Sen. Bernie Sanders has spent years publicly attacking Netflix over its tax practices, its price hikes, and what he calls corporate greed. Now Federal Election Commission records show his own campaign has been quietly paying the streaming giant $46.79 a month for a subscription, using donor funds.
The payments ran from January to March, the latest period covered by Senate campaign financial disclosures, and were categorized simply as a "subscription," Fox News Digital reported. Sanders' campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
The contrast between the Vermont independent's rhetoric and his spending habits is not new. But the Netflix detail adds a fresh layer to a pattern that keeps growing: the senator who built a career condemning corporate America and the wealthy keeps finding ways to funnel campaign dollars toward the very institutions and luxuries he denounces.
Sanders has gone after Netflix repeatedly and by name. In 2019, he posted on social media:
"Your $8.99 Netflix subscription is more than the company paid in federal income taxes last year (nothing). We are going to make massive corporations finally pay their fair share."
Three years later, in March 2022, he escalated the attack. Sanders wrote that "Corporate greed is Netflix doubling its profit last year to a record $5.3 billion, avoiding over $1 billion in taxes" while "blaming a 10.7% price increase on 'inflation' squeezing $1.35 billion from its 75 million subscribers while its CEO became $200 million richer in the pandemic."
Those are not vague criticisms of Wall Street. They are specific, pointed attacks on Netflix, the same company that began receiving monthly checks from his campaign account this year.
FEC records show that only five political committees in the entire country have made Netflix subscription-related payments over the past ten years. Sanders' committee is one of them. The campaign has not explained what purpose the subscription serves.
The Netflix payments are a small-dollar item. But they fit a much larger pattern of spending that has drawn scrutiny to Sanders' operation. In 2025, the senator spent over $550,000 in donor funds on private jets during what he called his "Fighting Oligarchy" tour.
Conservative political communications consultant Matt Gorman did not hold back when asked about the private jet spending:
"You don't expect a socialist to fly commercial do you? There's no bigger hypocrite than the liberal who chastises us for eating meat and using gas stoves, yet flies in private jets."
Sanders has defended that spending before, telling critics he makes "no apologies" for using private air travel when his schedule demands it. But the gap between the populist messaging and the lifestyle it funds is hard to miss. A senator who lectures Americans about corporate greed and oligarchy is spending their donations on charter flights and streaming subscriptions, from a company he has personally singled out as a symbol of everything wrong with the economy.
Then there is the Sanders Institute, a nonprofit run by Sanders' wife and stepson. Fox News Digital reported that Sanders transferred $200,000 in donor cash to the organization in 2023 and has continued to semi-regularly use his campaign account to fund it since.
Kendra Arnold, executive director of the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, told Fox News Digital that the arrangement raises real concerns:
"The facts present in this case and the family ties involved certainly raise legitimate concern. If the nonprofit and its executive director are truly producing work and actually earning the money, it is not illegal, but it is frowned upon. On the other hand, if nothing or very little is being done to legitimately earn the money, then it is highly likely a serious campaign finance violation has taken place."
The financial entanglement with Netflix goes beyond a monthly subscription charge. In 2024, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates interviewed Sanders for a segment in the Netflix original series "What's Next? The Future with Bill Gates." Sanders appeared on the platform he had publicly condemned, a platform he said paid nothing in federal taxes, gouged its subscribers, and enriched its executives while ordinary Americans struggled.
Sanders, the ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, has positioned himself as the conscience of the left on economic fairness. He has faced pushback before on the credibility of his tax-the-rich messaging. The Netflix episode adds another data point for critics who say the senator's public posture does not match his private conduct.
His campaign's silence on the matter is notable. Fox News Digital reached out Tuesday morning and received no response. Senate campaigns had only released financial information through March at the time of the report, leaving open the question of whether the Netflix payments continued beyond that window.
Sanders is not the only progressive figure whose spending habits have drawn scrutiny, but few have built a brand so explicitly around denouncing corporate excess. When you name a specific company, cite its exact profit figure, quote its subscription price, and declare it a monument to greed, and then your own campaign starts writing that company monthly checks, the contradiction speaks for itself.
The senator has remained active on the political stage. He recently joined Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at the U.S. Capitol to announce the Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act, a proposal that drew sharp criticism from Sen. John Fetterman, who called it a gift to Beijing. Sanders has also continued rallying for progressive candidates across the country.
None of that political activity changes the basic math. Donor money went to Netflix. Donor money went to private jets. Donor money went to a family-run nonprofit. And the man who spent it has built his entire public identity around telling other people they have too much.
At some point, the gap between what a politician preaches and what his FEC filings show stops being an awkward footnote. It becomes the whole story.
Voters who send $27 to Bernie Sanders because he promises to fight corporate greed might want to check where those dollars actually land, starting with a $46.79-a-month Netflix account.
