For a brief moment last week, the world was topsy-turvy as former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz was dragged to Washington and made to answer questions about his company’s flagrant union busting. Led by Sen. Bernie Sanders as chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, the hearings were a rare example of Democratic politicians putting a billionaire on blast for violating his workers’ rights.

Schultz was having none of it, dismissing National Labor Relations Board findings that Starbucks repeatedly broke the law as mere “allegations” and taking umbrage at being called a “billionaire.” “Yes, I have billions of dollars. I earned it,” Schultz said. “No one gave it to me. And I’ve shared it constantly with people of Starbucks.”

If erstwhile allies of Schultz, like Democratic Washington state senator Patty Murray, found themselves forced into taking the side of his employees, the beleaguered Starbucks CEO did find allies in the Republican senators present. Utah senator and former private equity executive Mitt Romney told Schultz he found it “somewhat rich that you’re being grilled by people who have never had the opportunity to create a single job.” Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky waxed poetic in defense of the billionaire class: “Ayn Rand’s Howard Roark points out the ingratitude that man has for the entrepreneur. . . .  Thousands of years ago the first man discovered how to make fire — he was probably burnt at the stake he had taught the others to light.”