With a net worth of $54.1 billion, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg is the richest man ever to run for president of the United States. He plans to act like it.

In his first week as a candidate, Bloomberg launched a $40-plus million advertising campaign that puts him on pace to break the record for the most personal wealth spent on a presidential campaign in modern history by week two.

President Donald Trump , also a billionaire, spent $66 million of his own money in the 2016 election. For now, Trumps total stands as the most anyone has spent of their own money on a presidential campaign, not adjusted for inflation, since modern campaign finance laws went into effect in the 1970s.

The election of Americas first billionaire president came in the midst of a golden age for super-rich political candidates. Billionaires and centi-millionaires increasingly ran for and won political office in the years after the Great Recession immiserated millions of non-rich Americans and made the rich richer.

Bloomberg helped lead the way. In 2009, Bloomberg, then the second-richest man in New York City, became the first politician to spend more than $100 million of their own money on a political campaign. He pumped $102 million into his third mayoral bid in the depths of the Great Recession. He barely won. Across three successful mayoral bids, Bloomberg spent a quarter of a billion dollars.

He is now one of three billionaires running for president, joining Trump and hedge fund investor and Democratic Party donor Tom Steyer. Like Bloomberg, Steyer is on pace to shatter records for self-funding presidential candidates.

The proliferation of billionaire and super-rich political candidates is partially a function of the collapse of the campaign finance legal regime enacted after Watergate. As political parties seek candidates with deep pockets, rising wealth inequality is leaving the super-rich with even more excess wealth, and much of American political culture continues to assume that, due to their success, billionaires are uniquely qualified to solve complicated domestic and international problems.

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