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From local to national politics, billionaire dollars have influence over decisions that are being made about our everyday lives. With each billionaire comes an even wider network of other ultra wealthy donors and industries, interests and causes they represent. We hope to dive deep into these ties through our ongoing series mapping out billionaire power in our current moment in US politics.

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The sheer amount of billionaire wealth and influence that flowed into the 2024 election cycle was unprecedented. But while many elite donors approached the election in a purely transactional way — pursuing their material class interests, or making sure they bought access to whoever won — others had overlapping, farther-reaching motives.

We profile a few of these billionaires using their vast wealth and power to advance their ideological aims.

According to a November 2024 Americans for Tax Fairness report, “the combined wealth of President-elect Trump’s wealthiest nominees and transition team officials,” amounts to $313 billion — and this number has since climbed well over $400 billion with Elon Musk’s net worth skyrocketing. As former labor secretary Robert Reich has said, Trump’s regime “will be a billionaires’ ball.”

This post looks at some of the billionaires and billionaire groups — Wall Street elites to crypto tycoons, fossil fuel barons to Elon Musk — that are set to benefit from the incoming Trump administration

New York Governor Kathy Hochul is working to position herself as a foil to the Trump administration, but during her first four years in office she has prioritized corporations and the wealthy.

We looked at Hochul’s donor base and profiled a dozen billionaire families that donate both to Hochul – to the tune of more than $1 million since she took office in 2021 – and to Trump and the Republican Party.

Follow us on our socials for a weekly deep dive into some of the most influential billionaires. You can find our recent training on how to research billionaires – Research Tools for Organizers #4: Researching Billionaires and Other Powerful People – as well as other billionaire related posts in our research archives. 

Earlier this month we launched some exciting updates to our beloved LittleSis power research database. Housing over 4 million connections, the database has served LittleSis users for over 15 years. We are excited to continue providing this and other power research tools to our movements working to challenge corporate and billionaire power for the long haul!

See for yourself.

Onward,

LittleSis