Timothy Mellon, a reclusive heir to a Gilded Age fortune, donated $50 million to a super PAC supporting Donald J. Trump on the day the former president was convicted of 34 felonies, a massive donation that stands as the largest disclosed contribution ever, according to new federal documents.
The impact of this donation on the 2024 race is expected to be felt almost immediately. Within days of the contribution, Make America Great Again Inc., a pro-Trump super PAC, said in a memo that it would begin reserving $100 million in advertising by Labor Day.
The group had only $34.5 million on hand at the end of April, and Mr. Mellon’s contributions accounted for most of the nearly $70 million the super PAC raised in May. On Wednesday and Thursday the super PAC began reserving $30 million for ads to air around the July 4 holiday in Georgia and Pennsylvania.
Mr. Mellon is now the first donor to give $100 million in declared federal contributions in this year’s election. He was already the biggest contributor to super PACs supporting both Mr. Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running as an independent candidate. Mr. Mellon has previously given $25 million to both.
Democrats have tried to portray Mr. Kennedy as a spoilsport backed by Republicans, partly by emphasizing Mr. Mellon’s dual contributions and seemingly divided loyalties. Pro-Kennedy super PACs have distributed quotes from Mr. Mellon, who is hard-to-access, and for a blurb that appears on the cover of Mr. Mellon’s forthcoming book, Mr. Kennedy calls the billionaire “an aloof entrepreneur.”
It is unclear what effect Mr. Mellon's large donation will have on his support for Mr. Kennedy. He has donated to support both candidates so far. His most recent donation to Mr. Kennedy's super PAC was $5 million in April.
But Mr. Mellon’s $50 million donation would significantly help pro-Trump forces reduce the financial advantage that President Biden and his allies have enjoyed so far. Miriam Adelson, the casino billionaire and widow of Sheldon G. Adelson, who died in 2021, also plans to fund a pro-Trump super PAC with at least as much money as the $90 million her family gave to the 2020 campaign, though not much cash has come in yet.
Illinois couple Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, who are among the Republican Party's biggest donors, gave $5 million to a Trump super PAC in May. Billionaire energy executive Kelcy Warren also gave $5 million.
But outside groups supporting Mr. Biden have already announced planned spending of more than $1 billion, including $250 million reserved for advertising by the leading pro-Biden super PAC, Future Forward.
Individual donations as large as $50 million are rare in American campaigns. Other donations of similar size have come from candidates who self-financed their campaigns, from couples who technically split their huge contributions or from donors who paid in installments over time.
So far, Make America Great Again Inc., which serves as the leading pro-Trump super PAC, has had only modest success raising money, as it relies primarily on Republican donors with personal ties to the former president.
In the first few months of 2024, the group raised between $7.4 million and $14.4 million each month. The $60 million was originally invested by Mr. Trump's political action committee — which is prohibited from spending — to support his candidacy, before he announced his run for president. But in a highly unusual transaction, Mr. Trump later asked for the return of the $60 million given months earlier, so MAGA Inc. has now returned that amount to the PAC, Save America, which is helping pay his legal bills.
Mr Mellon, who invested $25 million in the group over the past 12 months, now owns nearly half of the total funds raised by the group.
Mr. Mellon has long avoided the publicity that normally surrounds such an important donor. After entering the Republican fund-raising arena early in the Trump administration, he quickly earned a reputation as an unusual, quirky figure.
Despite his famous last name — he’s the grandson of former Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon and a member of the wealthy Mellon family — most hadn’t heard of the Republican fund-raiser before he donated $10 million to a GOP super PAC in mid-2018. The gift was the first of nine eight-figure checks he’d give to major Republican groups.
He hired political consultants to guide him in Washington, though he lives mainly in Wyoming these days. Few of the recipients of his money have met him.
The $50 million check to support Mr. Trump is matched only by a separate donation Mr. Mellon made to a tough political project on immigration: the private construction of a border wall in Texas. In August 2021, Mr. Mellon donated $53 million worth of stock to help pay for the wall, a priority of Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
Mr. Mellon, who did not respond to requests for comment on Thursday, appears to be growing more comfortable with scrutiny of his influence. Next month, he is due to publish a book, “panam.captain,” about his work transforming Pan Am Systems, a collection of companies including railroad, aviation and marketing firms.
Mr Mellon originally self-published an autobiography but took it offline in 2016 after some inflammatory excerpts became public, including a line that black people had become “even more aggressive” after the expansion of social programs in the 1960s and 70s.
Mr. Mellon also wrote that the Social Security program amounts to a “repetition of slavery.”
“For casting their vote in federal elections, they are given more freebies: food stamps, cellphones, WIC payments, Obamacare, and more,” Mr. Mellon wrote, according to the Washington Post.
The new book, “panam.captain,” will be released by Skyhorse Publishing. It is co-written by Tony Lyons, who co-founded the pro-Kennedy super PAC, American Values 2024.
In a rare interview with Bloomberg in 2020, Mr. Mellon praised Mr. Trump’s follow-through: “He’s done the things he promised, or he’s tried to do the things he promised,” he said.