SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Cost of War
‘Astonishing Stat’: Billionaires Gave Nearly 20% of Donations in 2024 US Federal Elections
"For a representative democracy like ours to work, citizens must have some confidence that, through... political engagement, they have a fighting chance to turn their priorities into government policy," said an elections expert.
Mar 09, 2026
Billionaires exerted an unprecedented amount of influence over the 2024 US federal elections, accounting for almost one-fifth of the nearly $16 billion spent to elect candidates during that cycle, according to a New York Times analysis published Monday.
Just 300 billionaires and their immediate families poured an unprecedented $3 billion into the election, either giving directly to candidates or through political action committees.
These individuals represent just about 0.0087% of the 3.46 million people who donated more than $200 to one or multiple candidates during the election cycle.
And yet, with an average donation of $10 million apiece—equivalent to what 100,000 typical donors would give—they amounted to about 19% of all spending, allowing their interests to be pushed to the center of major races.
The Times highlighted the extraordinary role that billionaire fundraisers played in pushing Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.) over the finish line in his bid to unseat the three-term incumbent Democrat, then-Sen. Jon Tester.
Sheehy's long shot campaign was given a boost by Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, who donated $8 million to his super PAC after previously investing $150 million in the candidate's struggling firefighting business, which helped seed his campaign.
As the report explains, Schwarzman "was not the only financial heavyweight in Mr. Sheehy’s corner":
At least 64 billionaires and 37 of their immediate family members donated directly to his campaign, a New York Times analysis found. When also accounting for money that flowed through political committees that support Mr. Sheehy, an analysis shows that billionaires contributed about $47 million in the race that Mr. Sheehy went on to win.
Sheehy's campaign drew support from a who's who of GOP power brokers: Jeff Yass, the founder of the Pennsylvania-based trading firm Susquehanna International Group and a major funder of Trump's massive White House ballroom project; the Uihlein family, which owns Uline shipping and has been central to backing anti-abortion, anti-immigrant, and election-denialist causes; and Florida hedge fund founder Ken Griffin, who spent $12 million to stop an initiative in the state to legalize marijuana.
In installing Sheehy, the ultrawealthy bought themselves "a key ally on tax policies that benefit the wealthy" who "cosponsored a proposal to eliminate the estate tax," the Times reported.
While billionaires still have their talons in both political parties, the Times noted a distinct shift toward Republicans in 2024—for every one dollar given to Democrats, five went to the GOP in the election.
Trump, who openly begged for donations from oil tycoons on the campaign trail, was the single largest beneficiary of this avalanche of spending.
According to a study by Americans for Tax Fairness in October 2024, less than a month before election day, Trump had already received $450 million from 150 billionaire families, 75% of their $600 million total to major candidates, and three times Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris's $143 million.
By the end of the campaign, Trump and his affiliated PACs would amass more than $250 million from Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, and more than $100 million from both the pro-Israel megadonor Miriam Adelson and the banking heir Timothy Mellon, according to OpenSecrets.
Trump has since appointed more than a dozen billionaires to administration positions, including Musk, who was tasked with eviscerating public spending as the de facto head of the so-called "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE).
But as the Times reported, "Many of those billionaires are not only hoping to reshape the federal government... but to win influence in state legislatures, city councils, school boards, and courthouses."
"Ultrawealthy donors... have helped overhaul political leadership and policy in states across the country, expanding private charter schools, restricting abortion rights, advancing artificial intelligence in government, and blocking laws that would make it harder to evict tenants," the report explained.
As the 2026 midterm cycle begins, another spending blitz is coming. As the Times reported last month, the artificial intelligence industry, crypto industry, the pro-Israel lobby, and Trump's super PAC have each amassed war chests of tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars to help elect their allies to Congress.
Silicon Valley billionaires, including PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel and Google co-founder Sergey Brin, meanwhile,have collectively dumped tens of millions into stopping a proposal in California for a one-time 5% tax on billionaires in the state, which would replace Medicaid funding slashed by Republicans' massive budget law last year.
