Marty Levine
June 15, 2026
I often write about wealth and political influence. The core idea of this writing has remained unchanged over the years; there have just been more and more blatant examples of the growing corrosion of our nation. Our laws allow individuals and corporations to grow and amass unlimited amounts of wealth. Our nation’s laws allow individuals and corporations (because the Supreme Court decided they had free speech rights!) to use that wealth to influence lawmakers with few checks and controls. The result is a very unvirtuous process. Money is spent on electing and lobbying lawmakers, and lawmakers write new laws to allow more and more wealth to be concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.
Last week provided a bumper crop of new case examples.
First, we saw a report from the nonprofit, non-partisan think tank Public Citizen that, using data that had been compiled by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, identified 88 profitable corporations that had paid zero dollars in federal income taxes and spent $852 million in political spending. Their conclusion repeated this story in bold terms:
Republican tax policy, cemented in the 2017 and 2025 tax laws, has provided egregious giveaways to wealthy corporations that has allowed more than seven dozen large, profitable companies to pay nothing in federal taxes, with some even receiving money back in the form of rebates. These corporate tax dodgers spend lavishly on lobbying and campaign contributions that feed into more tax breaks, which in turn fund even more political spending on policies that serve to pad corporate profits—and the cycle continues.
And they were able to calculate how profitable this political spending was.
Those companies saved $22 billion compared with what they would have paid if their profits had been taxed at the statutory rate. Adding in the $4.7 billion they collected in tax rebates brings their total tax breaks to about $26.7 billion.
Other corporations did not make this group of 88 because they had not been able to zero out their tax bill, but those tax bills were lessened by the provisions of these two tax bills. They too profited from their political “speech.”
On Friday, SpaceX became a “public” corporation valued at more than $2 trillion. And as it became public, Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire. This is the same Elon Musk, who, in 2023-4, used his wealth to buy, at a cost of almost $300 million, his political influence. That influence gave him access to President Trump and other leaders of the then-in-power Republican Party. He is expected to use some of this wealth to be among the largest individual donors this year as the Republican Party struggles to retain control of at least one House of Congress this coming November.
Here’s how Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman described it in a recent Substack article entitled “Elon Musk, Human Ponzi Scheme. With Wall Street’s Help, You’re About to be Forced to Buy Stock in SpaceX”:
…the SpaceX IPO now in progress makes it clearer than ever that Musk’s greatest skill isn’t developing futuristic products. It’s his mastery of financial shell games and his ability to leverage insider influence, especially his influence with the Trump administration…
The IPO is premised partly on the assumption that retail investors will buy in, not because they have made any rational assessment of SpaceX as a business, but because they believe that they are buying stakes in Elon Musk’s genius.
But the ranks of the faithful may not be enough to keep the shell game going. So, Musk’s Wall Street allies are also rigging the game. Some of the major stock indexes, notably the Nasdaq 100 and FTSE Russell, have recently changed their rules in order to admit SpaceX almost immediately…
The money propping up Musk’s scam will come from ordinary Americans who have in effect been forced to buy in. Approximately 52% of mutual fund assets are now invested in index or index-based funds, and over 50% of American households are invested in mutual funds. Thanks to the collusion between Musk and Wall Street, enabled by the perception that the Trump administration has Musk’s back, many if not most of these small investors will be dragged, willy-nilly, into fueling the Musk juggernaut.
Musk’s wealth and political clout allowed him to manipulate the way the launch of new public corporations is handled by those who are supposed to protect the public’s interest. This is easily seen through SpaceX’s launch as a public corporation.
Even calling SpaceX a public corporation stretches the meaning of the word “public” to a breaking point. If you think that means something democratic, where a majority of the shareholders could steer the corporation’s direction, that is not SpaceX. The shares that are being sold and introduced into our pension systems are, in reality, second-class shares.
In a detailed analysis published in the Harvard Law School’s Forum on Corporate Governance last May, we learn that SpaceX is different from other IPOs. SpaceX will sell Class A shares to the public, each with one vote per share. It also has super-voting Class B shares, each with ten votes per share. Musk currently owns about 40% of the company’s equity capital while controlling about 80% of the voting rights. Here’s the Forum on Corporate Governance’s detailed explanation of how this works.
Over time, the fraction of B shares that will be held by Musk should only be expected to increase for several reasons. First, any B shares held by non-Musk shareholders will be automatically converted to low-voting shares if sold to non-Musk entities; B shares that will be sold or transferred will retain their superior voting rights only if the sale or transfer is to Musk or Musk-related entities. Second, the company will be able to issue new B shares only to Musk and Musk-related entities, and the company should be expected to provide Musk with additional B shares as part of his compensation arrangements.
A two-trillion-dollar corporation able to lobby and contribute as it chooses, and all controlled by this arrangement by one man. You can bet that Mr. Musk will use his ability to shape law and regulation to keep himself and his wealth protected should we try to make such a structure no longer possible.
Also, last week, as reported in the Guardian, the Federal Government approved a merger that will shape the news and entertainment industry and will benefit the interests of the World’s 6th richest man, Larry Ellison, and his family.
Donald Trump’s Department of Justice has decided to approve the $111billion merger of Paramount Skydance, controlled by the Ellison family, and Warner Bros Discovery, the parent company of networks like CNN and HBO.
The deal was approved by the Justice Department’s antitrust division after months of review, and despite the concerns of many people in the entertainment and media industries who believe it will hurt competition by reducing the number of film studios and – most likely – merging two news networks, Paramount’s CBS News and CNN.
Larry Ellison and his son, David, who is CEO of Paramount Skydance, are major political spenders. It appears that their spending also pays dividends. And they will control a potent force that can shape the news and public opinion for their own benefit.
Why are we not angrier and in your face about ending this perversion?
Why are the voices demanding the systemic changes that are needed to rebalance our system and limit the ability of people to hoard wealth still marginalized and seen as too radical?
Last April, Senator Bernie Sanders released this call for action and a set of actions to change our system to bring us closer to equity
As Justice Louis Brandeis profoundly said back in 1933: “We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.”
Let’s choose democracy over oligarchy.
The wealthiest people in America must start paying their fair share of taxes.
Let’s create an economy that works for all of us, not just the 1%
Why did it get so little attention? Why did the leadership of the Democratic Party not make this their call to arms, their pledge for what they will do on day one if we allow them to control Congress in the next term?
You can answer that question by asking your legislators at every level why they are not supporting progressive tax reform. You can answer this question by asking candidates standing before you this November the same question and guiding your support and your vote by their answers.
Things will not change for the better magically. They will not change for the better by be fearful of taking risks. Now is when we have to act.
