One of the biggest donors to President-elect Donald Trump was Timothy Mellon, a generational heir to Gilded Age tycoon Andrew Mellon.
During the 2024 election cycle, Mellon, 82, gave $125 million to the Trump-supporting PAC Make America Great Again, Inc., according to Federal Election Commission filings.
And including donations to support Republican congressional candidates and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mellon gave a total of $165 million, according to the campaign finance tracker. Unlock the secrets.
Mellon wasn’t the only billionaire to spend nine figures on Trump. Tesla CEO Elon Musk gave at least $119 million To a PAC he created to re-elect Trump. When he included money for other Republicans, Musk gave at least $132 million.
But he did so in a much more public way than Mellon, who is known to shun the spotlight. Mellon is the grandson of Andrew Mellon and a self-made millionaire who has in the past expressed his views on federal entitlement programs, which he called “reduced slavery.”
Mellon rarely speaks to the press and seems to have little interest in interacting with the politicians he donates to. Although he has distributed large sums of money to political groups and politicians, many have never met him. And in the 2020 election, Republican workers had to look for it google when contacted with an offer of a large donation to find out who it was, according to has New York Times.
Mellon did not respond to requests made through the family foundation. Other efforts to reach him were unsuccessful, including inquiries to the publisher where he worked. A lawyer who worked with him in the past said he no longer represents him.
in one A rare interview of 2020Mellon told Bloomberg he believed Trump had followed through on what he said on the stump.
“He’s done the things he promised, or he’s tried to do the things he promised … on trade and correcting the balance between our country and the rest of the world, especially China,” Mellon said.
Mellon gave the donation to RFK Jr. before leaving
In addition to Trump, Mellon donated to presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He gave $25 million to the American Values 2024 political action committee that supported Kennedy.
Kennedy blurted out Mellon’s autobiography captain of panam Released in 2015.
“Tim Mellon is a maverick businessman who embodies the most admirable qualities of what FDR called the ‘American Industrial genius,'” Kennedy wrote of Mellon. (Mellon and Kennedy share a publisher in Skyhorse Publishing).
About a hundred years ago, the Mellon family was heavily involved in American politics. Mellon’s grandfather Andrew was Secretary of the Treasury from 1921 to 1932. In that role, he cut taxes for America’s wealthiest and campaigned successfully to eliminate estate taxes so he could leave his legacy to his heirs. Before his time in the public sector, the elder Mellon made his money investing in banking, industry and early-stage companies.
The Mellon Family the leftovers one of the richest people in the country with a net worth of $14 billion, according to to Forbes. The exact financial holdings of Timothy Mellon are not well understood. In a 2014 statement, he said it was his net worth About 700 million dollars. The London The times he appreciated 1 billion dollars. a relative say Vanity Fair Mellon said he didn’t want people to know his true net worth, putting it closer to $4.2 billion.
It seems that young Mellon came to politics later. From 1996 to 2018, Mellon gave away about $350,000, according to has The Wall Street JournalFar less than the hundreds of millions he has thrown to protect Trump-era Republicans. In the 2020 election, Mellon gave $60 million to Republican candidates, including $20 million to Trump, according to Open Secrets. He gave $41.7 million to candidates in the 2022 midterm elections.
“No one wants taxes”
In addition to donating to candidates and their political action committees, Mellon has also given money to other conservative causes.
In 2021, Mellon donated $53 million to Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s fund to build a wall along the state’s border with Mexico. according to to report Texas Tribune. Mellon’s donation was 98% of the money the fund raised. The donation was tax deductible probably because it was made to a state government to be used for public works.
Other members of the Mellon family were surprised, even horrified, by the relatives’ support of Trump, although some suspected it might have something to do with taxes.
“I think he just wants to be left alone, and nobody wants to tax him,” said a Mellon family member. Vanity Fair. “It is this libertarian view that has become radicalized. There are a lot of rich people who don’t have to think about what’s best for America.”
Although he inherited one of America’s great industrial fortunes, Mellon went into business on his own. In the 1980s, he took over a railway company called Guilford Transportation Industries which bought several smaller railroads in the Northeast. Several years later, he renamed it Pan Am Systems after purchasing the logo and name from the defunct airline. In 2020, Mellon sold the company CSX Transportation for $600 million.
Politically Mellon is “to the right of Attila the Hun.”
Like the men he donated to, Mellon is the scion of a wealthy family, and over the years he’s seen his eccentric tendencies evolve into virulent right-wing views.
Years ago, Mellon was fascinated by the disappearance of aviator Amelia Earhardt, even giving $1 million to explorer Ric Gillespie who was trying to find her 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 rants against the IRS, intelligence agencies and climate change. Gillespie had to limit his ability to post on the site.
“His views were somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun,” Gillespie say has New York Times.
Mellon later sued Gillespie, alleging that the latter knew where Earhardt’s plane was when he received the million dollar donation.
In his 2015 autobiography, Mellon explained his political views. In one passage, Mellon takes particularly strong issue with government programs that made their beneficiaries dependent on welfare instead of work to get by.
“For voting in Federal elections, they receive more and more freebies: food stamps, cell phones, WIC payments, Obamacare, etc., etc.,” Mellon wrote. “Transparency is funded by hard-working people, less and less, too honest or too proud to allow themselves to be plunged into this maelstrom.”
Throughout the book he mentioned that Black people have racist stereotypes, that they have a poor work ethic and are aggressive. “Black people, despite heroic efforts by the ‘Establishment’ to right the wrongs of the past, became even more belligerent and willing to improve their lot,” Mellon said in his book.
Mellon stood by his comments in his book. “I said everything I wanted to say. I have no regrets,” he said in a 2020 Bloomberg interview.
Since Mellon makes few public appearances, it is difficult to guess his intentions behind the donations he made. He has given many candidates to report that they have never met him, despite the fact that they have received millions in contributions.
Although for some of his family this loneliness is not surprising. The aforementioned family members Vanity Fair He called her “socially awkward” and “not a very social person.”
A 1978 family history book titled The Mellon family: a fortune in history Burton Hersh hints at Mellon’s isolation. “My view of families is that they are an anachronism. The family unit is no longer a functioning entity. It no longer fulfills an economic need. I suppose it’s interesting as a social phenomenon,” Mellon told Hersh.