The explosion in spending by the ultrarich has come quickly. Where billionaires spent just $16.6 million to influence the 2008 election cycle, that number has steadily ballooned up to $3 billion in 2024, a more than 12,000% increase when adjusted for inflation.
Daniel Weiner, the director of the Brennan Center for Justice's elections and government program, said that the "astonishing stat" was a "legacy of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision" in 2010, which allowed billionaire-funded dark money groups to spend unlimited amounts of cash on political communication advocating for candidates.
"The resulting collapse of campaign finance rules has combined with a resurgence in the sort of high-level self-dealing that was pervasive during the Gilded Age, when bribery and graft were common, and corporations used their wealth to secure monopolies, government subsidies, and other benefits," Weiner wrote for TIME on Monday.
"As in the past, the question now is who will offer Americans a real alternative, including a commitment to stamp out self-dealing in all three branches of the government," he said, recommending a constitutional amendment to restore campaign finance limits tossed aside by the Supreme Court, a ban on spending by government contractors seeking contracts, and bans on congressional stock trading.
"For a representative democracy like ours to work, citizens must have some confidence that, through voting and other forms of political engagement, they have a fighting chance to turn their priorities into government policy," he concluded. "Far too many Americans have lost that faith, and they identify pervasive corruption at the top of our government as a big part of the reason. But cycles of corruption followed by reform are an enduring feature of American history. A new round of ambitious reform is overdue."
Keep ReadingShow Less
As US Slaughters Iranian Kids, Iran Says It Does Not Want to Hurt Americans
“Iran does not want to harm ordinary Americans who overwhelmingly voted to end involvement in costly foreign wars," the embattled country's foreign minister said.
Mar 09, 2026
As US and Israeli forces continued to bomb 30 of Iran's 31 provinces, killing more than 1,300 people including hundreds of women and children, the top Iranian diplomat said Monday that his country does not want to hurt American civilians.
"Iran does not want to harm ordinary Americans who overwhelmingly voted to end involvement in costly foreign wars," Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said on social media. "Blame for surging gas prices, costlier mortgages, and pummeled 401(k)s lies squarely with Israel and its dupes in Washington."
Araghchi was responding to a previous post by US petroleum analyst Patrick De Haan noting that gasoline prices have spiked by more than 50 cents per gallon in at least 18 states as a result of the US-Israeli war of choice.
"Nine days into Operation Epic Mistake, oil prices have doubled while all commodities are skyrocketing," Araghchi posted earlier on Monday, mocking Operation Epic Fury, the official US moniker for the war. "We know the US is plotting against our oil and nuclear sites in hopes of containing huge inflationary shock. Iran is fully prepared. And we, too, have many surprises in store."
Araghchi's remarks came as Iranian officials said that more than 1,300 people—including at least 198 women and 190 minors—have been killed over nine days of US-Israeli attacks, including massacres like the missile strike on a girls' elementary school in Minab that left around 175 people dead, most of them children.
Hundreds of civilians, including 42 women and 83 children, have also been killed by Israeli strikes on Lebanon.
Retaliatory strikes by Iran and its Hezbollah ally in Lebanon have killed at least 11 Israelis, seven US troops, and at least 15 people in Gulf Arab nations.
Araghchi's comments stood in stark contrast with US President Donald Trump's cavalier public attitude toward potential American casualties from Iranian attacks.
Asked last week if American civilians should expect terror attacks in retaliation for the war, Trump replied, “I guess."
“We expect some things," the president added. "Like I said, some people will die. When you go to war, some people will die.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump Declares Iran War 'Very Complete, Pretty Much' Days After Demanding 'Total Surrender'
"The Trump administration is admitting that they have strategically failed and this has been a disaster," said one foreign policy expert.
Mar 09, 2026
President Donald Trump signaled on Monday that he's nearly done with his unprovoked and unconstitutional war against Iran, despite declaring mere days ago that he would only accept the country's "unconditional surrender."
