Timothy Mellon, a reclusive billionaire from the historic Mellon family, is shaking up the 2024 election with his staggering $115 million in donations to Republican and conservative causes. Despite his massive influence, Mellon remains a mystery, avoiding the spotlight and rarely speaking to the media. He’s given huge sums to support both Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., creating speculation that he’s strategically backing Kennedy to hurt President Biden’s chances and help Trump. Mellon’s secretive nature and immense financial power make him one of the most enigmatic figures in this election cycle.
Arguably the most enigmatic donor of the 2024 election cycle is also the biggest one.
Timothy Mellon has contributed more to political causes than anyone else since the year 2023. Mr. Mellon donated over $115 million to conservative charities and Republican candidates running for federal office through the first five months of 2024 reports Austin Alonzo from The Epoch Times.
The Epoch Times was informed by Brendan Glavin, deputy research director at OpenSecrets, a watchdog group on money in politics, that Mr. Mellon’s millions are peculiar because there seems to be no desire for attention to be given to them.
“When you are making these contributions … it gives you access, it makes you a player,” Mr. Glavin said of the typical so-called megadonor. “It creates a situation where you know people are going to cater to you because they want your money.”
Still, Mr. Mellon’s only record is in donor files.
The 81-year-old investor, who appears to reside near Saratoga, Wyoming, is hardly discussed by those who receive his money or his associates. It’s difficult to get through to him. Not even biographers covering his powerful family can get through to him.
The Mellon family foundation, the publisher, a public relations agency that had previously represented him, colleagues who claimed to have read his book, and organizations he frequently donates to were all ways that The Epoch Times tried to get in touch with Mr. Mellon.
Old Wealth
The wealth of the Mellon family is inherited by Timothy Mellon. According to Forbes, the combined wealth of Irish immigrant Thomas Mellon’s descendants is estimated to be over $14.1 billion.
The family has been wealthy since the 19th century, and organizations like Carnegie Mellon University and The Bank of New York Mellon Corp. are associated with them. The National Gallery of Art in Washington was founded in large part thanks to the contributions of Timothy Mellon’s father, Paul Mellon, and grandfather, Andrew Mellon.
Andrew Mellon was the U.S. Treasury Secretary under Republican Presidents Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover from 1921 to 1932.
In 1981, Timothy Mellon established the privately held Guilford Transportation Industries, a transportation business that went on to buy a number of railroads in the New England region. Guilford renamed itself Pan Am Systems in 1998 after paying $24.5 million to buy the airline Pan American World Systems’ name and assets. 2020 saw the acquisition of that business by CSX Corp. for an undisclosed amount.
From 1981 until 2002, Mr. Mellon also served on the board of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. “Neither Tim Mellon nor any other family member has any current connection to the Foundation nor have they, in recent years, played a significant role in the Foundation’s giving strategy or day-to-day operations,” Maggie Slowey, a spokeswoman for the organization, told The Epoch Times.
According to Mr. Glavin, Mr. Mellon is the sole eight-figure political donation from “old money” this cycle. The majority of others, he claimed, have only lately become wealthy investors or business owners.
Robert Reich, a liberal pundit and former US Secretary of Labor, has referred to Mr. Mellon as “the poster child” for the dangers of generational wealth in the US.
“Timothy Mellon … is the product of a tax system pioneered by his grandfather that allows the perpetuation of dynastic wealth and the maintenance of its political power,” Mr. Reich wrote on his blog in February.
The Epoch Times made a comment request, but Mr. Reich’s representatives did not reply.
Quiet Ally
In 2024, Mr. Mellon is making waves by funding both former President Donald Trump’s and independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaigns at the same time.
On May 31, the day following the 45th president’s and the presumed Republican presidential nominee’s conviction for numerous felonies in New York, Mr. Mellon gave a $50 million check to the super political action committee (PAC) supporting former President Trump’s campaign, Make America Great Again Inc.
MAGA Inc. representatives declined to comment, citing the organization’s policy of keeping donor information private.
According to Mr. Glavin, the $50 million gift ranked among the biggest in American history. According to donor records, it is Mr. Mellon’s largest single gift in his history of federal giving.
According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records, Mr. Mellon has contributed $76.5 million to MAGA Inc. altogether since the beginning of 2022, with his most recent gift made in May. At the moment, he is the largest individual sponsor of the PAC.
According to federal records, Mr. Mellon also contributed $20 million in 2020 to America First Action Inc., a super PAC that supports Donald Trump.
Democrats interpret this relationship as unmistakable proof that Mr. Mellon is only supporting Mr. Kennedy to thwart President Joe Biden’s bid for reelection. The director of the Democratic National Committee’s rapid response team, Alex Floyd, referred to RFK Jr. as a “stalking horse to help Trump return to the White House” in a March release.
In line with the Democratic perspective, Mr. Glavin expressed his belief that the money is a “tactical move” aimed at bolstering the chances of former President Trump in November.
Speaking with host Brian Tyler Cohen on May 26, Mr. Kennedy stated that he had had two meetings with Mr. Mellon.
“Here’s what I believe from talking to Tim Mellon: I think Tim Mellon would prefer me to be president,” Mr. Kennedy said in the interview. “If I’m not going to be president, then he would prefer President Trump to President Biden.”
Mellon-Kennedy Ties
The Kennedys and the Mellon family have been connected since the 1960s.
President John F. Kennedy was friends with Rachel “Bunny” Mellon, the mother of Timothy Mellon, according to author Meryl Gordon’s 2017 book “Bunny Mellon: The Life of an American Style Legend.” During his presidency, Bunny Mellon restored the White House Rose Garden.
