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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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From 'Clean Eating' to Clean Rules: What Progressives Can Collaborate On With MAHA
The question isn’t whether the two groups share a few habits; it’s whether they can work together to build the political muscle needed to implement regulations that make everyone safer.
May 04, 2026
Eat real food. Buy organic. Filter your water.
Scroll through Instagram and you’ll find no shortage of such advice from the “MAHA girls,”—young women drawn to the Make America Healthy Again movement. If you have been accustomed to MAHA through its most famous champion—Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who helped popularize the slogan—#MAHA girls show a wider and growing allure of MAHA and their messages.
It’s tempting for progressives to either mock them or tune out, especially given their association with the current administration. But that would be a mistake. Not because MAHA has the right solutions—it often doesn’t—but because it names a real problem: Our modern lives are saturated with industrial contaminants from which individual consumer hacks can’t protect us.
As a sociologist who studies food systems, I recognize the mix of anxiety and practicality driving this trend. The MAHA movement’s concerns overlap with long-standing environmental and public health priorities championed by progressives. But the question isn’t whether these groups share a few “clean” habits; it’s whether they can work together to build the political muscle needed to implement regulations that make everyone safer.
Rather than rejecting MAHA’s sentiments, progressives need to listen carefully to the experiences that drive this movement, while being mindful of the limits of individual actions.
Consider glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup. There has been ongoing debate over its potential consequences. Thousands of lawsuits have been filed against Monsanto and its parent company, Bayer. And on April 27, the US Supreme Court heard arguments in Monsanto v. Durnell. The MAHA movement is watching the case closely and held a protest outside the Supreme Court.
Environmental and public health advocates have warned about these chemicals for decades. On this point, MAHA advocates and progressive environmentalists are aligned: Both want glyphosate out of the food system.
Or take fermented foods. My book, Fermenting for the Future, traces the decline of fermentation practices in industrial societies and the resulting loss of gut microbial diversity. Our guts are often described as the “industrial microbiota”—but thanks to our modern food system, they are becoming a less diverse ecosystem linked to a rise in chronic conditions. That’s because industrial food systems don’t just add questionable additives; they also reshape “traditional” foods that are standardized, pasteurized, or only nominally fermented—optimized for cost and convenience.
Here, too, MAHA supporters often agree. They champion fermented foods such as kimchi and miso and emphasize gut health. These concerns have even entered mainstream policy, as seen in the 2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which highlighted gut health and fermented foods.
Usually, MAHA’s intellectual roots are traced simply to MAGA (Make America Great Again). But its intellectual roots run deeper: health freedom movements, environmentalism, and women’s health activism—many of which have progressive roots.
But there are key differences and they matter.
First, MAHA discourse is marked by a strong current of purism: the idea that we can purify our bodies, homes, and communities if we shop correctly and avoid the “bad” stuff. Purism often draws a moral boundary between the “pure” and the “impure.” Historically, such thinking can slide from labeling chemicals as “impure” to applying the same labels to people—feeding stigma, exclusion, and conspiracy thinking.
Purism also rests on an illusion. We live in a world saturated with contaminants—from microplastics to forever chemicals—such that we are, in a sense, born “pre-polluted.” To try to shield ourselves individually by careful shopping choices is impossible and creates a sense of false security.
Second, the movement is deeply shaped by healthism—an idea that puts most of the responsibility for health on personal behavior. If you feel unwell, the MAHA approach is to take personal steps: Monitor your glucose, eliminate processed foods, buy organic. Structural factors—regulation, labor conditions, environmental exposure—fade into the background.
This is a paradox. While MAHA advocates sometimes call for tighter regulation of certain substances, their overall mindset often distrusts government and scientists, which limits their willingness for necessary systemic reforms and support for experts.
Healthism also obscures inequality. The capacity to “choose health” is unevenly distributed. A single mother juggling multiple precarious jobs likely lacks both the time to research good supplements and the income to purchase organic foods. Without structural changes in how food is produced, regulated, and distributed, those with fewer resources will continue to bear higher burdens—and then be blamed for their circumstances.
Despite these differences, the underlying overlap to progressive causes offers a window of opportunity. Many of the MAHA girls on Instagram are responding to real personal experiences that speak to larger issues: chronic symptoms without clear diagnoses, medical visits that feel rushed or dismissive. Conditions such as allergies, eczema, irritable bowel syndrome, and diabetes have become prevalent, and the fear that today’s generation may fare worse than their parents cannot be waved away as mere hyperbole.
Rather than rejecting MAHA’s sentiments, progressives need to listen carefully to the experiences that drive this movement, while being mindful of the limits of individual actions. If we are serious about making Americans—and the environments we inhabit—healthier, we can’t rely on individual choices alone.
