These are the current members of America’s Deep State.

27 November 2025, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)

As I have previously documented but will start here by restating, America is not a one-person-one-vote country (a country whose Government is controlled on that basis, which would be democratic) but a one-dollar-one-vote country; i.e., it’s controlled by its political megadonors, all of whom are billionaires; and usually by the top ten megadonors). First here will be the documentation that this is so; then will be the presentation of the identities of the individuals who now are in control over the U.S. Government:

1: THE U.S. IS CONTROLLED ONLY BY ITS POLITICAL MEGADONORS:

On 31 October 2018, three political scientists documented that the wealthiest 1% of the wealthiest 1% of Americans — the wealthiest ten-thousandth of Americans — donate 57.16% of all the money that funds U.S. political campaigns. The “Top 400 Donors” (all of whom are multi-billionaires, not merely billionaires) donate 29.86%, or virtually 30%, of all political money, in the U.S. But, actually: only billionaires (and an occasional mere centi-millionaire) who are among the ten largest donors to U.S. politics in a Presidential-election year, have any real impact in determining whom America’s next President will be. Only those ten ultra-rich Americans do. And, from one Presidential ‘election’ to the next, many of those ten people will be the same both times. All of the other 343 million Americans are their subjects, not any country’s “citizens” (except, perhaps, on passports, etc.). But America isn’t a kingdom; it’s an aristocracy. (Of course, some kingdoms are representing their aristocracy and/or their theocracy, but, in any case, America is an aristocracy. Some call it instead an “oligarchy” or a “kleptocracy” or a “plutocracy” or by other words, but their basic definition is the same; these are synonyms for a country that’s controlled by the wealth, not by the persons — its Government represents the wealth, not the subjects or ‘citizens’. Normally, the term “aristocracy” is applied to an imperial country, such as the U.S. is, and the term “oligarchy” is applied to one of its colonies. For example: Germany and Japan are controlled by their oligarchs, who are controlled by America’s aristocracy.)

Two prior studies, one in 2016, and the first one in 2014, had already demonstrated that, as I headlined about both of them in 2018, “America Is One-Dollar-One-Vote, Not Really One-Person-One Vote.” The breakthrough first study, in 2014, was brilliantly summarized and explained in a 6-minute video here. So: anyone who says that America’s Government is better than other Governments because it is a democracy is either a fool or else a liar. This myth has, by now, become buried so deep that only a second American revolution might be able to resurrect it to some sort of reality again.

As the liberal (Democratic Party) wing of America’s aristocracy said, in the person of its Warren Buffett, “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” (He told this to the conservative Ben Stein reporting in the aristocracy’s New York Times, under the headline “In Class Warfare, Guess Which Class Is Winning”, on 26 November 2006. And the statement is true.) However, the 31 March 2019 issue of Forbes headlined “Reimagining Capitalism: How The Greatest System Ever Conceived (And Its Billionaires) Need To Change”, and reported: “‘America works, and it works now better than it ever worked,’ Buffett says.” Better for himself and other billionaires, that is. But not for the bottom 90%, and it worked lousy for the bottom 50%, and still worse — clear economic decline — for the bottom 25%. But to the liberal Buffett, that’s still “better than it ever worked” (even though it was lousy for the bottom 50%).

Trump (like Biden and Obama and Bush before him) fulfills ONLY the secret private promises he made to his billionaires — NOT the promises he publicly made to his voters; and this has been normal for U.S. Presidents ever since AT LEAST 1980, according to the empirical scientific studies that have been done about the matter (and which I just linked-through to there).

Liberal versus conservative makes little real difference nowadays — it’s just liberal billionaires (the Democratic ones) versus conservative billionaires (the Republican ones), and NOT reflecting the priorities of the public (which an AUTHENTIC democracy would do) — it is more of a difference in style, so as to distract the public from the REAL conflict, which is between the billionaires versus the public. They do it all the time: divide and rule the public (the Democratic Party’s voters versus the Republican Party’s voters). So: the public aren’t even aware that they actually live in a dictatorship — much less BY WHOM (the billionaires).

