One of the biggest donors helping President-elect Donald Trump is Timothy Mellon, heir to the generational fortune of Gilded Age tycoon Andrew Mellon.
During the 2024 election cycle, Mellon, 82, donated $125 million to the Make America Great Again, Inc. super PAC. which supports Trump, according to Federal Election Commission documents.
And including donations to help Republican congressional candidates and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mellon has donated a total of $165 million, according to campaign finance trackers. Open the secret.
Mellon is not the only billionaire to spend nine figures on Trump. Tesla CEO Elon Musk gave at least $119 million to the PAC he founded to reelect Trump. When including money to other Republicans, Musk gave at least $132 million.
But he did so much more publicly than Mellon, who was known to shy away from the spotlight. Mellon is the nephew of Andrew Mellon and a reclusive billionaire who has previously expressed clear views on federal entitlement programs that he called “slavery conversion.”
Mellon rarely speaks to the press and seems to have little interest in interacting with the politicians to whom he donates. Even though he distributed huge amounts of money to political groups and politicians, many people had never met him. And during the 2020 election, Republican operatives had to search him on Google to find out who he was when he made the big donation offer, according to arrive New York Times.
Mellon did not respond to requests made through his family’s foundation. Other attempts to reach him were unsuccessful, including queries to the publisher he worked with. An attorney who worked with him previously said he no longer represents him.
in one Rare interview from 2020Mellon told Bloomberg that he believes Trump has accomplished what he said at the base of the tree.
“He has done what he promised or tried to do what he promised…in trade and rebalancing the balance between our country and the rest of the world, especially China,” Mellon said.
Mellon donated to RFK Jr. before he dropped out of school
In addition to Trump, Mellon also donated to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential bid. He also gave $25 million to the pro-Kennedy American Values 2024 political action committee.
Kennedy obscured Mellon’s self-published autobiography panam.captain released in 2015
“Tim Mellon was an eccentric businessman who embodied the most admirable qualities of what FDR called ‘American industrial genius,’” Kennedy wrote of Mellon. (Mellon and Kennedy share a publisher at Skyhorse Publishing).
About a hundred years ago, the Mellon family was deeply involved in American politics. Mellon’s grandfather, Andrew, was Secretary of the Treasury from 1921 to 1932. In that role, he cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans and successfully campaigned to eliminate all wealth taxes. so that he could leave his property to his heirs. Before working in the public sector, the elder Mellon made his money in banking, industry and investing in early-stage companies.
Mellon family remaining one of the country’s richest people with a total assets worth $14 billion, according to ARRIVE Forbes. Timothy Mellon’s exact financial holdings are not yet understood. In his 2014 testimony, he said his net worth was about 700 million USD. the London time has estimated it at 1 billion USD. A relative speak Vanity fair that Mellon didn’t want people to know his true net worth, making it closer to $4.2 billion.
It seems young Mellon came to politics later. From 1996 to 2018, Mellon donated approximately $350,000, according to arrive Wall Street Journalmuch less than the hundreds of millions he poured into supporting Trump-era Republicans. During the 2020 election, Mellon donated $60 million to Republican candidates, including $20 million to Trump, according to Open Secrets. In the 2022 midterm elections, he gave $41.7 million to candidates.
‘He doesn’t want anyone to tax him’
In addition to donating to candidates and their political action committees, Mellon also raises money for other conservative causes.
In 2021, Mellon donated $53 million to Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s foundation to build a wall on the state’s border with Mexico. according to to report from Texas Court. Mellon’s donation amounted to 98% of the amount the foundation raised. The donation is tax-deductible because it goes to the state government for public works use.
Other members of the Mellon family were shocked and even appalled by their relatives’ support for Trump, although some suspected it might have something to do with taxes.
“I think the problem is he wants to be left alone and doesn’t want anyone to tax him,” said a member of the Mellon family. Vanity fair. “It is that liberal view that has become radicalized. There are a lot of really wealthy people out there who don’t have to think about what’s best for America anymore.”
Despite inheriting one of America’s great industrial fortunes, Mellon still went into business for himself. In the 1980s, he took over a railway company called Guilford Transport Industries acquired several smaller railroads in the Northeast. A few years later, he renamed it Pan Am Systems after purchasing the logo and name from the defunct airline. In 2020, Mellon sold the company to CSX Transported 600 million USD.
Politically Mellon was ‘to the right of Attila the Hun’
Like the people he donated to, Mellon was the child of a wealthy family who over the years had seen his eccentric tendencies morph into virulent right-wing views.
Years ago, Mellon was fascinated by the disappearance of pilot Amelia Earhardt, even donating $1 million to explorer Ric Gillespie, who was trying to find her missing plane. In exchange for the donation, Gillespie let Mellon join the expedition. Mellon’s posts on an online forum about Earhardt, moderated by Gillespie, eventually became political diatribes against the IRS, intelligence agencies and climate change. Gillespie had to limit his ability to post on the site.
“His views are somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun,” Gillespie speak female New York Times.
Mellon later sued Gillespie, accusing him of knowing the location of Earhardt’s plane when he received the $1 million donation.
In his 2015 self-published autobiography, Mellon explained his political views. In one passage, Mellon takes a particularly sharp issue with government programs, which he believes have left their beneficiaries dependent on welfare rather than working for a living.
“Because they voted in the Federal Election, they were given more and more freebies: food stamps, cell phones, WIC payments, Obamacare, etc.,” Mellon wrote. hard-working people, increasingly few in number, who are too honest or too proud to allow themselves to sink into this mire.”
Throughout the book, he refers to Black people as having racist stereotypes that they have a poor work ethic and are aggressive. “Black people, despite the heroic efforts of the ‘Establishment’ to right the wrongs of the past, became even more militant and unwilling to participate in reform,” Mellon says in his book. improve their own situation.
Mellon stands by the observations he makes in his book. “I said everything I wanted to say. I don’t have any regrets,” he said in a 2020 interview with Bloomberg.
Because Mellon rarely appeared in public, it was difficult to guess the intentions behind the donations he made. Many candidates he donated to said they had never met him despite receiving millions of dollars in contributions.
Although for some in his family, the reclusiveness was not surprising. Family members cited by Vanity fair called him “socially awkward” and “not a very sociable person.”
A 1978 book about family history titled The Mellon Family: Fortune in History by Burton Hersh hints at Mellon’s isolation. “My view on families is that they are outdated. The family unit is no longer a functioning entity. It no longer serves economic needs. I think this is an interesting social phenomenon,” Mellon told Hersh.
