power to the White House and the billionaires who now control our government," said Sanders (I-Vt.), who caucuses with Democrats and sought the party's presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020.

Invoking former President Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Gettysburg Address, Sanders said that "I fear very much that under President Trump, we are not seeing a 'government of the people, by the people, for the people,' but rather a government of the billionaire class, by the billionaire class, and for the billionaire class."

Recalling Trump's January 20 inauguration, Sanders noted that "standing right behind him were the three richest men in America—Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg. Combined, these three men are worth a combined $920 billion."

In fact, the men—respectively known for Tesla, Amazon, and Meta—are the three richest individuals on the planet. As of press time, the Bloomberg billionaire list estimated the Big Tech trio's combined wealth at $932 billion, while Forbes put it at $911.7 billion.

"These three men own more wealth than the bottom half of American society—170 million people," said Sanders. "And I should point out—and this should tell you exactly where we are going as a nation—these three men... have become some $232 billion richer since Trump was elected a few weeks ago."

"This is how an oligarchic system works," the senator stressed, highlighting the quarter-billion dollars Musk dumped into getting Trump elected and that the billionaire is now head of the president's so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the entity leading many of the administration's attacks on the federal workforce and various agencies.

The other two billionaires "both kicked a million dollars each into Trump's inauguration fund," Sanders continued. Additionally, Bezos, who owns The Washington Post, blocked the newspaper from endorsing the Republican president's Democratic challenger, former Vice President Kamala Harris, and Zuckerberg settled a lawsuit with Trump for $25 million.

In addition to detailing how the world's richest people are working with Trump because they understand what's in it for them, Sanders sounded the alarm about various actions the president has taken since returning to power last month, including his federal funding freeze—which has been temporarily blocked by two U.S. judges—and his purges of inspectors general, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the National Labor Relations Board.

Sanders also pointed to Trump's pardoning of insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021 and intimidation of the press—including a Federal Communications Commission investigation into National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting Service—as well as Musk's targeting of the U.S. Agency for International Development and Treasury Department.

The senator also made the case for what the government should be doing instead: serving working people with policies that raise wages and promote union membership, make education and healthcare accessible to all, and tackle the nation's housing crisis.

"Now is the time for us to come together like never before and make certain we do not move toward oligarchy, make certain we do not move toward authoritarianism or a kleptocracy," he said. "And most importantly, in the richest country in the history of the world, we must understand that we have the capability of providing a decent life for all of our people."