Mills posits that the institutions that they head are a triumvirate of groups that have inherited or succeeded weaker predecessors: Importantly and as distinct from modern American conspiracy theory, Mills explains that the elite themselves may not be aware of their status as an elite, noting that "often they are uncertain about their roles" and "without conscious effort, they absorb the aspiration to be...

The members of the power elite, according to Mills, often enter into positions of societal prominence through educations obtained at eastern establishment universities like Harvard, Princeton, and Yale.

"[3] Commenting on The Power Elite, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. derisively said, "I look forward to the time when Mr. Mills hands back his prophet's robes and settles down to being a sociologist again.

"[4] Adolf Berle noted the book contained "an uncomfortable degree of truth", but Mills presented "an angry cartoon, not a serious picture".

[4] In 2017, episode 5 of the Netflix TV series Mindhunter contains a scene in which one of the main characters, a sociology PhD student Deborah "Debbie" Mitford, writes a paper on The Power Elite.