One of the biggest donors to help the president-elect was Timothy Mellon, heir to the generational fortune of Andrew Mellon, a tycoon from the so-called Gilded Age of the USA.
In the 2024 election cycle, Mellon, 82, donated $125 million to the Trump-supporting super PAC Make America Great Again, Inc., according to Federal Election Commission documents.
Including donations to help Republican candidates for Congress and , Mellon has donated a total of $165 million, according to campaign finance tracker Open Secrets.
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Mellon wasn’t the only billionaire to make nine-figure donations to Trump. The CEO of , , gave at least $119 million to a PAC he created to re-elect Trump. When you include money to other Republicans, Musk has donated at least $132 million.
However, he did so in a much more public way than Mellon, who is known for avoiding the spotlight. Mellon is the grandson of Andrew Mellon and a reclusive billionaire who, in the past, has expressed scathing opinions about federal assistance programs, which he has called “slavery redux.”
Mellon rarely speaks to the press and appears to have little interest in socializing with the politicians to whom he donates. Even though he donated large sums of money to political groups and politicians, many never met him. During the 2020 election, Republican aides had to Google him to find out who he was when he reached out with an offer of a significant donation, according to the New York Times.
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Mellon did not respond to requests made through his family’s foundation. Other efforts to contact him were unsuccessful, including inquiries to the editor with whom he worked. A lawyer who worked with him in the past said he no longer represents him.
In a rare 2020 interview, Mellon told Bloomberg who believed Trump had delivered on what he promised during the campaign.
“He did the things he promised or tried to do the things he promised… on trade and balancing the scales between our country and the rest of the world, especially China,” Mellon said.
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Mellon donated to RFK Jr. before he dropped out
In addition to Trump, Mellon donated to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential bid. He also gave $25 million to the American Values 2024 political action committee, which supported Kennedy.
Kennedy praised Mellon’s self-published autobiography, “panam.captain,” released in 2015.
“Tim Mellon is a rebellious entrepreneur who embodies the most admirable qualities of what FDR called the ‘American industrial genius,’” Kennedy wrote of Mellon. (Mellon and Kennedy share an editor at Skyhorse Publishing).
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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 America’s richest and successfully campaigned to remove any inheritance tax so he could leave his fortune to his heirs. Before his time in the public sector, the elder Mellon made his fortune in banking, manufacturing and investing in the early stages of companies.
The Mellon family remains one of the richest in the country, with a combined net worth of $14 billion, according to Forbes. Timothy Mellon’s exact financial holdings are not well understood. In a 2014 deposition, he said his net worth was approximately $700 million. The London Times estimated it at $1 billion. A relative told Vanity Fair that Mellon didn’t want people to know his true net worth, putting it closer to $4.2 billion.
It appears that young Mellon became interested in politics later in life. From 1996 to 2018, Mellon donated around US$350,000, according to the Wall Street Journalfar less than the hundreds of millions he poured into supporting Trump-era Republicans. In 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 gave money to other conservative causes.
In 2021, Mellon donated $53 million to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s fund to build a wall on the state’s border with Mexico, according to reporting by the Texas Tribune. Mellon’s donation represented 98% of the money the fund ended up raising. The donation was likely tax deductible because it was made to a state government to be used for public works.
Other members of the Mellon family were shocked and even horrified by their relative’s support for Trump, although some suspected it might have to do with taxes.
“I think deep down he wants to be left alone and doesn’t want anyone to tax him,” a member of the Mellon family told Vanity Fair. “It is this libertarian vision that has become radicalized. There are a lot of really rich people who just don’t need to think about what’s best for America anymore.”
Even though he inherited one of the great American industrial fortunes, Mellon still went into business on his own. In the 1980s, he took over a railroad company called Guilford Transportation Industries, which purchased several smaller rail lines in the Northeast. A few years later, he renamed the company Pan Am Systems after purchasing the defunct airline’s logo and name. In 2020, Mellon sold the company to 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 that, over the years, has seen its eccentric tendencies transform into virulent right-wing views.
Years ago, Mellon became fascinated by the disappearance of aviator Amelia Earhart, even donating $1 million to explorer Ric Gillespie, who was trying to find her missing plane. In exchange for the donation, Gillespie allowed Mellon to join the expedition. Mellon’s posts on an online forum about Earhart, moderated by Gillespie, eventually turned into political rants against the IRS, intelligence agencies and climate change. Gillespie had to limit Mellon’s ability to post on the site.
“His views were somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun,” Gillespie told New York Times.
Mellon later sued Gillespie, claiming that Gillespie already knew where Earhart’s plane was when he received the $1 million donation.
In his 2015 self-published autobiography, Mellon expounded on his political views. In one passage, Mellon is sharply critical of government programs, which he believes have made their beneficiaries dependent on welfare rather than working to support themselves.
“For turning in their votes in federal elections, they are rewarded with even more and more perks: food stamps, cell phones, WIC payments, Obamacare, and so on,” Mellon wrote. “Generosity is financed by hard-working people, fewer and fewer in number, who are either too honest or too proud to allow themselves to sink into this doldrums.”
Throughout the book, he referred to black people with racist stereotypes, stating 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, have become even more belligerent and reluctant to strive to improve their own situations,” Mellon said in his book.
Mellon defended the comments he made in his book. “I said everything I wanted to say. I have no regrets,” he said in the interview with Bloomberg em 2020.
Because Mellon makes few public appearances, it is difficult to discern his intentions behind the donations he has made. Many candidates to whom he donated report never having met him, despite receiving millions in contributions.
Although for some in his family this seclusion does not come as a surprise. Family members mentioned by Vanity Fair They called him “socially awkward” and “not a very social person.”
A 1978 book about the family’s history titled “The Mellon Family: A Fortune in History” by Burton Hersh suggests Mellon’s isolation. “My view of families is that they are an anachronism. The family unit is no longer a functional entity. It no longer meets an economic need. I suppose it’s interesting as a social phenomenon,” Mellon told Hersh.
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