In an interview with CBS News' Weijia Jiang, Trump said that the Iran war is "very complete, pretty much," then falsely claimed that US and Israeli strikes had eliminated Iran's navy and even its ability to communicate.
Jiang's reporting on Trump's declaration that the war was nearly over came just one hour after the US Department of Defense (DOD) posted a message on social media declaring, "We have Only Just Begun to Fight."
Additionally, noted journalist Yashar Ali, CBS News' "60 Minutes" aired an interview with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Sunday in which he said that the war was still in its early days.
The president's abrupt shift in rhetoric about the war came hours after the prices of both Brent crude oil and WTI crude oil futures surged past $100 per barrel, as countries across the Middle East announced production cuts in the wake of chaos and destruction caused by the Iran war.
The impact of the price surge on the US stock market was immediate, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average opened Monday trading down by more than 600 points, while the Nasdaq dropped by 300 points.
In the wake of Trump's statement about the war being "pretty much" complete, shares on the US stock market rallied and oil futures began to drop.
Trump administration officials said that the initial goal of the attack was ending Iran's uranium enrichment program—and while they claimed it wasn't a "regime change" war, the president last month urged Iranians to "take over" their government. However, Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday outlined a more modest set of goals that included destroying its navy and its missile launch capacity.
Phillips O'Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, argued that this set of goals showed "the Trump administration is admitting that they have strategically failed and this has been a disaster."
Political scientist Ian Bremmer also took note of Rubio's revised goals and said they make "declaring victory and ending war with Iran much easier."
However, just because Trump is saying he thinks the war is almost over doesn't mean that it will end soon. Iran has still shut the Strait of Hormuz, and it maintains the ability to launch drone attacks on energy infrastructure throughout the Middle East.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'The FBI Has the Records': 2020 Arizona Audit Info Subpoenaed by Grand Jury
The records taken by the FBI relate to an audit that confirmed Trump's loss in the Grand Canyon State to former President Joe Biden.
Mar 09, 2026
The FBI has served the Arizona State Senate a grand jury subpoena for voting records related to the 2020 presidential election in Maricopa County, Arizona, in the latest sign that the federal government is working to investigate an election that President Donald Trump lost more than five years ago.
As the New York Times reported on Monday, the grand jury subpoena "was issued in recent days to the Arizona State Senate, which oversaw a sprawling but partisan audit of the vote result that was ordered by Senate Republicans in Maricopa County" months after Trump lost the 2020 race to former President Joe Biden.
Warren Petersen, the Republican president of the Arizona Senate, confirmed that he had received and complied with the subpoena, and revealed in a social media post that "the FBI has the records" related to the post-2020 audit.
As noted by MS NOW reporter Vaughn Hillyard, the audit in question was conducted by Cyber Ninjas, a now-defunct online security firm that confirmed Trump's defeat in the Grand Canyon State.
"The Cyber Ninjas found that, in fact, Joe Biden had won the county, per their hand count, by 360 more votes than originally believed," Hillyard explained.
The Trump administration's subpoena of the audit records comes at the same time that it is demanding Democratic Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes hand over his state's voter registration data.
As explained by the Brennan Center for Justice last week, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) is "seeking access to highly sensitive voter information, including partial Social Security numbers," as part of its subpoena.
The Brennan Center also said it teamed up with the Campaign Legal Center to file a brief to oppose the Trump administration's lawsuit against Arizona, which it described as "part of an unprecedented nationwide effort to force states to turn over private voter data."
The FBI in January executed a search warrant at the Fulton County Election Hub and Operations Center that allowed federal agents to seize 2020 election ballots, tabulator tapes, digital data, and voter rolls.
Shortly after the raid, Fulton County Commissioner Mo Ivory predicted that this kind of operation would likely be spreading to other counties and states.
“Fulton County is right now the target,” Ivory said. “But it is coming to a place near you. This is the beginning of the chaos of 2026 that is about to ensue.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular