Look at Donald Trump and his gang of broligarchs – and tell me we don’t need a wealth tax | Brian Cox

3 hours ago 1

You could be forgiven for thinking the second coming of Donald Trump was fiction. Unfortunately, it’s not – the threat he and his “broligarchs” bring to people around the world is very, very real. Last month Trump, surrounded by his uber-rich friends, was inaugurated the 47th president, while his political supporters sat outside in the cold – the perfect metaphor for who really matters in this presidency.

Among the clique were the three richest men in the world: Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and top dog Elon Musk, who personally poured $277m into Trump’s election campaign, increasing his own wealth by $170bn as a result.

Money equals power, so the saying goes, and right now it’s playing out on the world stage. As we know, Musk’s efforts to get Trump into the White House earned him a role heading up the new department of government efficiency – or Doge for short, conveniently echoing the same name of the cryptocurrency he promotes.

A man born into wealth and privilege is advising the president on how the US should protect its cash, alongside about a dozen other billionaire officials. Meanwhile, the rest of the world lives in economic fear as the gap between the super-rich and everyone else quickly becomes a chasm.

These super-rich people are so far out of touch with reality, it’s infuriating. Wealth is no longer about financial worth, it’s about control – of our democracies, societies, economies and planet. Trump’s appointees are just the latest example of how inequality and extreme wealth hurt us all.

Billionaire wealth rose three times faster in 2024 than in 2023. Five trillionaires are now expected within a decade, according to data from Oxfam. Meanwhile, progress on global poverty has stalled. Inequality is out of control.

On his first day back at the White House, Trump signed a slew of executive orders, winding back the clock of progress with every signature. He said he would only be a dictator on day one. Time will tell.

Soon after, he took centre stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos among heads of state, politicians and business moguls who had jetted in for the annual conference at God knows what cost to finances and the environment. Trump appeared by video link and spent much of the time making bossy demands and threats, like a scene from The Apprentice. Once again, this is not TV. This is real life. His decisions affect us all.

I’m someone who has lived with both poverty and wealth – but increasingly people from my working-class background will not be given the opportunities afforded to me. Because wealth is becoming more concentrated, cronyism is growing and the rest of the world is suffering.

Some at least are calling it out. Last month, nearly 400 millionaires and billionaires signed a letter asking leaders at Davos to take action on extreme wealth – by taxing the super-rich, like them. And, in his farewell speech, the then US president, Joe Biden, warned of a dangerous oligarchy taking shape. This should be a wake-up call to us all – especially those people elected to represent us.

Governments must address the obscene political capture we are witnessing. One simple way to do this is to tax the super-rich. These people 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.

Last year, the EU Tax Observatory estimated that a 2% tax on billionaires could raise up to $250bn a year. About 3,000 people would pay it, and it would make very little difference to their lives. For everyone else, though, it would begin to rein in extreme wealth and fight back against the rising inequality that is damaging lives across the world.

When a super-rich 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. This cannot continue. It’s time for us to look closely at what’s happening, at how Trump is making a terrible situation even worse – and finally resolve to draw the line.