Billionaire Timothy Mellon has poured $165 million into 2024 elections — mostly for Trump
This story was originally published by OpenSecrets.
Timothy Mellon, heir to Gilded Age industrialist Andrew Mellon, has continued to pour tens of millions into the campaigns of former President Donald Trump, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Republican congressional candidates in 2024.
Mellon has pumped over $165 million into the 2024 election, making him the top donor fueling outside spending groups this year. Mellon is known as a “guardian angel donor,” a term given to contributors who are a political group’s top donor and account for more than 40% of the group’s funding.
In July, Mellon made a $50 million cash infusion to pro-Trump super PAC Make America Great Again, Inc., new Federal Election Commission filings show. This brings his total contributions to the group to $125 million this election cycle, including a $50 million check he wrote to the super PAC the day after Trump was convicted of 34 felonies.
Mellon’s latest $50 million contribution accounts for over 90% of what MAGA, Inc. raised in July. The super PAC ended the month with about $124.5 million cash on hand.
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Mellon’s first major foray into federal elections was during the 2020 cycle, when he poured $60.1 million into federal political committees supporting Republican candidates, including $20 million to pro-Trump super PAC America First Action. With two months to go until the November election, Mellon has more than doubled his giving in 2024.
This outpouring of support for conservative organizations was not always the norm for Mellon, who once backed groups with a focus on environmental, womens' rights and Native American rights. Timothy Mellon is an heir to his grandfather Andrew Mellon’s dynastic fortune, which positioned the Mellons as the 34th richest family in America, as of February 2024.
Andrew Mellon served as the U.S. Secretary of Treasury from 1921-1932 and was known for authoring policies during the Coolidge administration that reduced corporate taxes and increased revenue following World War I. Before entering politics, Andrew Mellon commanded a vast industrial empire, spanning banking, oil, coal, aluminum and shipping.
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Aside from his recent multimillion-dollar donations, Timothy Mellon is known to maintain a low profile. It is impossible to find more than one or two pictures of his face on the internet.
Mellon has been criticized for stances taken in his personal autobiography, where he called US safety net programs a “slavery redux” responsible for making black people “even more belligerent.”
Independent presidential contender Robert F. Kennedy. Jr., whose hybrid PAC American Values 2024 received $25 million from Mellon earlier this year, is quoted on the book’s back cover, praising Mellon as a “maverick entrepreneur.” Kennedy faced allegations of being a "spoiler" candidate who could siphon votes from major party candidates before suspending his campaign on Aug. 23. and endorsing Trump.
The bulk of Mellon’s public political donations were made in the last three years. The top five all-time recipients of Mellon’s federal political donations are MAGA Inc., Congressional Leadership Fund, American Values 2024, Senate Leadership Fund and Sentinel Action Fund — which is aligned with the Heritage Foundation supporting Project 2025.
The Congressional Leadership Fund and Senate Leadership Fund are super PACs aligned with Republican leadership in their respective chambers of Congress, and dedicated to electing GOP candidates to Capitol Hill. During the 2022 midterms, the Congressional Leadership Fund spent over $227 million to bolster Republican candidates, with a total of $66 million spent opposing 23 candidates who ended up losing.
The hybrid PAC has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to support Republican congressional candidates this cycle, including Rep. Derek Merrin (R-Ohio) and Rep. Laurie Buck (R-N.C.), and over $5 million to oppose Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.).
While the vast majority of Mellon’s contributions are directed toward federal elections, he made one state-level contribution of $1 million earlier this year to a group called Fair Courts America in Wisconsin that opposes court-packing and prosecutors they claim have received support from Democratic megadonor George Soros.
“Fair Courts America will fight woke judicial activism and defend our courts,” its website reads.
Before 2018, Mellon had not made any public federal contributions exceeding one million dollars. However, it is possible that he might have given more donations in the past through dark money groups, which would allow him to preserve his anonymity.
Aug. 24, 2024: This article was updated to reflect Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s campaign suspension.