On 14 February 2025, the AP headlined “Where US adults think the government is spending too much, according to AP-NORC polling”, and listed in rank-order according to the opposite (“spending too little”) the following 8 Government functions: 1. Social Security; 2. Medicare; 3. Education; 4. Assistance to the poor; 5. Medicaid; 6. Border security; 7. Federal law enforcement; 8. The Military. That’s right: the American public (and by an overwhelming margin) were THE LEAST SUPPORTIVE of spending more money on the military, and the MOST SUPPORTIVE of spending more money on Social Security, Medicare, Education, Assistance to the poor, and Medicaid (the five functions the Republican Party has always been the most vocal to call “waste, fraud, and abuse” and try to cut). Meanwhile, The Military, which actually receives 53% (and in the latest year far more than that) of the money that the Congress allocates each year and gets signed into law by the President, keeps getting, each year, over 50% of the annually appropriated federal funds.

Only weeks later, on March 5th, the Jeff-Bezos-owned Washington Post headlined “GOP must cut Medicaid or Medicare to achieve budget goals, CBO finds: The nonpartisan bookkeeper said there’s no other way to cut $1.5 trillion from the budget over the next decade.” Though the CBO is ‘nonpartisan’ as between the Democratic and Republican Parties, it is (since both are) entirely beholden to America’s billionaires; and, so, that term there is deceptive. What that ‘news’-report is reporting is that the sense of Congress (even including Democrats there) is that a way needs to be found to cut $1.5T from ‘Medicare or Medicaid” (which, since only Medicaid, health care to the poor, is ‘discretionary’, Medicare is not) means cutting Medicaid over the next ten years.

On March 8th, ABC News and Yahoo News headlined “DOGE is searching through Social Security payments looking for fraud”. They weren’t looking for fraud by the billionaires — including tax-fraud (which might be costing the Government hundreds of billions per year). And they weren’t looking for it in the only federal Department that’s so corrupt it has never been audited: the ‘Defense’ Department.

Trump is increasing the military and border security, and decreasing education, assistance to the poor, Medicaid, federal law enforcement, and even Social Security and Medicare (the latter two by laying off many of the people who staff those bureaucracies). This Government’s policy-priorities are like the public’s turned upside-down — in other words: are the REVERSE of the public’s — and therefore the U.S. Government right now is a perfect example of a dictatorship. One might say that this is so in only the Executive branch, but it’s not necessarily true: As always when one political faction (regardless whether it it is one Party or a coalition of Parties) has control over both the Executive and the Legislative branches of the Government — as now is the case in the U.S. — these two branches (Executive and Legislative) function as one, and there then will even be a totalitarian dictatorship if they can get the Judicial branch or Supreme Court to call it “Constitutional.” Currently, the U.S. is slipping from a dictatorship towards a totalitarian (one-person) dictatorship; but America has been a dictatorship ever since at least 1980. And that is a dictatorship by the super-rich. It is actually a bipartisan dictatorship, in which the two political Parties alternate in power but BOTH of them being controlled by only their respective megadonors. The first-ever billionaire U.S. President, who is Trump, is merely the worst-yet example of it. All of this started with the stupidest-ever U.S. President, Harry Truman (at least until Trump came along).

On 29 April 2025, Axios headlined “Exclusive: Most Americans see Trump as ‘dangerous dictator,’ poll says”, and reported the results of a PRRI “Survey of 5,025 U.S. adults conducted Feb. 28 to March 20, 2025” (and the survey itself can be seen here) which asked whether “President Trump is a dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy?” and found that overall, 52% of Americans agreed with that statement. Given how starkly opposite Trump’s policy-prioriteis were as compared to the public’s, that would have been 100% if all Americans were rational and accurately informed (which, of course, is never the case).

Sometimes, America’s elected Government officials are kept ignorant of crucial information they’d need to know in order to make their Governmental decisions intelligently. I documented this on 5 November 2025, under the headline “Censorship by Agents of Elon Musk and Other Billionaires”.

On Tuesday November 25th, the New York Times, a Democratic Party propaganda organ, headlined “Dutch Historian Accuses BBC of Censoring Trump Criticism: Rutger Bregman said his comment that President Trump was the “most openly corrupt president in American history” was removed before his lecture was broadcast on Tuesday.” The same day, Bregman posted an instagram telling about the incident and why such “censorship driven by fear (Trump is threatening to sue the BBC) should concern all of us.” Bregman referred to his source as having been an article in (another Democratic Party propaganda organ) the New Yorker, which estimated Trump’s take from his first, and the opening of his second, term in the White house, as being, thus far, around $3.5 billion. As I had documented on 13 June 2024, “Biden Is the Most Corrupt President in U.S. History”. But (though that New Yorker article portrays this problem as being distinct to Republicans) Trump does now exceed him greatly: he is even bolder in his corruptness than Biden was. Both of America’s political Parties (and also the Libertarian Party, which is a very weak third) are steeped in corruption. However, it’s not ONLY an American problem (nor just the U.S. and UK). It’s the system — the entire empire.