We should meet this moment with “clean rules,” not just clean eating. Tackling bad food requires sustained advocacy for better regulations that foremostly consider the existing and potential harms to the most socioeconomically marginalized, such as farm laborers, fenceline communities, and the poor. And better food governance requires more support for scientists and public agencies that help to build a solid knowledge base for regulations and for them to be fully enforced.
“Clean” also means addressing conflict of interests in appointment of officials, in scientific data gathering, and in the endorsement of “solutions” including commercial products. Those reforms would help everyone—including the people with the least time and money to manage risk on their own.
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US Working Class Mobilizes Ahead of Nationwide 'May Day Strong' Rallies
“Amid attacks on our health and safety, our civil rights, and our very freedom to organize, we are standing up for a worker-centered vision of America," said one union leader.
Apr 30, 2026
Labor groups, students, and families are among those preparing for nationwide rallies and marches set for Friday as part of this year's May Day Strong protests "to demand a nation that puts workers over billionaires" amid worsening US wealth inequality under President Donald Trump and Republican rule.
"We are building a day of power," May Day Strong organizers said on the event website. "Because when the billionaires break every rule, it’s going to take more than a rally to stop them."
As Common Dreams reported, May Day Strong—a coalition of 500 labor and community organizations—has planned over 3,000 events across the nation to demand higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans, abolition of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) amid Trump's deadly crackdown on immigrants and their supporters, an end to the illegal US-Israeli war of choice on Iran, and expanding democracy over corporate rule.
For more information about Workers Over Billionaires, or to find the nearest action to you, go to maydaystrong.org.
— 50501: The People’s Movement ❌👑 (@50501movement.bsky.social) April 30, 2026 at 10:52 AM
"Following the examples of the historic 2006 day without immigrants that reshaped May Day and the Black-led corporate campaigns that have unseated CEOs, to Minnesota’s resistance to occupation, together we will flex our collective power in a tremendous day of action—rallying, marching, and taking action to demand a country that puts workers over billionaires, with many refusing business as usual," the coalition added. "No Work. No School. No Shopping."
As Neidi Dominguez, executive director of Organized Power in Numbers—one of the coalition's leaders—said, "We want our tax dollars going to good jobs, schools, and housing, not to sending federal agents into our cities to attack our neighbors."
"We want a government that puts more into community benefits and less into billionaire bank accounts," Dominguez added. "We are for one job being enough to pay the bills, for housing people can afford, and for public schools and healthcare that work for working families, not piggy banks for the ultrarich to steal from."
Labor author & historian, @kimkelly.bsky.social talks about the importance of channeling momentum into action, and how May Day Strong can help do that.#mayday #workersoverbillionaires #kimkelly
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— Organized Power in Numbers (@opinorg.bsky.social) April 28, 2026 at 5:27 PM
Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO—which represents nearly 15 million workers and 65 affiliated unions—said Wednesday that “for the labor movement, Workers Memorial Day and May Day aren’t just days of reflection—they are days of demand."
“Amid attacks on our health and safety, our civil rights, and our very freedom to organize, we are standing up for a worker-centered vision of America," Schuler continued. "From now through November, the AFL-CIO, our state and local labor movements, and allies across the country will be in the streets and at worksites to peacefully engage our co-workers and neighbors on the issues at stake in the next election so we can ensure that everyone can vote and every vote is counted and unify working people around our economic demands."
"This week and for the months to come, we will continue to fight for our vision of a worker-centered America," she added.
American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten said in a statement that “May Day has its roots in the fight for fair wages, safe workplaces, and a better life—and a reminder that real change happens when working people act together."
“That includes attacks on immigrant workers who are an essential part of our workplaces and communities," she added. "That’s why May Day isn’t just about showing up in the streets. It’s about using our power in every way it counts.”
Tomorrow, a wave of young people is taking action for May Day. We need a Green New Deal — not more wars for oil profit — and we're building the muscle to shut down the billionaire status quo until our demands are met.Read more on our substack. vist.ly/42h52
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— Sunrise Movement (@sunrisemvmt.bsky.social) April 30, 2026 at 12:02 PM
Hundreds of thousands of people rallied from coast to coast last May 1 to mark International Workers’ Day with spirited demonstrations supporting labor rights and protesting Trump’s “billionaire agenda” and attacks on the rule of law, unions, immigrants, Palestine defenders, transgender people, and others.
Since then, US wealth inequality has widened as the pro-plutocrat provisions of Republicans' so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) have taken effect—especially the permanent extension of Trump's 2017 tax cuts, which “delivered big benefits to the rich and corporations but nearly none for working families," according to a pair of progressive economic groups.
Federal Reserve data published earlier this year showed the top 1% of Americans held nearly one-third of all US wealth—the highest share since the Fed began tracking such statistics in the late 1980s—while the bottom half held just 2.5%.
Experts say the situation will worsen as some of the worst parts of the OBBBA—including the biggest cuts to Medicaid and food assistance in those programs' histories—take effect in the near future.
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