As far as we know so far, one Musk Super PAC spent $19.2 million on independent expenditures to election 18 House Republicans. His expenditures in the past election have been so opaque and convoluted that no one yet knows how much did spent on Senate races and on other House races, but likely much more than $19.2 million. Of the 18 bolstered by America PAC 10 won their races and 8 lost. Including incumbents Marcus Molinaro (R-NY) and Michelle Steel (R-CA). His two biggest investments were on behalf of Mike Lawler (R-NY— $1,727,639) and for super-corrupt rightist Ken Calvert (R-CA— $1,599,915).
Billy House and two Bloomberg colleagues credited Musk’s cash infusion with the GOP’s razor thin House majority. They also noted that “In their first votes of 2025, all 10 joined their GOP colleagues in supporting Johnson, who also had the backing of Trump— and Musk. Musk, of course, has loudly and repeatedly declared his intentions to influence lawmakers on behalf of Trump. On Twitter, he has a megaphone to frame issues—sometimes with misinformation— rally supporters and attack opponents. But with $437 billion in personal wealth and a political funnel in America PAC, he’s also begun to directly shape the makeup of the legislative body.”
The South African oligarch doesn’t just own the White House. “Now there are Musk-backed lawmakers on committees that oversee transportation, space, artificial intelligence, social media, defense spending and other areas that directly affect Musk’s companies. The billionaire has promised more to come ahead of the 2026 midterm elections… Legislators are still figuring out how to react to Musk’s money, his megaphone and his proximity to Trump. Dozens, including at least two Democrats, have joined the new DOGE caucus… The impact of Musk’s spending— and what it portends for the future— can't be overstated, Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen, said. Every incumbent wants him to help the GOP hold its majority. By threatening to set up and fund primary challenges to lawmakers who oppose Trump’s legislative agenda, Musk may influence candidates for years to come. ‘His money can be the very sole deciding factor in who's running for office,’ Holman said. ‘He's probably the most persuasive person roaming the halls of Congress.’”
And since the election he’s made over statements about funding conservative Democrats in Democratic primaries in heavily Democratic districts. Multiple posts on Twitter from December 2024 mention Musk's intention to fund GOP-lite primary candidates in Democratic primaries: “I’m going to be funding moderate candidates in heavily Democrat districts, so that the country can get rid of those who don’t represent them.”
I asked Musk’s AI model, Grok, to look into it carefully and tell see if Musk would be best defined as an oligarch or a plutocrat. Although he went on for pages, Grok said “I would more accurately describe Elon Musk as a plutocrat. This term fits better because his power primarily stems from his wealth rather than being part of a small group controlling national governance. His actions in attempting to sway political primaries with his funds are quintessential plutocratic behavior. However, it's worth noting that in modern parlance, these terms can overlap, and Musk's actions could be seen as moving towards oligarchic behavior if he were to significantly expand his political influence or if the political landscape in the U.S. evolved in a way where a few wealthy individuals disproportionately control political outcomes.”
Let’s hope not. Yesterday, Jacobin published an interview by Hugo de Camps Mora with Guido Alfani is a professor of economic history at Bocconi University, Milan. Alfani is the author of Calamities and the Economy in Renaissance Italy: The Grand Tour of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse and As Gods Among Men: A History of the Rich in the West and coauthor of The Lion’s Share: Inequality and the Rise of the Fiscal State in Preindustrial Europe. “With figures like Elon Musk wielding increasing amounts of control over our political system,” wrote Moro, this critique— the super rich leaving like Gods— “has become even more timely… What has changed is that the rich have developed even more successful mechanisms for entrenching their power politically and bogus arguments for defending this state of affairs morally.”
Alfani told him that “Aristotle was concerned that, in a democratically organized society— by which he specifically meant Athenian democracy— if someone possessed an excess of virtue compared to others, including access to economic resources, it would be unrealistic to expect that person to behave like everyone else. He argued that such a person would act as a “god among men,” a concept that inspired the title of my book. This idea has persisted in Western thought until today, especially from the Middle Ages onward. Thinkers like Nicolas Oresme in the fourteenth century, who translated and commented on Aristotle, echoed this concern. In fact, after the fourteenth century, the focus shifted from an excess of virtue in general to an excess of control over economic resources in particular. This issue remains relevant today, as seen in Thomas Piketty’s work on inequality, where he argues that excessive inequality of wealth leads to significant societal problems.”
I don’t know how many times I saw the Dead Kennedys perform “Kill the Poor/Eat The Rich,” but Biafra were hardly the first to take up the topic. Billy Bragg’s “Between the Wars” reflects on the struggles of the working class in the face of economic depression and war, highlighting the disparity between the rich and the poor. Phil Ochs was known for his sharp criticism of wealth and power and “Love Me, I'm a Liberal” satirizes the hypocrisy of liberal elites who claim to support change but are comfortable with the status quo that benefits them. Rage Against the Machine’s entire discography is built on a foundation of anti-establishment and anti-capitalist rhetoric. Songs like “Wake Up” and “Killing in the Name” directly confront issues of wealth distribution and corporate control, with lyrics that advocate for a revolt against the system that benefits the rich. Patti Smith, KRS-One, The Clash, Gil Scott-Heron have followed in the footsteps of giants like William Blake, François Villon, Juvenal. Plautus…. Who, through their work often used allegory, satire, or direct commentary to discuss themes of greed, exploitation, and the moral implications of wealth disparity. Their critiques resonate with the ongoing discourse on economic inequality, showing that concerns about the rich and their influence on society have been a constant theme in art and literature over the centuries.
