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A Four-Word Response for Those Upset With Jeff Bezos for Any Number of Reasons: 'Tax the Damn Rich'
Sen. Bernie Sanders noted that the billionaire spent $10 million on the Met Gala, $120 million on a penthouse, and $500 million on a yacht while "planning to throw 600,000 Amazon workers out on the streets and replace them with robots."
May 05, 2026
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in recent weeks has come under fire for a wide variety of reasons, including his involvement with the 2026 Met Gala and his plans to build a robot workforce.
A Monday report from The Hollywood Reporter noted that Bezos, despite being a lead sponsor of this year's Met Gala, did not make an appearance at the event's red carpet as he had in past years.
Bezos' sponsorship of the Gala has been hit with heavy criticism in recent weeks, as many activists slammed the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art for taking the tech mogul's money despite his company's labor practices and reported involvement in helping US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, other critics "accused the billionaire of buying influence with the major event and speculation swirled that some stars may boycott the event due to his involvement."
In addition to not appearing at the Met Gala red carpet, Bezos is reportedly trying to lower his profile by selling his $500 million luxury yacht.
The New York Post reported on Monday that Bezos has decided that the 417-foot vessel has become "too recognizable," and is also a headache to maintain, costing an estimated $30 million per year to operate.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Tuesday argued that Bezos' lavish spending and his plan to build an army of robots to replace human workers was symbolic of American capitalism in 2026.
"The reality of American life today," Sanders wrote in a social media post. "Jeff Bezos, worth $290 billion, spent: $10 million on the Met Gala, $120 million on a penthouse, $500 million on a yacht. Meanwhile, he‘s planning to throw 600,000 Amazon workers out on the streets and replace them with robots. Unacceptable."
Warren Gunnels, Sanders' staff director, similarly made the case that Bezos' spending spree was yet another argument for raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans.
"Jeff Bezos, who paid $10 million for the Met Gala," Gunnels wrote, "got $62 billion richer since [President Donald] Trump was elected and spent $500 million on a yacht to sail to his $55 million wedding in Venice to give his wife a $5 million ring because his tax rate is less than 1%. Four words: Tax the damn rich."
Labor unions, which have long clashed with Bezos over Amazon's aggressive union-busting tactics, held their own rival "Ball Without Billionaires" on Monday evening to protest the Bezos-funded Met Gala.
As reported by Democracy Now!, the gala featured "Amazon, Whole Foods, Washington Post, Starbucks, and Uber workers" who "walked the runway in looks by immigrant designers."
April Verrett, president of the Service Employees International Union, said the Ball Without Billionaires was "not just about fashion" but "about power" and "telling the truth that people who sew and care and drive and cook and clean and secure and those that create are the ones who make everything possible."
Workers at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, who earlier this year voted to unionize, registered their own disapproval of this year's Met Gala, posting a message on Instagram informing followers that "91% of hourly Met staff in our unit earn less than a living wage."
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‘Worst Conceivable Representative’: Inequality Opponents Condemn Bezos Sponsorship of Met Gala
"It's a thin line between celebrating glamor and artwashing extreme wealth," said the Tax Justice Network.
May 04, 2026
As celebrities prepared to attend the 2026 Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on Monday, a coalition of nearly three dozen civil society groups warned that with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos—currently the fourth-richest person on Earth—chairing the annual fundraiser, the gala risks "artwashing the harms of extreme wealth."
Groups including Greenpeace International, Patriotic Millionaires, and War on Want signed a letter organized by the Tax the Superrich Alliance, calling on the museum and Vogue magazine, which hosts the event, not to honor Bezos and warning that the billionaire is using the two cultural institutions as tools "to launder his public image."
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a celebrated collection of art spanning centuries, many of it made "in defiance of power—work that exposed injustice, gave voice to the silenced, and held the powerful to account," reads the letter.
But the tech mogul chosen to chair the gala "has made his loyalties clear" since President Donald Trump first took office in 2017 and during the Republican's second term, said the groups, pointing to Bezos' purchase of The Washington Post, the mass firing of hundreds of the newspaper's reporters this year, and his remaking of the publication's opinion section into one focusing on "free markets."
He "gutted" the Post "while reportedly pouring $75 million into a film promoting Melania Trump," reads the letter, referring to the Amazon-produced documentary film Melania.
"A 2% wealth tax on just three necklaces previously worn by celebrities to the Met Gala’s red carpet could fully fund New York City’s home energy assistance program, helping 1 million households heat and cool their homes."
"He is not just a bystander to Trump’s administration," wrote the organizations. "He is one of its enablers. This is not philanthropy. This effectively is influence bought and paid for by Bezos’ pocket change—and the Met Gala is his latest purchase."
The groups added that in addition to aligning himself with the White House through his ownership of the Post, Bezos and Amazon—a government contractor where he is still the largest individual shareholder—is working with Trump to "make possible a concentration of power that not only threatens lives in the US but across the world as well."
