The influence of the super rich on Donald Trump’s presidency is a threat to global stability, a new poll of millionaires has found.
A survey of more than 2,000 millionaires across G20 countries published by the Patriotic Millionaires group has found more than half believe extreme wealth concentration is a threat to democracy. About 70% agreed that the influence of those with extreme wealth is leading to a decline in trust of the media, the justice system and democracy.
“The super rich are buying themselves more wealth and more power while the rest of the world is living in economic fear,” said the activist and co-founder of taxmenow, Marlene Engelhorn, an heiress whose wealth comes from the medical technology company Boehringer Mannheim.
Speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Engelhorn warned that democracies were vulnerable to the influence of the super rich.
“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,” Engelhorn said.
The poll was released to coincide with the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, where Engelhorn and the Patriotic Millionaires movement are pushing for a wealth tax.
In a letter to world leaders they warn that “the phenomenon of concentrated and extreme wealth” is hurting the world, urging them to “draw the line”.
It is signed by more than 370 millionaires and billionaires spanning 22 countries, including the film producer and philanthropist Abigail Disney, the musician Brian Eno and the film-maker 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,” the letter said.
“Across the world, some of those who enjoy the same economic status as us also enjoy untold levels of influence and power. A handful of extremely wealthy human beings control the media, which cajoles, persuades and sometimes misinforms; they unduly influence our legal systems, transforming justice into injustice; and are helping manage our democracies into decline.”
Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday was attended by several of the world’s richest people, including Elon Musk, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, the Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, and the Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani.
Speaking in Davos, Phil White, a member of Patriotic Millionaires UK, said the influence of super rich owners of social media companies was extremely concerning.
“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.”
White warned that the Covid pandemic had shown the dangers of “trickle-up economics”, where the money “trickles up to the top and it stays there”.
Coinciding with the beginning of Trump’s second term, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, warned the world economy was “fracturing along new lines”.
Speaking in Davos on Tuesday and without specifically mentioning Trump by name, the head of the EU executive said the bloc could no longer rely on the approach that has sustained it so far this century.
“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,” von der Leyen told the summit in the Swiss resort.
She said today’s world was “still nearly as connected as ever, but it has also started fracturing along new lines”, adding: “The cooperative world order we imagined 25 years ago has not turned into reality. Instead, we have entered a new era of harsh geostrategic competition … We will need to work together to avoid a global race to the bottom.”
