Oracle founder Larry Ellison is blessed that the corporate media is more alarmed about Bari Weiss “murdering” 60 Minutes than how he amassed the astronomical wealth that enabled his son to acquire Paramount and the CBS network.
Since 2018, Oracle has spent $103 billion on stock buybacks while paying just $6 billion in federal income taxes. To put a finer point on that: Oracle paid its shareholders 17 times more than it paid the federal government in taxes. Last year, Oracle claimed $400 million in federal research-and-development credits and deducted another $800 million for stock-based compensation.
Since the enactment of the 2017 Trump tax cuts, which were supposed to create a “trickle-down” benefit for all Americans, Oracle’s top five corporate executives have collectively been paid more than $1 billion.
Those details come from a damning white paper on stock buybacks published by Americans for Tax Fairness, a coalition of 20 national, state and local organizations advocating for a fairer tax system. According to AFTF, America’s largest corporations have spent more than $4.8 trillion buying back their own stock since 2018.
All indications suggest the trend is accelerating.
In the first half of 2026, U.S. corporations had already earmarked nearly $1 trillion for stock buybacks. That’s not a typo. Corporations committed $1 trillion to financially engineer the value of their own shares. The staggering sum exceeds the annual gross domestic product of all but 21 countries.
If the Democratic Socialists of America somehow persuaded most Americans to read the AFTF report, it’s not hyperbole to imagine they could make significant gains in the midterms.
Stock buybacks boost the value of a company’s remaining shares by reducing the number outstanding. They have become a legalized mechanism for concentrating wealth among the richest Americans because the resulting increase in share prices generally isn’t taxed unless investors sell.
The top 5% of U.S. households own 70% of all stocks. Wealthy investors generally prefer the unrealized gains created by buybacks to traditional dividends, which are taxed annually.
Stock buybacks were effectively illegal until 1982, when the Reagan administration adopted SEC Rule 10b-18, providing companies with a safe harbor from market-manipulation liability.
Here are a few more statistics from the AFTF report:
Apple
The tech giant bought back more stock than any other company in the study—more than $650 billion over the past eight years. During that same period, Apple paid $59.5 billion in federal income taxes, meaning it paid shareholders 11 times more than it paid the federal government.
Apple has offshored nearly all of its production. Its massive investments in China helped transform the country into an economic powerhouse and America’s foremost economic rival.
Since enactment of the 2017 Trump tax law, Apple’s top five corporate executives have collectively been paid more than $1.3 billion.
Alphabet
Alphabet repurchased $338 billion of its own stock over the past eight years. During that same period, it paid $82.2 billion in federal income taxes, meaning it paid shareholders four times more than it paid the federal government. Despite recently reaching a market value of roughly $4 trillion, the company cut 12,000 jobs.
Since enactment of the 2017 Trump tax law, Alphabet’s top five corporate executives have collectively been paid nearly $1.6 billion.
Microsoft
Microsoft bought back nearly $176 billion of its own stock over the past eight years. During that same period, it paid $59.6 billion in federal income taxes, meaning it paid shareholders roughly three times more than it paid the federal government.
In May 2025, Microsoft laid off 6,000 workers, or about 3% of its workforce. Two months later, it eliminated another 9,000 jobs. Earlier this week, Microsoft announced plans to cut an additional 4,800 employees, or about 2.1% of its global workforce.
The traditional justification for stock buybacks is that management believes its shares are undervalued and that repurchasing them is the best use of corporate cash. The financial hocus pocus often boosts a company’s stock price, but indications are that the effect is largely short-lived.
Rob Arnott, founder of Research Affiliates, told MarketWatch columnist Mark Hulbert that when he analyzed the data several years ago, “buybacks were negatively correlated with subsequent returns.”
Recent data reinforces Arnott’s conclusion. Over the past decade, Hulbert wrote, the stock market’s average subsequent 12-month return has been lower after quarters in which buyback announcements exceeded the previous quarter’s total—and vice versa.
Bradley Safalow, a respected market researcher, told Barron’s in 2024 that companies with the largest buyback programs in the S&P 500 consistently underperformed the broader market over the previous decade.
“Stock buybacks are a sugar rush,” Safalow told Barron’s. “They’re good for a fleeting pop in the share price, but much like most candies, they tend to do more damage over the long term.”
Last November, Michael Burry, who famously profited from the 2008 financial crisis after recognizing that mortgage-risk models were built on faulty assumptions, launched a broadside against Nvidia’s stock buyback program. Burry argued that the $112.5 billion Nvidia spent repurchasing its own shares since 2018 generated “zero” additional shareholder value.
Although Nvidia reported $205 billion in net income and $188 billion in free cash flow over the same period, Burry argued that the $112.5 billion devoted to buybacks primarily offset dilution from stock-based compensation.
(Nvidia) bought back $112.5B worth of stock and there are 47 million MORE shares outstanding, Burry posted on X. The true cost of that SBC dilution was $112.5B, reducing owner’s earnings by 50%.
The more troubling reality is that CEOs are often quick to capitalize when their company’s stock gets that fleeting pop by exercising options or dumping shares.
Arnott told Hulbert he suspects that “buybacks tend to ramp up when management is redeeming stock options, arguably to help facilitate the redemptions.”
Far from signaling confidence in a company’s future, robust buyback activity may instead signal that management wants to sell shares it already owns.
Nejat Seyhun, a University of Michigan finance professor and leading expert on insider buying and selling behavior, told Hulbert that “the finance literature says that if insiders buy around corporate stock repurchases, that is good news for the stock’s price and it goes up even more. If insiders sell, then stock prices are flat.”
Seyhun added that insiders have been “mildly pessimistic” in recent months. That, in turn, suggests only a “muted [market] response” to the record level of recent buyback activity.
Even Warren Buffett, one of the biggest proponents of stock buybacks, has emphasized that they are justified only when management genuinely believes its shares are undervalued. CEOs who dump their own shares while directing corporate buybacks undermine the very rationale used to justify them.
If Buffett’s standard were widely followed, CEOs would be buying alongside their companies, not selling into corporate buyback programs.
The populist backlash against stock buybacks is growing.
Elizabeth Warren and other Democratic leaders have proposed the Stock Buyback Accountability Act, which would increase to 4% the stock buyback excise tax and close a loophole that allows corporations to reduce their buyback tax liability by showering their highest-paid executives with stock options.
“While workers are struggling to afford gas and groceries, corporate CEOs are choosing to spend billions in tax giveaways to buy back their own stocks, jacking up prices and lining their pockets. That’s not an economy, that’s a racket. Americans deserve better,” said SenateMinority Leader Chuck Schumer.
Abdul El-Sayed, the Michigan Democrat running for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat, wants to ban stock buybacks outright.
Even Oxfam, an organization I’ve long associated with late-night infomercials highlighting disadvantaged children around the world, has weighed in, calling stock buybacks “an increasingly important driver of wealth inequality.”
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that CEO pay continues to shatter records. The number of chief executives earning more than $100 million reached a four-year high in 2025. Nearly a dozen topped $200 million, and more corporate bosses than ever surpassed the $50 million mark.
It doesn’t take a political or financial expert to understand why radical left-wing populists are gaining support and winning elections. Their agenda isn’t merely about taxing the rich; it’s also about challenging Milton Friedman’s maxim that companies exist for the benefit of their shareholders.