"While so many of these policies aren’t new, they have been exacerbated under Trump and with the help of people like Bezos—from families torn apart by ICE [US Immigration and Customs Enforcement] raids reportedly enabled by Amazon's own technology, to a White House emboldened to threaten and carry out military action against sovereign nations without consequence—including to ‘destroy a whole civilization’ in Iran—with no accountability," reads the letter.
The Tax Justice Network, one of the signatories, emphasized that just a fraction of the money that goes to the $100,000-per ticket Met Gala could alleviate the economic inequality that's grown worse under the Trump administration.
"A 2% wealth tax on just three necklaces previously worn by celebrities to the Met Gala’s red carpet could fully fund New York City’s home energy assistance program, helping 1 million households heat and cool their homes," said the Tax Justice Network, citing its analysis released Monday.
Bezos is among the billionaires who have contributed donations to Trump's pet projects—a luxury ballroom and a 250-foot-tall arch in Washington, DC—while the president has tried to cut the home energy assistance program, said the group.
“There’s a thin line between celebrating glamorous fashion and artwashing extreme wealth, and that line gets bulldozed when your poster boy is an ICE-profiteering billionaire bankrolling Trump’s vanity projects and a top spender on anti-worker lobbying,” said Alex Cobham, chief executive at the Tax Justice Network.
In the first two hours of the Met Gala, Cobham added, "Bezos’s wealth will grow by the equivalent of 130,000 hours of a teacher’s labor... This extreme distortion throws economies out of whack. Our economies are supposed to let people earn the wealth they need to lead secure and comfortable lives, but most countries’ tax rules make it easier for the superrich to collect wealth than for the rest of us to earn it."
It's a thin line between celebrating glamor & artwashing extreme wealth. That line gets bulldozed when your patron is an ICE-profiteering billionaire bankrolling Trump’s vanity projects & a top spender on antiworker lobbying. Don't let Bezos artwash his at the Met Gala taxjustice.net/press/2-tax-...
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— Tax Justice Network (@taxjustice.net) May 4, 2026 at 3:25 AM
"In Bezos’ case, it’s easy to see how that undertaxed collected wealth goes towards lobbying further against workers’ rights and pay, while his company Amazon remains one of the biggest recipients of US subsidies," said Cobham.
According to the Tax Justice Network's analysis, Bezos accumulated $3.8 million every house from 2023-25, when his total wealth grew by more than $100 billion.
"If Bezos were to continue to accumulate wealth at this rate," said the group, "he would accumulate $7.6 million in the first two hours of the Met Gala event, which is the equivalent of 110 NYC Public Schools teachers’ starting salaries"—$68,902.
Those organizing the gala can and must "stop celebrating those destroying our countries and humanity itself," reads the letter sent by the Tax the Superrich Alliance, by not honoring Bezos and backing the fair taxation of the wealthiest households and corporations.
"End the oligarchy," reads the letter. "Tax the super rich. Now."
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a proponent of taxing the rich to pay for crucial public programs and services, planned to skip the Met Gala in a break with tradition. Last month Mamdani announced plans for a tax on second homes valued at $5 million or more in New York City.
Celebrities who are reportedly planning to skip the event include Palestinian-American model Bella Hadid, who has spoken out against ICE and in favor of Palestinian rights, and actress Zendaya.
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It Is Difficult for the Brain to Comprehend All the Ways Jeff Bezos Is Shafting Americans
Like the robber barons of the first Gilded Age, Bezos’s consumption is of the conspicuous kind. But is luxurious lifestyle is not his biggest crime.
Apr 24, 2026
I’m tempted to give Elon Musk the title of world's worst neo robber baron. But when it comes to greedy and irresponsible corporate behavior, one CEO is outdoing even Musk.
When the history of this sordid second Gilded Age is written, the list of neo robber barons will obviously include Musk as well as Meta’s (Facebook’s) Mark Zuckerberg, Palantir’s Alex Karp, Palantir’s co-founder and board chair Peter Thiel, Oracle’s Larry Ellison (and his son, David), Google’s Sundar Pichai, Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman, and the Trump Organization’s monumentally corrupt Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Eric Trump.
But one greedy, public-be-damned CEO stands out even above Musk, Trump, and the rest. His name: Jeff Bezos. His corporation: Amazon.
It is difficult for the human mind to comprehend all the ways Bezos is shafting Americans.
Start with prices. According to a newly unsealed filing released Monday in an antitrust lawsuit brought by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, Amazon has pressured major brands like Levi’s and Hanes to demand that competing retailers raise prices on their products.
At a time when most Americans are having trouble making ends meet, Amazon’s push to raise prices — to enlarge its profits (and put more money into Jeff Bezos’s pockets) — is beyond unconscionable.
The New York Times’s David McCabe reports on unsealed evidence that Amazon punishes sellers on its marketplace for offering lower prices on other websites, like those of Walmart or Target. When it spots a competitor’s lower price, Amazon tells the brands to demand that rival sites raise their prices for the products.