Alfaro told Mora that starting in “the Middle Ages it became clear that the rich were often viewed negatively and seen as sinners. Theologians at the time reread the bible and emphasized some of the most severe critiques of the rich, such as Jesus’s claim that ‘it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.’ In reality, the issue was particularly problematic for commoners who became wealthy. The problem wasn’t really with the nobles, who, according to theologians, had their privileged access to resources as part of God’s plan for the organization of society. In theory, nobles were also responsible for protecting their subjects, creating a sort of exchange between noble and subject. The concern lay with the commoners: Why were they wealthy? Why did they accumulate wealth instead of using it to help the poor? For someone like Thomas Aquinas, the answer was clear: they were sinners, and the goal was to prevent sin from spreading. Aquinas even advised against allowing commoners to engage in international trade, fearing that they would become too rich. What was even worse was when the wealthy gained their money through lending. Aquinas, reflecting on Aristotle’s teachings, argued that money should not generate more money— ‘nummus non parit nummos,’ as the Latin phrase goes. Engaging in such practices, and in particular lending at interest, was essentially committing a sin because it meant making someone pay for time, and since time belongs to God, it was basically considered akin to stealing from God. Despite the theologians’ efforts, they ultimately failed to stop rulers from allowing their subjects to grow rich, as rulers wanted wealthy people in their communities to tax and to provide funds when needed. Nonetheless, these theologians contributed significantly to the deep-rooted suspicion in our culture toward those who accumulate wealth, particularly in finance, which is still perceived as less legitimate than wealth gained through entrepreneurship, innovation, or other areas where one can grow rich.”
HUGO DE CAMPS MORA: You also study the connection between wealth and political power. You examine the cases of billionaires such as Silvio Berlusconi or Donald Trump, who have directly used politics for their personal benefit. What can you say about the propensity and capacity of contemporary elites to participate in politics versus in other historical periods?
GUIDO ALFANI: I don’t think that someone like Silvio Berlusconi, who may be the forerunner of this movement of superrich individuals becoming prime ministers or presidents, and who was first elected in Italy in 1994, would have been elected to a similar position in any Western country in the 1960s. Similarly, I don’t think that someone like Donald Trump would have been elected either.
The point is that, on one hand, in the last few decades, we have seen the superrich and the most affluent in general playing a much more active and direct role in politics; on the other, it is quite clear that in the last decades of the twentieth century, we as voters have collectively become more accepting of superrich people’s involvement in politics.
…HUGO DE CAMPS MORA: Some of today’s rich believe that they already give a lot to society through their philanthropic associations and donations. In your book, however, you don’t buy into the narrative that they are already collaborating enough with the rest of society, and that we therefore shouldn’t complain about the role they occupy. Why is that?
GUIDO ALFANI: Well, there are two reasons for this. First, philanthropy is an interesting modern concept that requires that you wouldn’t be getting anything in exchange from your giving. But the point is that not all philanthropy is really philanthropy. When somebody like Cosimo de’ Medici in Florence established new monasteries or the first public library in Europe, it was clear to everybody that he was making something for his city and for the state but that in this way he was also making a claim to rule. So it wasn’t a gift; it was something different. For the people of that period, that was fine. But we today are in a democracy. The point is, arguably, that part of what we call “giving” helps to build political and cultural influence; it helps to position the wealthy within society and, in the worst cases, it basically serves as a way to evade taxes. At the very least, we would like to know what exactly is the bargain we are being offered.
Then there is the second problem, and this is really something that I think should enter the debate more. It’s not just about how much you give to help but also about who decides how those resources will be used to benefit society. The kind of social contract we have doesn’t just require the rich to pay proportionally more taxes than others; it also requires them to accept that society, through its elected institutions, will decide how the money is used.
The problem arises when rich people start believing that they know better than the government how to use their money. While we all tend to think we are the best judges of how our money should be spent, we have to accept that the proper way to influence politics is by voting for the parties that will then allocate the money in a way we find acceptable— and not by trying to evade taxes to then use some of that saved money to do “good” in an area of our own choosing.
HUGO DE CAMPS MORA: Should we expect the current trend of growing inequality, more rigid societies, and increased political power of the elites to continue throughout the twenty-first century? Or should we rather expect the suspicion and disdain toward the rich that you say characterizes Western culture manages to stop them from behaving as gods among men?
GUIDO ALFANI: Based on what I see in the current political dynamics of the countries that I know a bit about, I think that the tendency will continue for a while. What will happen later? Well, if the tendency continues, this also means that potentially there will be a growing social concern about this. And what will happen at that point? Well, we technically live in democracies, so maybe voters will just change their preferences and start promoting parties that suggest a different way of organizing the interaction with the economy— for example, parties that are more favorable toward progressive taxation, taxation of inheritances, etc. If that doesn’t happen because, for example, politics is captured by a certain part of the wealthy elite, then what we really risk is that society becomes unstable.
This is what has happened in Western history whenever the richest part of society has been considered to be insensitive to the plight of the masses. We see this, among other examples, in the revolts of the Middle Ages and in the French Revolution. We also see this in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This is why, I think, the “In Tax We Trust” campaign [of superrich people who want to pay more taxes], which has developed in the last few years, stated in a letter to the Davos meeting that in the end the choice is between taxes and pitchforks. And it’s exactly that: nobody should want pitchforks, the rich included.
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