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Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., has said the Democratic Party needs to “focus on” corruption in American politics and that the “vast sums of corporate and billionaire money in our political system” is the reason why Americans are so ill-served by Congress.
But the vulnerable senator up for reelection in 2026 has received nearly half-a-million dollars from billionaires, including more than $154,000 just this year, Federal Election Commission filings show.
“Much of the American public has lost faith in our political system, and with just cause. Since Citizens United, this political system has been corruption on steroids, and that is a big part of why policy doesn’t serve ordinary people,” Ossoff said on the popular left-leaning “Pod Save America” podcast.
“We can’t just become mere guardians of the status quo. We have to be about change and reform and money in politics is, like, the root of all of this,” he continued. “We have to focus on that, you know, the vast sums of corporate and billionaire money in our political system, with or without Trump, are why ordinary people are so ill served by elected officials and by Congress.”
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Several contributors from the billionaire class to Ossoff’s campaign include members of the Soros family, tech billionaire Eric Schmidt, LinkedIn co-founder and a tech billionaire in his own right, Reid Hoffman, co-owner of the Atlanta Hawks, publisher of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and owner of Cox Enterprises, James Cox-Chambers, billionaire hedge fund manager Henry Laufer, and dozens of others.
In total, Ossoff’s campaigns have received contributions from over 70 billionaires since 2017 when Ossoff first ran for Congress. Ossoff has touted his refusal to accept corporate PAC money, but according to election finance watchdog Open Secrets, some of Ossoff’s top individual contributors come from major corporations like Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Meta.
Open Secrets also shows that in 2023–2024 Ossoff received thousands of dollars from PACs representing lawyers and lobbyists, miscellaneous businesses, agribusiness and labor.
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In addition to his comments during the “Pod Save America” podcast, Ossoff has repeatedly ripped the influence of the “wealthy political donors” and said they have no place in politics.
“As power becomes concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, and wealth becomes concentrated in fewer and fewer hands…wealthy and powerful groups can spend limitless amounts in secret…to manipulate elections,” Ossoff said in 2019.
Ossoff, who was endorsed by End Citizens United in July, said Citizens United “unleashed the torrent of secret, corporate, and billionaire money that has deeply corrupted Congress and our political system.” However, he is still taking campaign cash from billionaires and just last month he featured Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzer, whose estimated net worth is over $3.5 billion, on a fundraising email soliciting donations for his reelection campaign.
Ossoff declined to provide a response when reached for comment on this story.
Described by CNN as the nation’s “most endangered Senate Democrat,” Ossoff has touted “an unstoppable grassroots coalition” amid his reelection efforts heading into 2026.
The Georgia senator, in a press release following his campaign’s most recent quarterly filing with the FEC, touted that his “re-election juggernaut” was “overwhelmingly” powered by small donors with an average of $36 from approximately 233,000 donors.
But, more than 80% of the money he raised during the last filing period came from out-of-state, not Georgia, FEC records showed. Meanwhile, over half of his maxed-out donors hailed from California, New York or the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia region. If a donor has not given an aggregate of at least $200, that donor’s contribution remains undisclosed in FEC filings.
Ossoff is running for re-election in a state Trump won in 2024, albeit by a thin two-point margin. He first arrived in Congress in 2021 after defeating incumbent Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., in a razor-thin election that required a runoff.
During that first election cycle, Ossoff reportedly raised 60% of his contributions from outside the state of Georgia.
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