It is blatantly obvious, from the relevant data, that America’s ‘electoral democracy’ doesn’t represent the American people; it represents ONLY America’s billionaires. It’s no democracy. It’s an aristocracy. Consequently, the aristocrats — America’s super-rich — ARE its Deep State. Anyone who alleges that America and its ‘allies’ are functioning democracies is either a fool or a liar.

2. THE IDENTITIES OF AMERICA’S POLITICAL MEGADONORS:

The following crucially important news report was issued by OpenSecrets on March 26th of this year, but has still not gotten the public attention it deserves (since it identifies whom are America’s functioning Deep State, this country’s ACTUAL rulers, today); and therefore it’s presented here, because it identifies whom America’s Deep State ARE:

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2025/03/elon-musk-tops-list-of-2024-political-donors-but-six-others-gave-more-than-100-million

https://web.archive.org/web/20250717103424/https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2025/03/elon-musk-tops-list-of-2024-political-donors-but-six-others-gave-more-than-100-million/

https://archive.is/gPikd

“Elon Musk tops list of 2024 political donors, but five others gave more than $100 million”

By David Meyers, March 26, 2025 10:31 am

Tech mogul and top White House advisor Elon Musk donated more than $291 million to Republican candidates, political action committees and other outside spending organizations in the 2024 election cycle. While he was, by far, the biggest political donor [to ANY political campagn season in American or even world history], he was not the only person to contribute more than $100 million, according to analysis by OpenSecrets.

The top six political donors — Musk, banking scion Timothy Mellon, casino owner Miriam Adelson, shipping supplies magnates Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, hedge fund CEO Kenneth Griffin, and trading firm co-founder Jeffrey Yass and his wife Janine — all gave $100 million or more, and all supported Republican candidates and causes.

The seventh biggest donor was hedge fund CEO Paul Singer ($66.8 million), another Republican supporter. He was followed by the top donors to Democrats: politician and businessman Michael Bloomberg ($64 million) and entrepreneur Dustin Moskovitz ($51 million).

While most of the top donors showed clear preferences for either Democrats or Republicans, Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz (co-founders of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz) focused their giving on a pro-crypto group that supported and opposed candidates from both parties.

Top Donors in 2024 Election

These totals combine contributions to campaign committees and independent expenditure groups. Notably missing from the list is prominent Democratic donor George Soros, who donated $179 million during the 2022 campaign. Much of that money was not spent until the 2024 election cycle.

Bar chart showing the biggest donors of the 2024 election cycle.

Solidly Republican/ConservativeSolidly Democratic/LiberalLeans Republican/Conservative

