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abigail disney
Even Most Millionaires Think the Superrich Influencing Trump Threatens Global Stability
The polling was released alongside a letter urging attendees of the World Economic Forum's Davos summit to "tax the superrich."
Jan 22, 2025
As the World Economic Forum held its annual summit in Davos, Switzerland, polling released Wednesday showed that even millionaires are concerned about the wealthy's influence over Republican U.S. President Donald Trump, who started his second term earlier this week surrounded by Big Tech billionaires.
The poll, conducted in November and December by Survation on behalf of the U.S.-based group Patriotic Millionaires, is based on the responses of 2,902 people from G20 countries with investable assets over $1 million, excluding their homes.
Around two-thirds of them strongly or somewhat agreed that "superrich individuals interfered inappropriately in media, public, and political opinion in the 2024 U.S. election" (67%) and "the role the superrich will play in Donald Trump's presidency is a threat to global stability" (63%).
"When a superrich elite is determining the outcome of elections purely to protect their vested interests and accelerate profits, it's clear that we are in a terrifying age of wealth extremism."
Pollsters also found that over half of those surveyed believe that extreme wealth threatens democracy and the democratic stability of their country, and that political leaders lack the will to tackle extreme wealth. Nearly 70% of respondents said that the influence of the superrich is leading to a decline in trust in democracy.
Over 70% think that the ultrawealthy buy political influence and disproportionately sway public opinion through control of the media and social media platforms—and that their influence is leading to a decline in trust of the media and the justice system, according to the poll. Additionally, 72% favor raising taxes on the superrich to help reduce inequality and invest in public services.
The poll results were released alongside a letter to global leaders attending the Davos meeting, signed by more than 370 millionaires and billionaires from 22 countries, who argued that "oligarchy cannot be born from the political fear of upsetting the superrich," so "you must tax us, the superrich."
Signatories include American filmmaker and Patriotic Millionaires member Abigail Disney, who said in a statement that "it's easy to see the election of a figure like Donald Trump as an aberration, but that's not the case. Donald Trump—along with his so-called 'first buddy,' Elon Musk—is the final and inevitable conclusion of decades of inaction on the part of world leaders to put a check on extreme inequality."
Musk, a tech CEO and the richest person on the planet,
poured over a quarter-billion dollars into reelecting Trump, has often been seen at the president's side since his November win, and is leading the Republican's Department of Government Efficiency, a controversial presidential advisory commission created to pursue GOP dreams of slashing federal regulations and spending.
"It's hard to be optimistic about what lies ahead over the next four years—and maybe more—but if officials want to do something to ensure the stability of our democracies, they need only find the political resolve to once and for all tax wealthy people like me," said Disney.
Other signatories also shared that call, including Marlene Engelhorn, an Austrian-German who co-founded taxmenow and said Wednesday that "the superrich are buying themselves more wealth and more power while the rest of the world is living in economic fear."
"We no longer have access to free and fair media; our political and legal systems can be bought; and our democracies are on very shaky ground," added Engelhorn, one of the representatives sharing the letter in Davos. "For all our sake, in every country, we have to tackle this now. Politicians need to show their mettle; they need to tax the superrich."
Scottish award-winning actor Brian Cox, who portrayed a billionaire named Logan Roy on the show Succession, also signed on and said that "recent events have shown that the political influence of billionaires and those with extreme wealth is an extreme risk to society."
"The superrich now manage so much more than money: They manage what we read, what we watch, the information we're given, and ultimately, how we vote," he continued. "When a superrich elite is determining the outcome of elections purely to protect their vested interests and accelerate profits, it's clear that we are in a terrifying age of wealth extremism. Our leaders have lacked the backbone needed to rein in political capture and put ordinary people first. It's time we draw the line and tax the superrich."
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Millionaires and Billionaires to Davos Elites: 'We Must Be Taxed More'
"Even millionaires and billionaires like me are saying it's time," said Abigail Disney. "The elites gathering in Davos must take this crisis seriously."
