‘It’s just about fairness’: United’s CEO doubles down on a wealth tax despite his $32 million pay

Résumé détaillé

Kirby says the wealthy can let investments grow untaxed forever. A Reason Foundation expert and California voters push back.

United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby took home about $32.3 million in total compensation last year, according to Fortune’s reporting on United’s proxy statement. He says people like him should be paying more, starting with a tax on the wealth they already hold.

In a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times in mid-October, Kirby said wealth inequality “has become a danger to our society” and called for a national wealth tax, plus inheritance taxes that “get close to 100% at some level.” “I would pay them,” he added.

The remarks drew swift pushback, much of it aimed at his paycheck. Fox Business asked United how Kirby squared his pay with his warnings about inequality; the company didn’t respond.

Kirby doubled down a few days later on CNBC’s Squawk Box, framing the idea as a matter of fairness.

“I think a wealth tax… is just about fairness…. If you’re wealthy enough, you can put money aside, and by the way, I think it would apply to me, put money aside, let it grow forever, never realize income on it, you can let it grow forever and it never gets taxed,” he said.

That is the gap Kirby wants to close. The federal system taxes income: in 2025, the top rate of 37% applied to single filers’ taxable income above $626,350, according to the IRS. Investments that rise in value but are never sold aren’t taxed.

Kirby’s view stands out because of who holds it. He runs a company on the 2026 Fortune 500 that brought in $59.1 billion in revenue last year.

He stressed that these were personal views and that he has no interest in politics or policymaking. If it were up to him, he said, he would prefer a system “where we had lower income taxes, and higher taxes, or some kind of taxes, on the gain in wealth.”

In practice, the idea draws pointed objections. Mariana Trujillo, managing director of government finance at the Reason Foundation, a libertarian-leaning think tank, tells Fortune it would undercut the very growth it’s meant to share.

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