The Overstock NOligarchy Profile
T
R
U
S
T
E
D
Overstock — the online furniture and home goods retailer operating under the corporate name Beyond Inc — earns a NOligarchy Score of 100 out of 100 from Q3 2024 through Q2 2026 (8 quarters — the two-year tracking period). In NOligarchy’s framework, 100 represents a perfect score: no political spending, no shareholder payouts at the expense of workers, and a spotless compliance record. Overstock hits that ceiling.
Current Pillar Scores
Political Access
94.8
Wealth Extraction
97.2
Playing by the Rules
100.0
Score history — 23 quarters
Tier bands show where each quarter's score falls — no numeric y-axis needed. The dashed ring marks the year-over-year comparison point. Tap any quarter but the first to see its pillar breakdown.
•
Political Access Grade: 94.78/100. Overstock spent nothing on federal lobbying and recorded zero dollars in Political Action Committee (PAC) contributions during the two-year period. Individuals who listed the company as their employer donated $10,000 to federal candidates — enough to nudge the grade fractionally below 100, but no lobbyists were hired and no revolving-door connections were monetized.
•
Wealth Extraction Grade: 97.2/100. The CEO-to-worker pay gap sits at a confirmed 47:1 — on the public record — and accounts for the only meaningful deduction from a near-perfect grade. No buybacks or dividends were recorded, so there is no documented pattern of cash being channeled to shareholders at workers’ expense.
•
Playing by the Rules Grade: 100/100. A perfect score. No fines, no regulatory penalties, no documented violations during the two-year period.
The Sector Context: Overstock ranks 1st out of 9 companies in the Furniture and home furnishings retailers sector — the top of the field. The sector average score is 78.3; Overstock’s 100 places it well above that benchmark as the clear accountability leader among its peers.
The Bottom Line: A Perfect Score With One Confirmed Gap
Overstock generated just over $1 billion in annual revenue yet chose to spend nothing on lobbying Congress and maintained no corporate PAC. Its regulatory record is spotless. The only visible blemish the data reveals sits in the executive suite: the gap between what the chief executive pockets and what a frontline worker takes home is confirmed at 47 times, and a handful of individuals tied to the company directed $10,000 to federal candidates during the period. Neither of those facts constitutes lawbreaking. But together they describe a company where the people at the very top are structurally insulated from the economic pressures that fall on the 410 workers beneath them.
A Minimal Footprint in Washington
Overstock reported zero dollars in federal lobbying expenditure across the full Q3 2024–Q2 2026 period. According to the Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA) filings, no issue areas were registered, no government entities were approached, and no bills were cited in any LDA submission. For a company doing over a billion dollars in annual online retail sales — an industry where data privacy rules, consumer protection law, shipping regulations, and sales tax policy are perpetually in play — that silence in Washington is notable.
There is no corporate PAC on record, and no PAC contributions are disclosed for the two-year period. What does exist is a modest but real signal: individuals who listed the company as their employer donated a total of $10,000 to federal candidates, split between Q2 2025 and Q1 2026, as recorded in Federal Election Commission (FEC) individual contribution filings. That sum is small by the standards of the sector — but it is enough to keep Overstock off a perfect political access score. The company hired zero lobbyists from the revolving door of former government officials, so there are no political connections being quietly monetized here.
A Confirmed Pay Gap at the Top
The pay gap at Overstock is on the public record. The CEO pay ratio is 47:1, per the SEC DEF 14A. The CEO’s total compensation in the most recent reported fiscal year was about $5.9 million. The median Overstock employee earned $123,734.
The person running the company took home roughly 47 times what a typical worker earned. With a workforce of just 410 employees — a notably lean headcount for a company generating over a billion dollars in annual sales — each of those workers is carrying significant revenue responsibility. The gap between what they earn and what the executive suite collects is confirmed, not estimated.
CEO — MEDIAN-PAY MARKER
JANUARY
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
passes the median employee’s full annual pay
12:24 PM · January 6
48× the median employee’s pay
At 47:1, Overstock's CEO earns the median employee's entire annual pay by 12:24 PM on January 6.
No stock buybacks and no dividend payments are recorded in SEC 10-K filings for the two-year period. That means there is no documented pattern of Overstock channeling cash to shareholders while holding down worker earnings — a practice that defines many of its larger competitors. A company generating over a billion dollars in annual sales and returning nothing to shareholders is either reinvesting aggressively, absorbing losses, or both. The absence of buyback and dividend activity is itself a data point worth watching.
A Clean Record on the Public Docket
Overstock’s compliance record during Q3 2024 through Q2 2026 is as clean as it gets: zero documented fines, zero regulatory penalties, and no violations recorded in the public data. For a company handling millions of online transactions — with the attendant consumer protection, data security, and shipping compliance obligations that entails — that’s a record worth acknowledging.
No public subsidy data is recorded for the period either, so there is no government-handout-while-breaking-rules contrast to draw here. The clean slate stands on its own.