Jan 17, 2024
Survey results released Tuesday as corporate CEOs, top government officials, and other global elites gathered in Davos, Switzerland show that nearly three-quarters of millionaires in G20 countries support higher taxes on extreme wealth, which they view as an increasingly dire threat to democracy.
The poll was conducted by the London-based firm Survation on behalf of the Patriotic Millionaires, an advocacy group that campaigns for a more progressive tax system. The survey, which polled over 2,300 millionaires in G20 nations, found that 74% "support higher taxes on wealth to help address the cost-of-living crisis and improve public services."
More than 70% of the respondents said they believe wealth "helps buy political influence" and a majority see extreme concentrations of wealth at the very top as corrosive to democracy. According to an Oxfam analysis released earlier this week, the world's billionaires have gotten $3.3 trillion richer since 2020 as 5 billion people across the globe have lost ground, struggling to get by as wages fail to keep up with inflation.
"We, the very richest, are sick and tired of inaction, so it's hardly surprising that working people, at the sharp end of our rigged economies, have lost all patience," said Guy Singh-Watson, a British entrepreneur and member of Patriotic Millionaires U.K.
The poll was released as 260 millionaires and billionaires signed a letter imploring the dozens of world leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos to raise taxes on rich people like them, warning that a continued failure to "address the dramatic rise of income inequality" would be "catastrophic for society."
"Every moment of delay entrenches the dangerous economic status quo, threatens our democratic norms, and passes the buck to our children and grandchildren. Not only do we want to be taxed more but we believe we must be taxed more," the letter reads. "The true measure of a society can be found, not just in how it treats its most vulnerable, but in what it asks of its wealthiest members. Our future is one of tax pride, or economic shame. That's the choice."
"There is a clear social, economic, ecological, intergenerational, and democratic need to address extreme economic inequality."
Abigail Disney, an American documentary filmmaker and letter signatory, said in a statement that "throughout history, pitchforks were the inevitable consequence of extreme discontent, but today, the masses are turning to populism, which is on the rise throughout the world."
"We already know the solution to protect our institutions and stabilize our country: it's taxing extreme wealth," said Disney. "What we lack is the political fortitude to do it. Even millionaires and billionaires like me are saying it's time. The elites gathering in Davos must take this crisis seriously."
A report published Tuesday by the Patriotic Millionaires and allied organizations argues that "the extreme economic conditions of our age are at the heart of the world's overlapping and compounding crises," pointing to the outsized carbon footprints of the ultrawealthy and the ongoing acceleration of inequality.
The report notes that top income tax rates have fallen globally in recent decades, dropping from 58% in 1980 to 42% in recent years across Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.
"There is a clear social, economic, ecological, intergenerational, and democratic need to address extreme economic inequality," the report says. "And yet political leaders have failed to take action on the simplest of solutions: raising taxes on the ultra-rich. This is a political choice."
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200+ Millionaires to World Leaders at Davos: 'Tax the Ultra-Rich and Do It Now'
"Until Davos attendees start talking about taxing the rich, the entire gathering will remain a very public example of how out of touch they really are."
Jan 18, 2023
A group of more than 200 millionaires from 13 countries published an open letter Tuesday calling on world leaders gathered in Davos to tackle skyrocketing inequality by taxing rich people like themselves, warning that extreme concentrations of wealth at the top are "unsustainable."
"We are living in an age of extremes," states the letter from global millionaires, which was hand-delivered to World Economic Forum attendees. "Rising poverty and widening wealth inequality; the rise of anti-democratic nationalism; extreme weather and ecological decline; deep vulnerabilities in our shared social systems; and the shrinking opportunity for billions of ordinary people to earn a livable wage."
"Why, in this age of multiple crises, do you continue to tolerate extreme wealth?" the letter asks. "The solution is plain for all to see... Tax the ultra-rich and do it now. It's simple, commonsense economics. It is an investment in our common good and a better future that we all deserve, and as millionaires we want to make that investment."
