Rashida Tlaib on fighting billionaire oligarchs: ‘The American people overwhelmingly want to tax the rich’

They had the best seats in the house. When Donald Trump was sworn in as US president a year ago this week, tech titans Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Elon Musk, Sundar Pichai and Mark Zuckerberg were sitting closer than even some of his cabinet picks, living symbols of the US’s new gilded age.

“It was so gross,” Rashida Tlaib, a Democratic representative from Michigan, recalled in a phone interview. “It was like a reunion of all the billionaires. Some of them didn’t even like each other, but boy, did they come together for Trump.”

On Tuesday, she plans to introduce a bill in the House of Representatives urging the US to end the political and economic dominance of billionaire oligarchs, halt the corporate subsidies and tax advantages that fortify their power and reinvest in the American people to defend democracy from authoritarianism.

The legislation is supported by Our Revolution, a political organisation that spun out of the senator Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential run, which is launching a “Defund the Oligarchy” campaign with research showing that individuals and corporations who funded Trump’s election received a staggering return on their investment.

Tlaib, a member of a group of House progressives known as “the squad”, explained: “It’s out of control. Our resolution urges Congress to act to address it and reinvest in the needs of the American people. So many folks say to us over and over again, there’s always investment in the fossil fuel industry, there’s always investment in the for-profit healthcare industry.

“We’re always bailing out the big banks but where is our investment? How come we don’t seem to have money for Medicare for all but we have money to bomb Venezuela and continue to fund a genocide in Gaza? A lot of folks are tired of it. We want to push our colleagues to acknowledge it and then hopefully move forward with real policy change.”

Tlaib’s bill notes that, with the combined wealth of America’s 900 billionaires now exceeding that of the 67m households in the poorest 50%, wages for working people have stagnated and basic needs, including housing and healthcare, have become unaffordable. She believes there is a public hunger for change.

Last year, a survey by Pew Research found that more than six in 10 US adults (63%) say tax rates on big businesses and corporations should be raised. Sanders and the representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez drew big crowds on their “Fighting Oligarchy” tour. Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, swept to victory in New York’s mayoral race, championing a “tax the rich” agenda to fund social programmes.

Trump, a Republican, campaigned for election in 2024 on a pledge to “drain the swamp” and help America’s working people. But Tlaib, the first Palestinian American woman elected to Congress, contends that he made the inequality crisis worse with last year’s so-called “big, beautiful bill”, a record transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich.

“There is a billionaire as our president of the United States. He’s using our democratic process and passing bills that transfer even more concentrated wealth to those that are already hurting American people with starvation wages,” she said.

She warned: “Inequality in income across our country is growing, not decreasing, and people at the top are getting richer while many of us continue to struggle. People laugh when they hear Democrats talk about the middle class.

“They say, what are you talking about? There is no such thing anymore because those at the top are making it even more difficult for folks to become homeowners that are making what you would think is a decent living, but not anymore with the costs going up. And again, the continued struggle to get access to healthcare and so much more.”

Our Revolution’s 2026–2028 initiative aims to turn anti-oligarch sentiment into political action, combining Tlaib’s congressional resolution with a candidate pledge and accountability project documenting how oligarchs are profiting from political power.

It has a website showing how public money, contracts, deregulation and political favours translated into massive financial gains for a small group of donors and corporate actors, while costs were passed on to working families.

Our Revolution found that Trump’s biggest donors in crypto, oil and gas, and deportation infrastructure together spent roughly $700m boosting his campaign and the wider Make America Great Again movement. In turn, they received policies and tax benefits worth an estimated $172.5bn – a staggering 18,000% return on capital. On average, every $1m donated yielded an $18bn windfall.

Oil and gas barons led the charge. In 2024, they spent $443m shoring up Republican power in Congress and returning Trump to the White House. Their reward was some $153bn in tax breaks, the rollback of climate regulations and a wholesale dismantling of renewable-energy initiatives. By one estimate, that amounts to a 33,443% return on investment – and that figure excludes additional perks such as expanded federal drilling leases and regulatory indulgences.

Tlaib commented: “The oil and gas industry spent over $400m on lobbying and campaign contributions and they did media buys in the 2025 election cycle. It goes on and on while the American people are begging Trump to support an extension of a tax credit for access to the Affordable Care Act. It’s the bare minimum and they have to beg their own government to do that. But the billionaires seem to have easy access to be able to get those tax credits.”