Mr. Mellon declined to be one of the hundreds of people questioned for the book, Ms. Gordon revealed to The Epoch Times.
Mr. Mellon’s self-published 2016 autobiography, “panam.captain,” which is no longer accessible to the public, is largely responsible for the knowledge that exists about him. A revised edition of “panam.captain” is scheduled for publication by Skyhorse Publishing in July.
The book was removed from the internet sometime after June 2020, when The Washington Post released an article alleging Mr. Mellon used “racial stereotypes to describe African Americans.” The Epoch Times is unable to independently confirm the newspaper’s assertions regarding the contents of the book.
Screenshots of the book’s website taken while it was still in operation indicate that “panam.captain” could be acquired by donating to organizations that Mr. Mellon had ostensibly chosen. An inquiry for comment from The Epoch Times was not answered by any of the organizations for which Mr. Mellon raised money: the Pan Am Historical Foundation, the Landmark Legal Foundation, or Hillsdale College.
The New York-based imprint has produced many books by and about Mr. Kennedy and others connected to Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit organization, since its founding in 2006. A quotation from Mr. Kennedy will appear on the front cover of Skyhorse’s “panam.captain” book.
Tony Lyons, President of Skyhorse, was a co-founder of American Values. Mr. Lyons is identified as the organization’s treasurer in FEC filings.
Moreover, Children’s Health Defense or American Values are linked to three of the six reviewers of “panam.captain” who is mentioned on the Skyhorse website. The book and Mr. Mellon were praised by the group’s founder, Mr. Kennedy; CEO Mary Holland; and founder of the private security company, Gavin de Becker & Associates, Gavin de Becker.
Federal documents show that, after Mr. Mellon, Mr. de Becker is the second-largest sponsor of American Values. Kennedy is also receiving security from his company while he runs for president. From the start of 2023 to the end of May, Mr. de Becker had sent $14 million to American Values.
According to Mr. de Becker’s evaluation, “These pages reveal Tim Mellon’s open-mindedness in action—and show that it’s possible to resist tribalism.”
Mr. de Becker declined to address Mr. Mellon in any more detail. The Kennedy campaign and Children’s Health Defense representatives did not reply to The Epoch Times’ request for comment.
The Influence of Wealth
Since he started giving in 1990, Mr. Mellon has contributed over $239 million to federal and state political campaigns, according to donation statistics gathered by OpenSecrets and shared with The Epoch Times.
The majority of the funds were donated to conservative or Republican candidates; $22,800 went to left or Democratic groups; and over $25 million went to Mr. Kennedy’s American Values 2024.
Documents indicate that Mr. Mellon didn’t start contributing significantly until 2018.
Mr. Mellon’s largest contributions have been made to the Senate Leadership Fund and the Congressional Leadership Fund, following his payments to the president. Mr. Mellon has contributed a total of $75 million to the funds since 2018.
Conservative political action committees (PACs) are aiding Republicans in gaining House and Senate seats.
The Epoch Times requested a response from representatives of the Senate Leadership Fund and the Congressional Leadership Fund, but they did not answer.
According to reports, Mr. Mellon gave the Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, over $53.1 million in shares in August 2021 to support his efforts to erect a wall along the southern border of the United States. The border wall is being constructed by the state as a component of Mr. Abbott’s Operation Lone Star.
As of July 2, the state had received contributions exclusively for the border wall project totaling approximately $55.4 million, according to the operation website.
A 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization led by Sonal Shah, the Texas Tribune Inc., first publicized the information regarding Mr. Mellon’s border wall donation. Ms. Shah was the head of Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 presidential campaign and a former member of the Obama administration. As of right now, Mr. Buttigieg serves as Transportation Secretary.
Regarding Mr. Mellon’s purported donation, Mr. Abbott’s office declined to comment. Rather, it instructed The Epoch Times to submit a request for public records. The Epoch Times received confirmation on July 16 from Mr. Abbott’s office’s open records division that Mr. Mellon had contributed stock in August 2021 valued at approximately $52.7 million.
Mr. Mellon contributed over $29 million to eight separate PACs that supported Republican Senate candidates in 2022. In the midterm elections, the Democratic Party kept control of the chamber despite the majority of its selected candidates losing.
The rise in donations from Mr. Mellon corresponds with what OpenSecrets’ Mr. Glavin called an “explosion” in the sums of money being poured into American politics by a small group of extraordinarily wealthy individuals.
According to a 2020 OpenSecrets analysis analyzing the impact of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. FEC case from 2010, total super PAC expenditure rose from $62 million in 2010 to $822 million in 2018. Since super PACs don’t work directly with political campaigns or politicians, they are frequently credited with developing super PACs that have limitless funding sources.
The same study discovered that 96% of super PAC funding in 2018 came from contributions made by the richest 1% of Americans.
According to Mr. Glavin, the majority of Americans are unaware of the major donors funding competitive contests.
Politicians are accessible to donors, according to Mr. Glavin. The most generous givers receive the most. But the exact amount of influence that funders may have over politicians is known only to the wealthy and powerful.
“They don’t always have to necessarily ask for something because they’ve already chosen the candidate that they know agrees with them,” Mr. Glavin said.
Recently, GreatGameInternational reported that President Joe Biden, supported by his family and advisors, is initiating a significant public relations effort to address mounting calls for him to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race. This move follows a troubled debate performance that has fueled worries about his cognitive health.