1. Elon Musk, $291,482,587, SOLIDLY REPUBLICAN

2. Timothy Mellon, $197,047,200, SOLIDLY REPUBLICAN

3. Miriam Adelson, $148,304,900, SOLIDLY REPUBLICAN

4. Richard & Elizabeth Uihlein, $143,498,936, SOLIDLY REPUBLICAN

5. Kenneth C. Griffin, $108,402,284, SOLIDLY REPUBLICAN

6. Jeffrey & Janine Yass, $101,128,680, SOLIDLY REPUBLICAN

7. Paul Singer, $66,800,800, SOLIDLY REPUBLICAN

8. Michael Bloomberg, $64,339,734, Solidly Democratic

9. Dustin Moskovitz, $50,671,800, Solidly Democratic

10. Marc Andreessen, $42,365,113, Leans REPUBLICAN

11. Ben & Felicia Horowitz, $42,114,154, On the Fence

12. Stephen Schwarzman, SOLIDLY REPUBLICAN

13. Timothy Dunn, $35,780,200, SOLIDLY REPUBLICAN

14. Reid Hoffman, $35,390,504, Solidly Democratic

15. Rob Bigelow, $34,991,500, SOLIDLY REPUBLICAN

16. Diane Hendricks, $33,165,417, SOLIDLY REPUBLICAN

17. James & Marilyn Simons, $32,397,013, Solidly Democratic

18. John Joe Ricketts, $32,273,650, SOLIDLY REPUBLICAN

19. Patrick & Shirley Ryan, $32,198,116, SOLIDLY REPUBLICAN

20. Fred Eychaner, $31,587,600, Solidly Democratic

21. Stephen Jr. & Susan Mandel, $27,263,900, Solidly Democratic

22. Warren Stephens, $25,895,650, SOLIDLY REPUBLICAN

23. Laura Perlmutter, $25,344,890, SOLIDLY REPUBLICAN

24. Deborah Simon, $24,583,908, Solidly Democratic

25. Vince & Linda McMahon, $23,961,659, SOLIDLY REPUBLICAN

“Solid” donors give more than 85% to one side; “Leans” donors give 60%-80% to one side; “On the Fence” donors give 40%-59% to each side.

NOTE:
Notably missing from the list of top contributors is Democratic megadonor George Soros, who did not crack the top 100 in 2023-24 after being the top donor in 2022. But, the Soros-funded 501c(4) Fund for Policy Reform did give $60 million to the super PAC Democracy PAC, which in turn distributed that money among a number of other left-leaning super PACs.

All of the top donors took advantage of rules allowing unlimited contributions to super PACs, which are intended to support or attack candidates without directly coordinating with any campaigns, although those restrictions have been tested in recent elections.

For example, Musk gave $1 million in fully disclosed “hard money” and $290 million to outside groups. Bloomberg gave $753,000 in hard money while donating $63.6 million to outside groups.

MY CONCLUSIONS:

In recent U.S. Presidential elections that I have analyzed, the top 10 donors have always been decisive in determining whom the two Parties will nominate, and have thereby effectively chosen both contenders in the general election. The other billionaires collectively provide back-up for those 10, who are the nation’s major political decision-makers. That list of the top 25 is certainly decisive. An average corporate board is around 10 members. The top 10 here are the actual corporate board for America Inc. They constitute America’s Deep State — the individuals who control the corporation.

Mussolini wrote that fascism and “corporationism” are one-and-the-same. (Whereas during the Agricultural Age, the aristocracy had run feudalism, land-based wealth; today, in the Industrial Age, the aristocracy run fascism, corporate-share-based wealth. Elon Musk calls it “technocracy” and “dark MAGA.” He even said, on 24 July 2020, “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.” Twitter mysteriously removed it on July 27th.)

To find out more about individual members of America’s Deep State, Google “a given person’s name” alongside the term Wikipedia. That way, you will come to know more about the individuals whom the U.S. Government actually represents.

In some years, the Democratic Party billionaires beat the Republican Party billionaires, but in other years, the Republican Party billionaires beat the Republican Party billionaires; but, always, America after 1945 (when the U.S. empire started), has been ruled continuously by a faction of the billionaires.

On 7 November 2025, I headlined “America’s founders warned against political parties. They were right.”, and described why political Parties inevitably produce corrupt Government but our nation’s Founders didn’t understand this — they didn’t know what to do about it; and, so, America was doomed to degenerate into the same thing they had warred against, which is aristocracy (now America’s, but formerly Britain’s).

On 27 October 2025, I headlined “The Radical Governmental Policy-Changes That Must Be Done, and Why”, and documented that virtually throughout the U.S. empire (all of which are elected Governments and political Parties) the publics are deeply disappointed by, and opposed to, their elected leaders, and that the only way that a government can be selected that will have the same policy-priorities that the public (NOT their billionaires) do (and that’s to say they’re AUTHENTIC democracies), is by replacing elections, instituting instead lotteries that randomly select the legislature, which then will select from amongst itself the nation’s head-of-state, subject also to that person’s removal-from-office BY that legislature if and when the legislature decides an existing head-of-state is doing a poor job of carrying out the legislature’s policy-priorities.

An authentic democracy is NOT an elected Government, but instead is a Government that has the same policy-priorities that the public do; and this can be achieved ONLY by lotteries, NO elections (except internally within the legislature, selecting the head-of-state) — no elections by the public, since those will always be controlled by the billionaires, such as in the United Sates, and in its colonies (‘allies’).

Please click on a link wherever in this article you wish to evaluate the evidences upon which a particular allegation is based. Like all presentations, this one is no better nor worse than the evidences upon which it is based. That’s why I have been extremely careful to link ONLY to sources that I have independently checked and verified to contain no false allegations. (For example, the New Yorker article did; and, so, I did not link to it. However, it was generally correct.)

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.