From its founding, the role of the U.S. Senate has been to protect the interests of the minority of the opulent from the desires of the democratic populace, and that remains true today.

As we discussed earlier, the Schumer Ten went against the will of almost every wing of the Democratic Party coalition in their vote for the Trump-Musk coup funding resolution. The outpouring of outrage led Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to promptly cancel all scheduled in-person public appearances, particularly a multi-state book tour promoting his AIPAC-aligned verfallroman, Antisemitism in America. Schumer did continue his scheduled media tour, however, granting interviews to The View, All In With Chris Hayes, and CBS Mornings, where he played the court jester, cheerfully brushing off incredulity, anger, and scorn for his betrayal of his party.

But there was one key Democratic constituency who noticeably did not object to Schumer’s embrace of the Trump bill—those who James Madison called the “the opulent” (complimentary) and who are now known as Big Business. Nearly all of traditionally Democratic billionaires and corporate contributors have been conspicuously silent in public on the Trump-Musk coup, if not active cheerleaders or quivering lickspittles.¹

With the caveat that campaign contributions provide a limited window into the mechanisms of political power and influence wielded by the corporate elite, let’s take a look at Schumer’s disclosed political funding sources.

The Billionaires

The greatest spigot of funds controlled by Schumer is the Senate Majority PAC (aka SMP), a super PAC nominally run by J.B. Poersch since 2017. SMP is funded primarily through direct contributions from billionaires and indirect contributions through its dark-money arm, Majority Forward.² In the most recent cycle, about half of the donations came from wealthy individuals, and one-third were funneled through dark-money sources.

Here is an overview of the million-dollar-plus contributions from named inviduals to the Senate Majority PAC:

Of Schumer’s top named billionaire backers, only Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-Ill.) spoke out against the Trump-Musk coup bill.

In contrast, billionaire Jeffrey Skoll hosted a blow-out Trump inauguration party and hangs around on X to praise DOGE, Vinod Khosla reposted Musk’s attacks on the NIH, and Eric Schmidt is busying himself with Muskian investments in AI and space rockets. On the same day the House GOP passed the continuing resolution, Reed Hastings’s Netflix announced a three-show deal with the MAGA fascist comedian Tony “Floating Island of Garbage” Hinchcliffe.

Schumer’s personal campaign contributions over the course of several decades make clear his role as the senator of Wall Street and Big Law.

Corporate leaders rely on their D.C. lobbyists most of the year, but the CEOs themselves sometimes make the personal trek to the nation’s capital. As the government funding deadline approached, they were in town, and had ample opportunity to oppose the autocratic shredding of the Constitution that the Republican continuing appropriations bill represented. (They did not.)

On March 11, the week of the continuing resolution’s passage, business titans met in several closed-door meetings in Washington, D.C. At the Yale CEO Caucus organized by Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, executives privately grumbled but made it clear they were not interested in publicly criticizing the regime:

Then, they went over to the closed-door Business Roundtable meeting with Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. After the meeting, Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman publicly praised Trump’s tariff moves. JP Morgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon was more willing to be critical, saying “Uncertainty is not a good thing,” a move away from his earlier dismissal of concerns about Trump’s tariffs.

On March 12, the day before Schumer publicly folded, Goldman Sachs CEO David “DJ D-Sol” Solomon went on Fox Business to tell Maria Bartiromo he was a fan of Trump:

Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser had announced a month earlier the company was abandoning equity goals under pressure from Trump.

Following Schumer’s collapse on Friday, Trump took aim at Chuck’s brother’s law firm Paul, Weiss, which quickly folded as well.

So Schumer’s utter lack of a plan to stop the Trump-Musk takeover is not as inexplicable as it appears at first blush.

It won’t solve all the problems of the Senate Democrats for Schumer to pass the torch, but it’s a start.

1  Herein I make the obligatory reminder that the Republican Party is wholly dominated by billionaire interests, whereas the opulent minority is, by contrast, a powerful faction within the Democratic Party.

2  Five percent of the 2024 cycle contributions came from unions.