This past Monday, the world marked two noteworthy beginnings: the second inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump and the start of the 55th Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
The new Trump administration was bound to be a hot topic of discussion among the nearly 3,000 elites from business, politics, and civil society attending this year’s Davos. Everything from Trump’s impending tariffs to his desire to pull the United States out of NATO to his aspiration to annex Greenland will be on the agenda, but probably not as much as the unique threat that Trump poses to the global democratic order.
If, over the course of their many lectures and panel discussions, the Davos attendees need an answer as to the best path forward to protect democracies from Trump and other leaders with authoritarian leanings, here it is, and it’s pretty simple: tax wealthy people like me.
Billionaires’ president
Former President Barack Obama once described Trump as “a symptom, not the cause” of America’s political divisiveness and social unrest. So what, you may ask, is the cause? It’s certainly complex, but there’s no question that a major driver is the toxic brew of rising precariousness for the majority and the growing concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a tiny slice of ultra-wealthy people.
By my own calculations, at the end of 2024, America had 813 billionaires worth a combined $6.7 trillion. To put this into perspective, this is more than the GDP of any country outside of the U.S. and China. In the 2024 presidential election, billionaires were eager to spend their fortunes to propel their preferred candidate to office, which, judging by the numbers, was Donald Trump for most. According to a Financial Times analysis, 144 billionaires donated $695 million in the presidential contest. They comprised 6% of the funds raised by former Vice President Kamala Harris and an eye-popping third of the funds raised by President Trump. Billionaires continued their largesse to Trump after the election by giving in record-breaking numbers to his transition effort and inauguration.
Billionaires made no secret that they funded Trump’s second ticket to the White House to protect and expand their financial interests, whether through tariffs, deregulation, or individual or corporate tax cuts. And while they will likely get their way with Republicans having control of the White House and Congress, it may come at a hefty price: the demise of what’s left of American democracy. Trump hasn’t been shy about his intentions to fire civil servants and replace them with loyalists, encourage the Justice Department to go after his political enemies, and target and sue journalists he dislikes—and Republicans won’t get in his way of doing so.
The ultra-wealthy pose a threat to other facets of our lives besides our democratic institutions. With their extravagant, jet-setting lifestyles, they are disproportionately responsible for fanning the flames of climate change, which contributed to the disaster in Los Angeles. They control what we read, see, and think by owning and purchasing traditional media outlets, social media platforms, and think tanks and academic institutions. And some even manage to single-handedly change the course of history in one fell swoop, as Elon Musk did in September 2022 when he deliberately deactivated his Starlink satellite internet service near the coast of Crimea to thwart a Ukrainian drone attack on a Russian naval fleet.
If extreme wealth is left unchecked, these sorts of problems will only worsen as billionaires age and pass on wealth to future generations. Billionaires around the world are expected to transfer $6.3 trillion over the next 15 years, according to UBS. In the U.S. specifically, over the next 25 years, the top 1.5% of households are poised to inherit no less than $30 trillion. In fact, the “Great Wealth Transfer” is already here, as 36% of billionaire wealth is now inherited, according to Oxfam.
Extreme-wealth threat
As the great-grandson of meatpacker Oscar Mayer, I have had a front row seat observing wealthy families like mine preoccupy themselves with utilizing every avenue to preserve and grow their fortunes over generations—as opposed to using their unique positions of privilege to do good and bring about lasting and equitable change for the whole of society. If something isn’t done to stop them, I genuinely fear that the U.S. will begin to look more like an hereditary aristocracy than a democratic republic, with a lot more Donald Trumps—the poster child of the dangers of inherited wealth, if there ever was one—than we have now.
This is what inspired me to join over 370 of my wealthy peers in signing an open letter calling on the world leaders at Davos to find the political will to tax people like us. As we said in the letter, “We do not want or need any more access or power. Instead, we want those we elect to build a better future with just democracies, strong economies that serve everyone, a flourishing planet, and societies where we all can thrive. We have to draw the line and call time on extreme wealth. And you have to deliver that for all of us.”
The letter comes on the heels of the publication of a poll of over 2,900 millionaires in G20 countries that assessed their attitudes towards extreme wealth. Incredibly, among other things, the poll found that over half of G20 millionaires think extreme wealth is a threat to democracy; over 70% believe the super rich buy political influence and disproportionately influence public opinion through control of media and social media; and nearly two-thirds think that the influence of the super rich on the Trump presidency is a threat to global stability. Lastly, nearly 70% agree with me and my fellow letter signers that raising taxes on the super rich is the answer to reducing inequality.
I want to do my part as a wealthy person to help pull our planet and democratic society as we know it from the brink of total collapse. That part must, by definition, involve paying more taxes. I implore the world leaders at Davos to honor my request and the request of hundreds of millionaires and billionaires from around the world before it’s too late.
Chuck Collins is a founding board member of Patriotic Millionaires and a researcher at the Institute for Policy Studies, where he co-edits www.inequality.org. He is the author of multiple books including Born on Third Base, and, with Bill Gates Sr., Wealth and Our Commonwealth. His forthcoming book is Burned by Billionaires: How Concentrated Wealth and Power are Ruining Our Lives and Planet.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
Read more:
- Musk, Zuckerberg and Huang among 5 people now expected to become trillionaires within 10 years
- Billionaires are multiplying, and 60% earn their wealth through ‘inheritance, cronyism, or monopoly power,’ Oxfam writes
- Abigail Disney says ‘extreme wealth is eating our world alive.’ She and Mark Ruffalo are among 200 millionaires calling for taxes on the ultra-rich
- The scourge of ‘heir pollution’ shows that the rich are exacerbating climate change—and the dynastically wealthy are leading the charge
