Billionaires' new playground
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Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios
Billionaire DNA is coursing through the U.S. election system like never before, smashing campaign finance records and ushering in a new age of influence.
Why it matters: In an election that both sides see as existential, the moral guardrails for political spending are vanishing. Today's billionaires are shredding populist taboos, driving news cycles and increasingly shaping the terms of American democracy.
The big picture: 150 billionaire families have spent a total of $1.9 billion in support of presidential and congressional candidates this cycle, according to a report by Americans for Tax Fairness released one week before the election.
- That's $700 million (or 58%) more than the $1.2 billion spent by more than 600 individual billionaires during the 2020 election, according to the group's analysis.
- A Financial Times analysis also published this week found that billionaires had contributed at least $695 million, or 18%, of the total funds raised by the presidential candidates and allied groups.
- At least $568 million of that has gone to former President Trump's campaign and allied groups, compared to about $127 million to support Vice President Harris.
Between the lines: Those figures likely underestimate the true totals, given the extent to which some mega-donors choose to conceal their identity when funding political causes.
- Bill Gates privately revealed recently that he had donated $50 million to the main super PAC supporting Harris, after decades of strategically steering clear of politics, the New York Times reports.
- Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor of New York City, also quietly donated $50 million to the dark money arm of the same super PAC, Future Forward, according to the Times.
Zoom in: Of the more than 800 billionaires in the U.S., none has invested as much time, money and personal credibility into electing one candidate as the world's richest man, Elon Musk.
- Musk, who obsessively promotes Trump on his X platform, has poured over $118 million into a super PAC that has effectively taken over Trump's ground game in key swing states.
- That includes Pennsylvania, where Musk has drawn legal scrutiny with his $1 million daily giveaways to registered voters in the prize battleground state.
- Musk has massive interests with the federal government — both through contracts and regulatory probes of his companies — and is eyeing a role as head of Trump's proposed "government efficiency commission."
Zoom out: The entrenched influence of billionaires in the U.S. election goes beyond just cash donations.
- Trump himself is, of course, a billionaire — one whose new business ventures over the last four years will create a tangled web of conflicts if he's re-elected president.
- His running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), is a protégé of right-wing billionaire Peter Thiel, who bankrolled Vance's 2022 Senate run and lobbied Trump to put him on the Republican ticket.
- And in recent weeks, the billionaire owners of the Washington Post (Jeff Bezos) and L.A. Times (Patrick Soon-Shiong) ignited controversy by blocking their newspapers from endorsing Harris.
What to watch: As part of her closing message, Harris has sought to exploit Trump's billionaire ties — and his promises to cut taxes for the wealthy — to paint him as out-of-touch.
- "It's billionaires in Donald Trump's club," Harris said on "The Breakfast Club" radio show in response to Bezos' intervention in the Post editorial board's plans to endorse her campaign.
- "That's who's in his club," Harris added. "That's who he hangs out with, that's who he cares about."
