We Must Outlaw Billionaires
Elon Musk’s campaign contributions alone are enough of a reason to do so
By: Austin Abbring
October 12, 2026
A recent Federal Election Commission (FEC) report showed that Elon Musk is the largest campaign contributor ahead of this year’s midterms. Surprise, surprise. The trillionaire has spent roughly $276 million on Republican PACs and super PACs, including $158 million on the Senate Leadership Fund alone. This is the primary super PAC behind Republican Senate candidates. Despite the very public fallout with Donald Trump, Musk is desperately trying to back GOP efforts in key Senate races across the country, including Texas and Michigan. He backs these efforts because the Republican Party is the party of deregulation and lower taxes for the ultra-wealthy, so, in other words, corporate conglomeration and essentially unchecked capitalism, which only stands to benefit individuals like Elon. This $276 million is in addition to the $288 million Musk spent helping elect Donald Trump and Republicans in 2024. So we are looking at one man, one individual in this country who has contributed around half a billion dollars towards political campaigns and PACs in the span of just two and a half years. Obviously, this is a drop in the bucket for Musk, as these contributions account for only 0.0005% of his overall net worth.
Every single billionaire is the result of some level of policy failure in this country. No one individual should be able to amass this amount of wealth, far more than they could spend in multiple lifetimes. This concentration of wealth by select individuals has created wealth disparity at levels worse than the Gilded Age, and has enabled systemic issues to all but destroy the middle class and push the working class collective to the brink. This is the problem with the Reagan-era tax policy that Republicans continue to champion to this day with tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy - the Laffer Curve - and incredibly low marginal tax rates. I would love to see us return to the top marginal tax rates this country held for several decades, which were around 90%. During that time, known as the Great Compression, those high marginal tax rates led to the lowest level of wealth inequality in this country’s history and one of the largest, most powerful middle classes in human history. Now, yes, this was the post-WWII reconstruction era for much of Europe, but those significantly higher marginal rates here did not inhibit growth. We curb these inequities by clawing back that revenue, strengthening labor through unions, enacting strong antitrust laws, and taxing the wealthy at much higher rates. I would suggest to the point where billionaires do not exist. We cannot continue to function as a democracy when select individuals and families wield this much influence in our politics and over society, whether their intentions are good or bad.
To be clear, this problem plagues both political parties in this country. Big money, corporations, and the top 10% have infiltrated our politics for decades. This issue is more pronounced on the Republican side: eight of the ten highest contributors in the 2024 election did so on behalf of the GOP, and that pattern has been consistent in our presidential elections since the 2010 Citizens United decision.
That does not change the fact that both parties are guilty and highlights the fact that we do not have a true left-wing party in this country. The Democratic Party, in its current form, is comparatively center-to-center-right compared with European political parties, and the Republican Party is genuinely far-right internationally. This is why I hope for a Democratic victory in both chambers of Congress in the upcoming midterms.
Most importantly, we need a check on this administration and to halt this organized fascist movement in its tracks before too much more damage is done and we reach the true end of our democracy. Even if that means we see a Democratic candidate in 2028 who is politically to my right and I am not excited about. Right now it is vote blue no matter who. In the meantime, I want to see a strong progressive and DSA-adjacent caucus established in the House and Senate to hijack the Democratic Party and return it to its FDR era. However, I want to go even further than that, with, obviously, a Civil Rights Act now passed so that more of a collective can enjoy the fruits of systemic changes and true wealth compression and government ownership in arenas where the free markets are less efficient or too destructive, such as healthcare, segments of housing, education, mass transportation systems, telecommunications, and energy systems. While we are at it, overturn the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court ruling. There is extensive work to do, but I am confident large segments of the American population have had enough, are desperate for change, and are willing to engage in this fight. A fight that will ultimately end the days of the Elon Musks of society. We have no choice.
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