United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby Publicly Backs U.S. Wealth Tax Proposal
A sitting major-airline CEO endorsing a wealth tax in a midterm election year adds a prominent corporate voice to a debate that has otherwise been driven largely by progressive legislators and...
United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby stated publicly on October 21, 2026, that he supports some form of wealth taxation in the United States, describing his preferred model as a tax on wealth growth combined with lower income taxes. Kirby made the remarks during an appearance on Bloomberg Surveillance, as reported by Bloomberg.
Kirby's position is notable because it represents an instance of a major U.S. Corporate executive voluntarily advocating for a policy that would, depending on final design, affect individuals in his own income and asset category. The Bloomberg report did not specify a threshold, rate, or legislative vehicle that Kirby endorsed. What precise wealth level would trigger taxation under his preferred model is unknown; a formal legislative proposal or Kirby's own written public statement would be the document needed to establish those details.
The wealth tax debate has a defined recent legislative history in Congress. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) introduced the Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act in March 2021 (S. 510, 117th Congress), which proposed a 2 percent annual tax on net worth above $50 million and a 3 percent tax on net worth above $1 billion, according to the bill text filed with the Senate. The bill did not advance out of committee. A companion House version was introduced simultaneously. Neither chamber scheduled a floor vote.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), then chair of the Senate Finance Committee, circulated a separate billionaires income tax proposal in October 2021 that would have applied mark-to-market taxation on tradeable assets held by individuals with more than $1 billion in assets or more than $100 million in income for three consecutive years, according to the Finance Committee's published summary. That proposal also did not receive a floor vote.
Republican leadership in both chambers opposed those measures. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Ways and Means Committee Republicans argued the proposals raised constitutional questions under the Sixteenth Amendment's definition of income, a legal debate that the Supreme Court addressed, without fully resolving, in Moore v. United States (U.S. No. 22-800, decided June 2024), where the Court upheld a mandatory repatriation tax on a narrow statutory basis while explicitly leaving open the broader question of whether Congress can tax unrealized gains.
Kirby's framing of the issue as coupling wealth taxation with lower income taxes mirrors an argument made by some economists who contend that the current tax code disproportionately burdens wage earners relative to asset holders. The Congressional Budget Office, in its 2024 report on the distribution of household income, found that the top 1 percent of households received approximately 18.3 percent of total market income while paying approximately 25.9 percent of all federal taxes, a figure that includes income, payroll, corporate, and excise taxes combined (CBO, "The Distribution of Household Income, 2024," published 2026).
United Airlines, where Kirby has served as CEO since 2016, is a publicly traded company (NASDAQ: UAL). Kirby's total compensation for fiscal year 2025, as disclosed in United's proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, was not specified in the Bloomberg report. That figure is publicly available in United Airlines Holdings' definitive proxy statement (DEF 14A) filed with the SEC for the 2026 annual meeting.
The timing of Kirby's comments places them three weeks before the November 2026 midterm elections, in which control of the House and Senate is contested. Wealth tax proposals have appeared in the platforms of multiple Democratic candidates running in competitive Senate races this cycle, according to candidate websites reviewed by The Congressional Times. No Republican candidate in a competitive race has endorsed a net worth tax in this cycle, based on available public statements.
Whether Kirby's remarks reflect a broader shift in opinion among Fortune 500 executives on redistribution policy, or remain an individual position, cannot be determined from the single Bloomberg interview. A systematic survey of executive compensation disclosures and public statements from S&P 500 CEOs would be the appropriate data source to answer that question. United Airlines has not, as of the date of this report, filed any lobbying disclosure under the Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA) that lists a wealth tax as a lobbying issue, according to the Senate Office of Public Records LDA database.