March 2026
Welcome to The Billionaire Bulletin, brought to you by Tax the Greedy Billionaires and the Extreme Wealth Center. Each month, we explore how extreme concentrations of wealth are distorting our economy and eroding our democracy. Join our mailing list to get this newsletter in your inbox every month.
THE DEPARTMENT OF WAR PROFITEERING
“The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money,” or so Donald Trump alleged last week in a Truth social post. In typical Trump fashion, he’s not referring to everyday Americans like you and me when he says “we.” He’s talking about his billionaire buddies who can expect a major windfall from the administration’s war with Iran.
Their gain comes at the expense of working Americans’ wallets. Gas prices have skyrocketed, rising 74 cents a gallon since “Operation Epic Fury” began 18 days ago. Americans are expected to spend $200 million more per day on gasoline. Higher oil prices, along with uncertainty in major international shipping lanes, will drive up transportation costs for nearly all goods Americans buy.
This new reality stands in stark contrast to Trump’s campaign promise to cut energy prices in half, but that’s not the promise he’s most interested in keeping. In 2024, Trump gathered oil and gas executives to Mar-a-Lago for a lavish dinner and offered them a deal: if they gave money to his campaign, they would see an incredible return on investment as he stripped away taxes and regulations for the fossil fuel industry. Trump was already making good on that deal with policies that include $18 billion in new and expanded tax incentives for the oil and gas industry. Now the war in Iran stands to benefit these wealthy few even further.
The Big Oil executives cashing in on this volatility funded Trump’s reelection, and now they’re reaping the rewards. Michael Sabel, the chief executive of Venture Global LNG, touted the company’s prime position to profit off of energy uncertainty on an earnings call days after the war began. Venture Global LNG donated $1 million to President Trump’s inauguration. Another buddy of Trump’s, chief executive of Cheniere Energy Jack Fusco, donated $250,000 to a Trump-affiliated PAC. His company’s stock price jumped 5.5% in the wake of Trump’s military invasion.
In fact, an analysis from the Financial Times estimates that “U.S. oil companies could collect more than $60 billion in additional revenue this year if crude prices remain near the levels reached since the war involving Iran began,” with some modeling showing that “the sector could generate roughly $5 billion in extra cash flow this month alone after oil prices jumped about 47% since late February.” Domestic producers “could receive about $63 billion in additional income from oil output.”
Unfortunately, war profiteering is nothing new; it has been driven to new extremes as billionaire control has corroded our democracy. A small group of ultra-wealthy individuals wield their fortunes to elect politicians who will support policies that enable them to amass more wealth and power. For decades, Big Oil has spread lies to keep us reliant on fossil fuels, trapping us in a cycle of volatility that maximizes their bottom line. Taxing billionaires and reining in corporate power aren’t just policy prescriptions — they’re the price of entry for a democracy that actually works for the people living in it.
HARD TRUTH
When MacKenzie Scott divorced Jeff Bezos in 2019, her 4% stake in Amazon meant she had a net worth of $36 billion. In the intervening 7 years, Scott has given away an estimated $26.4 billion to charity, ranking her third in all-time giving, according to Forbes. Despite all that giving, her net worth in 2026 is $38.2 billion – more than she started with. A billion dollars makes money so fast that even when a rare billionaire comes along who’s actively trying to give her money away, her net worth still keeps growing anyway. This proves the point that meaningful wealth taxes must actually shrink these fortunes. Unchecked compounding is how billionaires maintain their stranglehold on our economy and democracy.
BILLIONAIRE BLIGHT OF THE MONTH
Palantir CEO Alex Karp built his fortune by exploiting AI technologies he’s now admitting “are dangerous societally.” In a CNBC interview, Karp asserted that the coming wave of AI technology will lessen the power of “highly educated, often female voters, who vote mostly Democrat,” who will likely have, “less good and less interesting jobs” in the future. This is the playbook for the AI billionaires and tech CEOs trampling over our economy. They make billions, often from government contracts, on software that reshapes our collective reality, then spend millions on elections to insert themselves into our political processes and stifle regulations that could cut into their profits.
NEWSWORTHY NUGGETS
- “NEWS: Sanders and Khanna Introduce Legislation to Tax Billionaire Wealth and Invest in Working Families” – Senator Bernie Sanders
- “America needs a movement to curb billionaires’ power” – The Guardian
- “Billionaires Shouldn’t Just Pay More. They Should Have Less.” – Fireside Stacks
- “The Billionaires’ War” – Paul Krugman
- “Over 20 Groups Urge Democrats to Go beyond Criticizing Trump and Offer Affirmative Economic Agenda to address Affordability” – Tax the Greedy Billionaires
- “Trump says he’s ‘won affordability.’ The data shows a different story.” – MS NOW
- “Trump’s State of the Union Ignored the Root Cause of Affordability Problems” – In These Times
WHAT IS THE BILLIONAIRE BULLETIN?
This monthly newsletter aims to highlight the many ways in which extreme wealth concentration threatens our economy, democracy, climate, and more. In each issue, we tackle timely topics by pulling back the curtain and exposing how billionaires are rigging the system against ordinary Americans.
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