As President Donald Trump was inaugurated for his second term on Monday, a chilling message emerged from the World Economic Forum in Davos: the staggering influence of the super rich is threatening the very foundations of democracy. A new survey of over 2,000 millionaires across G20 countries, conducted by the Patriotic Millionaires group, reveals the dire consequences of unchecked wealth extremism at the highest levels of power.
The poll, released to coincide with the annual gathering of global elites in the Swiss resort town, found that more than half of millionaires believe the concentration of extreme wealth poses a clear and present danger to democratic institutions worldwide. A staggering 70% agreed that the outsized sway held by the ultra-wealthy is eroding public trust in the media, warping justice systems, and steering democracies toward a perilous decline.
Wealth Extremism: A Global Crisis
Activist and taxmenow co-founder Marlene Engelhorn, herself an heiress to the Boehringer Mannheim medical technology fortune, pulled no punches in her assessment of the situation. “The super rich are buying themselves more wealth and more power while the rest of the world is living in economic fear,” she warned, speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum.
Engelhorn emphasized the fragility of democratic systems in the face of such concentrated affluence and influence. “We are standing already now on the shoulders of all the people who have fought, and died also, to get democracy. It’s our duty to protect it as best we can, so that whoever comes after us – already, we’re leaving them with a God-awful situation – but we can do as much as possible,” she implored.
A Call to Action from Within
In an extraordinary show of support for reforming the very systems that enabled their own prosperity, more than 370 millionaires and billionaires from 22 countries signed an open letter urging world leaders to “draw the line” against the unchecked supremacy of the super wealthy. Luminaries lending their names to the cause included film producer and philanthropist Abigail Disney, musician Brian Eno, and filmmaker Richard Curtis.
“Wealth is no longer simply about worth. It is about control. If you, our elected leaders, continue to neglect the crisis of wealth extremism, the fractured foundations of our hard-won democracies will face further harm. Across the world, some of those who enjoy the same economic status as us also enjoy untold levels of influence and power.”
—Excerpt from Patriotic Millionaires open letter
The letter goes on to detail the myriad ways in which the ultra-affluent are distorting the pillars of free and open societies:
- Media manipulation: A handful of extremely wealthy individuals control media outlets, using them to cajole, persuade, and sometimes misinform the public.
- Judicial interference: The super rich unduly influence legal systems, transforming justice into injustice to suit their interests.
- Democratic decline: Extreme wealth is helping manage democracies into a state of decay, as the priorities of the affluent few eclipse the will of the people.
Titans of Tech Flock to Trump
The second term inauguration of Donald Trump only served to underscore the Patriotic Millionaires’ dire warnings, as an A-list of tech moguls and business magnates gathered to witness the ceremony. The guest list was a veritable who’s who of the global billionaire class:
- Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter
- Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Meta (formerly Facebook)
- Jeff Bezos, founder and executive chairman of Amazon
- Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries
The presence of these titans of industry at such a momentous political event raises unsettling questions about the coziness between extreme wealth and the highest reaches of state power. With their sprawling business empires, dominant market positions, and ownership of critical communications platforms, the potential for these select few to exert undue influence on the trajectory of nations—and the world—looms larger than ever.
Trickle-Up Economics: A Failing Paradigm
Speaking in Davos, Phil White, a member of Patriotic Millionaires UK, called out the particular dangers posed by super rich social media moguls. “We used to worry about the rich controlling the printed media, the newspapers and so on. But actually, social media is such a more powerful tool nowadays. And now we have Zuckerberg removing factchecking from Facebook,” he noted with alarm.
White cautioned that the Covid-19 pandemic had laid bare the failings of “trickle-up economics,” a system in which wealth is funneled upward and then stays concentrated in the hands of an elite few rather than being equitably distributed throughout society.
A Fractured World Order
The dangers of wealth extremism and its attendant political influence are set against a backdrop of deepening global divisions and instability, a point emphasized by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in her own address to the Davos forum on Tuesday.
Without directly naming President Trump, von der Leyen asserted that the world economy was “fracturing along new lines” and that the era of unfettered globalization and cooperation that had defined the early 21st century had given way to “a new era of harsh geostrategic competition.”
“In the last 25 years, Europe has relied on the rising tide of global trade to drive its growth. It has relied on cheap energy from Russia and Europe has too often outsourced its security. But those days are gone. Today’s world is still nearly as connected as ever, but it has also started fracturing along new lines.”
— Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission
As fault lines deepen and the specter of a “global race to the bottom” looms, the warnings of the Patriotic Millionaires take on an even greater urgency. The struggle to preserve democracy in the face of plutocratic overreach has emerged as one of the defining challenges of our time—a crucible in which the fate of open societies hangs in the balance.
A Reckoning on the Horizon
As President Trump settles into his second term and the captains of industry toast their continued good fortune, a shadow looms over the festivities in Davos and beyond. The drumbeat of discontent, once a distant murmur, now rises to a clamor at the gates of power.
The Patriotic Millionaires and their allies have sounded the alarm, giving voice to the growing unease over the unholy alliance between extreme wealth and political influence. Though their ranks may be small in number, their moral clarity and willingness to challenge the system that birthed them lends an undeniable weight to their message.
As the world watches and waits, the question remains: will the warning cries of the conscientious wealthy be heeded before it is too late? Or will the relentless concentration of affluence and influence continue unabated, plunging democracies into an irreversible decline? The coming years will tell, but one thing is certain—the battle lines have been drawn, and the stakes could not be higher.
