Abdul El-Sayed in Top 1 Percent of Michigan Earners, Partial Tax Release Shows
Left-wing Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed released two pages of his 2025 tax return showing $686,069 in total income, including $292,000 in "additional income" and $262,000 in capital gains, placing him in the top 1 percent of Michigan earners.
But the return does not reveal the sources of that income because El-Sayed released only the first two pages, omitting the remainder that would provide further detail.
El-Sayed told an NBC affiliate in West Michigan that the $292,881 he reported in "additional income" stems from his little-known podcast, America Dissected, as well as from his wife's psychiatry practice, Mind Work Psychiatry. His corresponding "Schedule 1" form could confirm his claims, detailing the "additional income" in itemized categories like "business income" and "rental real estate," but El-Sayed did not release that form.
El-Sayed's capital gains required him to submit a "Schedule D" form that includes additional information about assets sold, something he also did not release. He told the NBC affiliate that the gains stem from the sale of a property that his wife's parents bought in his name, but he did not specify the location of the property, when it was sold, or for how much.
The release came as El-Sayed faced criticism from his Democratic opponent, congresswoman Haley Stevens, for his failure to release his tax returns and for his delay in filing an updated personal financial disclosure with the Senate until after Michigan's August primary election. El-Sayed, who has stressed the importance of "government transparency," initially said he delayed the disclosures because "taxes get complicated, my wife and her family own property abroad, and so getting all those tax forms is a thing." He later vowed to release his return imminently, saying it would be "pretty mundane."
"I'm a public servant, my wife is a clinician, at the end of the day we have a pretty standard tax return," El-Sayed said. "You're gonna be like, 'Wow, this is pretty mundane, I don't know what they were talking about.'"
But the candidate, who has billed himself as a crusader for the working class against the wealthy, does not have a "standard" return when compared with the average Michigander or American. His total income places him in the top 1 percent of earners in Michigan, where the median household income is $68,500, according to IRS data reported by Axios. In Detroit, it's just $38,000. El-Sayed makes roughly 18 times as much.
An outsized portion of El-Sayed's income, meanwhile, came from capital gains. In 2021, more than 60 percent of Americans' personal income stemmed from wages, while nearly 18 percent stemmed from capital gains, according to a 2024 Tax Foundation analysis. Just 19 percent of El-Sayed's 2025 income came from wages, while 40 percent stemmed from capital gains.
El-Sayed's tax returns are likely to add to mounting questions about his finances, particularly his real estate portfolio.
In his 2025 financial disclosure, El-Sayed reported two rental properties—one in Ann Arbor and one in India—together worth up to $750,000. Property records show that El-Sayed still owns the Ann Arbor property through a trust belonging to him and his wife. It's unclear whether El-Sayed's capital gains came from a sale of the Indian property or a third, unknown property.
It is clear, however, that El-Sayed has become significantly wealthier since his unsuccessful gubernatorial run in 2018, when he released tax returns showing $237,000 in gross income—$25,000 less than El-Sayed's 2025 capital gains alone.
Some of El-Sayed's additional income has come from his wife Sarah Jukaku's private practice. Though El-Sayed has called for universal health care through a single-payer "Medicare for All" system that would cover every American "from cradle to grave," Jukaku does not accept Medicare or any other insurance and requires patients to pay out-of-pocket, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
The arrangement prompted criticism on a Reddit page for fans of the left-wing streamer Destiny. "Jesus, how do I make that much :(," one user wrote. "Marry a psychiatrist that refuses to take Medicare, Medicaid, or insurance," another replied.
El-Sayed appears to have spent a sizable portion of his income on a luxury watch collection, a Free Beacon review found. He has described himself as a "sucker" for classic watches and has been pictured on the campaign trail wearing watches including a $4,000 Sinn U1 SE, a $10,000 Omega Speedmaster Moon Phase Chronograph, and a $3,000 Omega Seamaster DeVille. The Sinn U1, a German diver's watch, earned El-Sayed praise from a watch podcast, Lan Jam.
"[W]e have to include him rocking what looks like the Sinn U-1 SE," an Instagram post from the podcast declared. "Badass stealthy pick, well done Doc!"