Elusive right-wing billionaire Timothy Mellon made a massive donation—$50 million—to a Trump super PAC the day after Trump was convicted of 34 felonies, according to disclosure filings. The donation is one of the largest single disclosed contributions ever, according to The New York Times, and one of the worst ways to burn $50 million, according to anyone with a functioning brain.
Mellon earned his wealth the way all hard-working Americans do: He inherited it from his grandfather, banking magnate and former Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon. Timothy Mellon’s introduction into the world of being a political powerplayer started from humble, hateful beginnings in 2010 when he donated $1.5 million for legal fees to defend Arizona’s ultra-racist “show me your papers” law, Senate Bill 1070, in court. The reclusive 81-year-old went on to become a major player in conservative politics in 2018, when he spent big on conservatives in midterm elections that year.
Fast-forward to 2024, and Mellon has spent this year’s election blowing through cash on both Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaigns, previously donating equal amounts of $25 million to both. Because when your options are between a racist demagogue and a brain-wormed conspiracy theorist, why choose?
According to The Washington Post, Mellon has made a bunch of statements that would make your ultra-racist grandfather proud. His 2015 self-published autobiography included passages that said Black people became “even more belligerent” after the expansion of social programs in the 1960s and ’70s, called people receiving social services “slaves of a new Master, Uncle Sam,” and described programs that help people not making enough money because billionaires hoard everything for themselves and dump money into presidential candidates who continue to cut their tax rates as “slavery redux.” Charming.
Prior to this latest billionaire boondoggle, Mellon donated $5 million to RFK Jr.’s campaign in April, according to The New York Times. Maybe he meant to give that same amount to Trump, accidentally added an extra zero and, being too wealthy for numbers to have meaning, just let it ride. Who knows. What we do know is that days after his donation, Make America Great Again Inc.—the super PAC that received the funds—stated it had raised $70 million in May (most of it Mellon’s) and had reserved $100 million in advertising in states where Trump already leads Biden.
Following his conviction, Trump’s campaign coffers now report having more cash on hand than Biden’s for the first time this election cycle—a feat that is expected to not last, as Biden gears up to collect two billion smackeroos in direct donations and another billy from outside groups with less prolifically heinous politics. According to The New York Times, Mellon’s spending spree has made him “the first donor to give $100 million in disclosed federal contributions in this year’s election,” an impressive investment that will nevertheless not be remembered by the sands of time.