Private contractors powering the US’s detention and deportation machinery also fared handsomely. GEO Group, CoreCivic and CSI Aviation collectively gave nearly $5m to support Trump’s candidacy. In return, the administration’s 2025 budget aims to quadruple immigrant expulsions, opening the door to revenues exceeding $5bn – and profits nudging $500m – for these three firms alone. That represents an 11,050% return.

Palantir, the data-analytics firm led by billionaire Trump ally Peter Thiel, is positioned to secure lucrative new contracts as the government expands its surveillance of immigrants – and, potentially, the wider population.

The cryptocurrency world, long aligned with libertarian politics, has swung decisively behind Trump after the Biden administration’s attempts to tighten oversight following the 2023 FTX collapse. The industry poured $40m into Trump’s campaign and inauguration.

Nine major donors – including Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen and Trump’s future commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick – spent a combined $212m. Their reward has been a $19bn surge in wealth as Trump dismantles enforcement measures and promotes the US as the “crypto capital of the planet”. This is an 8,862% return on investment.

AI leaders knew that their big bets on energy-hungry data centres required a permissive regulatory climate. Trump obliged, championing breakneck AI expansion with little regard for social risks. Those who put in a collective $72m are now estimated to be $494bn richer – a staggering 686,011% return on investment.

Tlaib said: “People are scared that we’re going to have to bail out these crypto bros, bail out the AI industry because they’re doing something in a way that is not sustainable and it hurts all of us. It’s going to increase the cost on many American families that have to have electricity and water, and all of that is being drained by these industries that Trump is rolling out the red carpet for.”

No one, however, has benefited more visibly than the president’s own family. Since Trump secured the Republican nomination in early 2025, his net worth has surged from $2.3bn to $6.7bn. Much of this growth stems from a flurry of crypto-related ventures launched by Trump and his sons, rather than from the family’s property empire. In both sectors, the Trumps have profited by offering access to foreign investors and politically connected business interests.

The most controversial episode came with Trump’s approval of a transfer of cutting-edge AI chips to the United Arab Emirates – granted a mere two weeks after a UAE-linked investment fund purchased $2bn in Trump-issued crypto tokens.

Tlaib said her bill has the support of the representative Pramila Jayapal, but it is far from certain how many other Democrats will sign on: “A lot might come on board but, when it comes to actually passing policy, I think a lot of them will refuse to support it.

“A majority of them do take corporate donations. The same people that I’m talking about donate to Democrats and willingly take money from crypto bros, the AI industry, big pharma, big oil. Many of them continue to take money from the same utility companies that continue to jack up prices for their residents.

“That’s why the Democratic party needs to wake up and understand, when they’re asking what side we’re on, it’s because we take money from the same people that are hurting many of our Democratic base, and those are working families and folks within our unions across the country.”

Rightwing media is already whipping up hysteria about Mamdani as a socialist menace to New York. Tlaib has been subject to her share of insults over the years, including from the president, and is undeterred.

“You can attack me for trying to feed my hungry neighbour all you want, but I’m going to feed my hungry neighbour,” she said. “I’m going to make sure those that are sick get access to healthcare and I’m going to make sure that anybody that’s working and has children shouldn’t have to ration their food.

“It’s not going to happen on my watch. You can call me whatever you want. But at the end, the American people, no matter the political affiliation, no matter where they live in the country, overwhelmingly want to tax the rich.”

Trump approaches his first anniversary in a polling slump and with a bleak outlook for Republicans in the midterms. Democrats exploited the US’s affordability crisis to full effect in last November’s elections, emphasising Trump’s failure to bring down prices for daily essentials.

Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, which aims to elect progressives, get oligarch money out of politics and fight the oligarch agenda, said: “It’s got to be more than just fighting oligarchy as a slogan. It has to be defunding oligarchy as a governing programme. We’re not going to get to universal healthcare, we’re not going to address the core issue that our people want, unless we address the issue of dismantling oligarchy control.

“This is something that people have to run on by committing to a governing programme that says, once I’m in power, I’m going to make sure that the US government doesn’t award oligarchs like Elon Musk lucrative contracts, grants and loans. We’re not going to outsource Nasa to SpaceX. We’re not going to do all the back-end business with Amazon Web Services. We have to turn that slogan into a governing programme that constantly limits the role and the power of oligarchs in our political economy.”