The letter comes on the heels of two analyses detailing how the global rich have captured a disproportionate share of the wealth generated in recent years with the help of policies that often allow them to pay a lower tax rate than ordinary workers, who are bearing the brunt of price increases, falling real wages, and economic instability.
According to a study published Monday by Oxfam International, the global 1% took in $26 trillion of the $42 trillion in new wealth created since 2020, nearly twice as much as the share grabbed by the bottom 99%.
A separate analysis released Tuesday by the Patriotic Millionaires, the Fight Inequality Alliance, the Institute for Policy Studies, and Oxfam found that billionaire wealth has soared by 99.6%—around $5.9 trillion—over the past decade.
The analysis estimated that "an annual progressive wealth tax of 2% for those who have a net wealth of $5 million or more, 3% for $50 million or more, and 5% for those with more than $1 billion" would have produced $1.7 trillion in revenue in 2022 alone, a sum that could be used to fund critical anti-poverty, climate, and healthcare initiatives.
"Until Davos attendees start talking about taxing the rich, the entire gathering will remain a very public example of how out of touch they really are."
With the exception of a few high-profile moments—such as historian Rutger Bregman's viral 2019 rant on the prevalence of tax dodging and world leaders' refusal to address it—the topic of taxation has largely been sidelined at Davos, an annual gathering of corporate and political elites that often produces splashy rhetoric but no concrete action.
Abigail Disney, a documentary filmmaker and member of the Patriotic Millionaires, said Tuesday that she has "been to Davos" and "sat in the same room with some of the richest and most powerful people in the world as they talk about how they can make a difference, so I can say this with firsthand experience—Davos is a farce."
"Until Davos attendees start talking about taxing the rich, the entire gathering will remain a very public example of how out of touch they really are," said Disney, a signatory of the new letter to Davos attendees.
Another signatory, Patriotic Millionaires chair Morris Pearl, said that "the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos has become largely irrelevant, little more than an exercise in self-congratulation for the world's elites to convince themselves that they're making a difference."
"They refuse to accept an obvious truth—the cause of inequality is the rich getting richer and richer without paying any taxes," Pearl added. "If the world leaders and billionaires at Davos want the world to start taking them seriously, they need to earn that respect. That starts with taking inequality seriously, and taxing the rich."
Read the full letter (the list of signatories is here):
For the Attention of our Political Leaders attending Davos:
We are living in an age of extremes. Rising poverty and widening wealth inequality; the rise of anti-democratic nationalism; extreme weather and ecological decline; deep vulnerabilities in our shared social systems; and the shrinking opportunity for billions of ordinary people to earn a livable wage.
Extremes are unsustainable, often dangerous, and rarely tolerated for long. So why, in this age of multiple crises, do you continue to tolerate extreme wealth?
The history of the last five decades is a story of wealth flowing nowhere but upwards. In the last few years, this trend has greatly accelerated. In the first two years of the pandemic, the richest 10 men in the world doubled their wealth while 99% of people saw their incomes fall. Billionaires and millionaires have watched their wealth grow by trillions of dollars, while the cost of simply living is now crippling ordinary families across the world.
The solution is plain for all to see. You, our global representatives, have to tax us, the ultra-rich, and you have to start now.
The current lack of action is gravely concerning. A meeting of the 'global elite' in Davos to discuss "Cooperation in a Fragmented World" is pointless if you aren’t challenging the root cause of division. Defending democracy and building cooperation requires action to build fairer economies right now—it is not a problem that can be left for our children to fix.
Now is the time to tackle extreme wealth; now is the time to tax the ultra-rich.
There's only so much stress any society can take, only so many times mothers and fathers will watch their children go hungry while the ultra-rich contemplate their growing wealth. The cost of action is much cheaper than the cost of inaction - it’s time to get on with the job.
Tax the ultra-rich and do it now. It's simple, common-sense economics. It is an investment in our common good and a better future that we all deserve, and as millionaires we want to make that investment.
What—or who—is stopping you?
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