This summer, Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire. Yet, in 2025, nearly 2 in 5 Americans could not afford a $400 emergency expense. As the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and voters are recognizing how extreme wealth not only exploits the working class, but also negatively influences politics.
New polling from Data for Progress finds that voters think they are more likely to become homeless than a millionaire or billionaire, and reject the idea that billionaires obtain their wealth through innovation and hard work, instead seeing them as exploitative and a sign of a dysfunctional, anti-working-class economy.
Voters are unfavorable toward both trillionaires (54%) and billionaires (52%), and are closely split on their favorability of millionaires. Voters become more intensely unfavorable as the amount of wealth increases, while positive intensity does not change.
