Timothy Mellon is the top donor to both Donald Trump and RFK Jr., two competing presidential candidates, which is just one reason he is unlike any political donor in history.
Read the full story on Forbes:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/phoebeliu/2024/07/09/the-true-story-of-trumps-75-million-backer/
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Read the full story on Forbes:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/phoebeliu/2024/07/09/the-true-story-of-trumps-75-million-backer/
Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
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Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Today on Forbes, the true story of Trump's $75 million backer.
00:07The biggest donor in American politics today doesn't talk to reporters much, deriding
00:12the press as, quote, the propaganda arm of the federal government and the bureaucracy.
00:18So it came as little surprise when Timothy Mellon, a Gilded Age heir who has emerged
00:23as a modern power player, largely ignored a series of questions sent to him asking about
00:28his family, background, and political philosophy.
00:32Mellon responded with only a URL, linking to a story about an airplane flying over the
00:37Hamptons where Biden was hosting a post-debate fundraiser with a one-word trailer behind
00:42it, quote, Buy Done, spelled B-I hyphen D-O-N-E.
00:48Mellon has 76.5 million reasons to gloat in the wake of Biden's disastrous debate performance.
00:55No one has spent more trying to reinstall Trump in the White House.
00:59Linda McMahon, the WWE mogul who served in Trump's cabinet, has given the second most
01:04of any donor, $11.1 million, or about one-seventh as much as Mellon.
01:11Forty-three percent of all money that has gone into Trump's main super PAC, Make America
01:15Great Again, Inc., has come from the 81-year-old heir.
01:20Here's what's even more remarkable.
01:22Mellon is dumping in that much money without the kind of fortune that allows other billionaires
01:26— think Bloomberg or Adelson — to give away hundreds of millions of dollars without
01:31blinking.
01:32While those tycoons hold stakes in cash-gushing businesses worth tens of billions of dollars,
01:38Forbes thinks Mellon could be worth close to $1 billion, based on his inheritance and
01:43proceeds from the sale of his railroad company.
01:46He insists his fortune is even smaller.
01:48In another brusque email, he responded, quote,
01:51"'BILLIONAIRE NOT'."
01:54NOT was in all caps.
01:55He added, quote,
01:56"'NEVER HAVE BEEN, NEVER WILL BE.'"
02:00In any case, it's a remarkably modest sum, considering he has given federal political
02:04committees a total of $237 million, plus at least another $60 million to state candidates
02:11and the border wall.
02:14Despite being the grandson of banking titan Andrew Mellon, Timothy Mellon has earned a
02:18surprising amount of his money himself.
02:21His father used the family fortune to enjoy a life in aristocracy, devoting enough time
02:26to horses that he became a member of the National Racing Hall of Fame.
02:30Timothy Mellon, by contrast, went to work, borrowing from the Mellon Bank to buy three
02:35struggling railroads in the early 1980s and building them over four decades into a $600
02:41million empire.
02:43In a 2015 memoir, he wrote, quote,
02:46"'I have never been without a comfortable financial cushion, although I have always
02:49felt the need to use my brainpower to augment what I started with.'"
02:54He kept grinding until a month before his 80th birthday in 2022, when he finally cashed
02:59out and turned his attention more fully toward elections.
03:04Mellon's political philosophy has shifted over the years, but he has always strayed
03:08from the crowd.
03:10Coming from a family of Republican royalty — his grandfather served as Treasury Secretary
03:14for three Republican presidents — Timothy lurched left as a young man, routing money
03:19to causes backed by Gloria Steinem and Ralph Nader.
03:23When he got into the railroad business, employees demanded support of their unions.
03:27He went to war with them instead.
03:30More recently, he has not only spent mind-bending sums supporting Donald Trump, but he also
03:35has poured $25 million into Robert F. Kennedy's Super PAC, contributing more than half of
03:40its revenue.
03:43Mellon may not be answering questions much these days, but in a rare interview with Forbes
03:4736 years ago, he offered a window into his worldview.
03:51He said, quote,
03:52"'If you believe in something, what others call you is irrelevant.'"
03:57Heir to an heir, Timothy Mellon never had to wonder whether his family had money.
04:02The fortune began with his great-grandfather, an Irish immigrant named Thomas Mellon, who
04:07started a Pittsburgh banking empire shortly after the Civil War.
04:11Thomas eventually welcomed his children into the business, including Andrew, Timothy's
04:15grandfather.
04:16Andrew invested in companies like Gulf Oil, a predecessor to Chevron, before serving in
04:21the cabinets of Presidents Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover.
04:27He left a reported $22.7 million in 1930-something dollars, equivalent to roughly $500 million
04:33today, for his three grandchildren, including Timothy.
04:38Andrew Mellon also left enough for his son, Paul Mellon, to live a life of luxury, in
04:42which he obsessed over horses and penned an autobiography titled Reflections in a Silver
04:47Spoon.
04:49It's unclear how much Paul Mellon left to Timothy and his sister, though he bequeathed
04:53$110 million to his second wife, according to a book by Meryl Gordon, and left more than
04:58$200 million to charity.
05:02For full coverage, and to read our in-depth story about Timothy Mellon, check out Phoebe
05:06Liu and Zach Everson's piece on Forbes.com.
05:11This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes.
05:13Thanks for tuning in.