President Donald Trump’s first year in office has brought a massive windfall to billionaires while ordinary Americans struggle with rising costs, according to a joint opinion piece by Joseph Geevarghese and Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. The authors argue that Trump has used the presidency to enrich himself and his donor allies, making the largest cuts to Medicaid and food assistance in history.
The piece highlights that Trump’s personal fortune has nearly tripled from $2.3 billion to over $6 billion through crypto and licensing deals. Fossil fuel billionaires Harold Hamm and Kelcy Warren invested $443 million in electing Trump and are now reaping $153 billion in subsidies and tax breaks — a return of 34,437%. Similarly, big tech CEOs have seen their combined net worth soar by $494 billion following deregulation and an AI boom, yielding a 686,000% return on their political investments.
The authors note a troubling trend of oligarchy functioning as an investment portfolio, with government power guaranteeing extraordinary returns. Private prison companies like GEO Group and CoreCivic spent $5 million backing Trump and now stand to earn over $5 billion annually from expanded ICE contracts. Internal documents show some firms’ revenues could double, while deportation flight budgets have multiplied sixfold.
Beyond monetary costs, the piece warns of eroded faith in government as oligarchs buy influence. Examples include big tech companies settling lawsuits, Amazon financing a documentary about the first lady, Qatar gifting Trump a $400 million jet, and crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun investing $75 million in a Trump family venture before SEC charges against him were dropped.
The authors conclude by calling for an end to taxpayer subsidies for exploitative corporations, confronting monopoly power, and redirecting public funds from the wealthy to the people. They urge that defunding the oligarchy must become a governing standard for accountability.