The filing includes an email to Hanes from Amazon, with links to Target’s and Walmart’s lower prices, along with Hanes’s apologetic response that it “reached out to Target and Walmart to have the prices increased.” And an email to Levi’s from Amazon, with links to lower-priced khakis on Walmart’s website, along with Levi’s response that Walmart had agreed to raise its price.
According to the lawsuit, Amazon has been able to exert pressure on different brands to raise their prices because of Amazon’s power and reach.
At a time when most Americans are having trouble making ends meet, Amazon’s push to raise prices — to enlarge its profits (and put more money into Jeff Bezos’s pockets) — is beyond unconscionable.
This is hardly Bezos’s and Amazon’s first brush with antitrust law. In 2023, the Federal Trade Commission and 17 states accused Amazon of illegally maintaining a monopoly in online retail by squeezing merchants who sell on its site and prioritizing its own products, resulting in “artificially higher prices.”
In September, the FTC agreed to settle another lawsuit against Amazon that accused it of making it difficult for consumers to cancel its Prime subscription service. Amazon agreed to pay up to $2.5 billion — including $1 billion in penalties and additional payouts to consumers — but didn’t admit or deny wrongdoing.
Meanwhile, The American Prospect’s Harold Meyerson reports that Virginia is subsidizing Amazon’s “second headquarters” in Crystal City, Virginia — just across the Potomac from Washington, D.C. — with $750 million in taxpayer funds, yet the corporation is wildly behind its job-creation pledge. Having promised to create 25,000 new jobs by 2038, it created a mere 1,600 jobs last year and is up to just 29 percent of the number of jobs it promised by now.
Speaking of Amazon jobs: Until earlier this month, attorneys for the National Labor Relations Board were prosecuting Amazon for firing employees that make Amazon deliveries because they’d voted to join the Teamsters, a clear violation of labor laws.
But then, a few weeks ago, the NLRB attorneys — now firmly under control of Trump’s NLRB general counsel — announced they’d reached a “settlement” with Amazon in which Amazon agreed to pay the workers who’d been laid off for more than two years, two weeks’ worth of wages. Two weeks.
Amazon’s workers are among the worst-treated in America.
Ryan Haas of The Western Edge reports that on April 6, an Amazon warehouse worker collapsed and died on the floor of Amazon’s warehouse in Troutdale, Oregon. A co-worker trained in CPR tried to help but was told by a manager to turn around. For more than an hour, employees said, they were instructed to continue picking items and loading trucks as the man lay dead. One manager reportedly told workers to “just turn around and not look” and get back to work.
Jeff Bezos couldn’t care less. As of April 2026, his net worth is estimated to be between $259 billion and $269 billion, making him one of the three richest people in the world.
Like the robber barons of the first Gilded Age, Bezos’s consumption is of the conspicuous kind.
He celebrated his wedding last year to Lauren Sánchez with a multi-day star-studded event in Venice, Italy, estimated to cost more than $50 million, featuring guests like Oprah Winfrey and Kim Kardashian, and including a ceremony on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore and a pajama-themed afterparty at the Arsenal.
His “homes” include three adjacent properties on Indian Creek Island in Florida, costing over $230 million; the former Warner estate in Beverly Hills, California, which features a 13,600-square-foot mansion and a golf course, which he purchased for $165 million; a 14-acre compound on Maui with a 4,500-square-foot main house and 700-square-foot pool; a $23 million mansion in Washington, D.C.; and a massive multi-lot compound with waterfront frontage in Medina, Washington.
But what puts Bezos at the head of all the other robber barons in this second Gilded Age is his slavish sycophancy toward the worst president in American history.
Bezos bought the legendary Washington Post for $250 million in October 2013 and has turned it into a Trump cheerleader — prohibiting its editorial page from endorsing Kamala Harris in 2024 and barring it from writing anything critical about American capitalism or Trump.
(That’s not all Bezos has done to ruin the Post. In February, he fired more than 300 Post journalists, about a third of its staff.)
Then he shamelessly paid $40 million to license the documentary “Melania” plus $35 million to market it — and earned back a tiny percentage. It was a blatant bribe of Trump.
And he does whatever Trump asks. After Trump complained to Bezos about a report that Amazon planned to display for consumers the costs of Trump’s tariffs, Bezos immediately canceled the plan.
Bezos has sucked up to Trump presumably to secure Pentagon contracts for his Blue Origin rocket company, which landed a $2.3 billion NASA contract early in Trump's second term. And to avoid further antitrust lawsuits or labor law scrutiny.
That he has zero scruples does not necessarily distinguish Bezos from the other robber barons of this despicable era.
But his public-be-damned business practices, his especially conspicuous consumption, and his excessive sucking up to Trump make Jeff Bezos the worst CEO of them all.
What can you do? You might share this post and boycott Amazon.
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