Silicon Valley billionaires became Trump’s biggest donors
Donors that Help Trump: The Nelson Peltz Campaign for a Democratic U.S. Senator and New York Times Spectator
With Musk’s largesse and his support of Trump on the platform he controls, there has been a windfall for the presidential candidate. He will be in Pennsylvania this weekend trying to get people to vote.
The Republican National Committee and the Trump 47 group received $250,000 and $114,500 from Sacks, respectively. Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, who run the crypto exchange Gemini, each donated more than $350,000 to the Make America Great Again PAC, which supports the Trump campaign. The Americans donated $250,000 each to the twins. The America PAC has been given $500,000 by a partner at the firm, as well as $300,000 by the Trump 47 committee and $6,600 by the Trump campaign. Antonio Gracias, a billionaire and an early supporter of the electric car company, gave $1 million to the America political committee. The former ambassador to Sweden Kenneth Howery put $1 million into America political action committee, and he gave smaller direct contributions to the Trump campaign.
The graphic below focuses specifically on donations that help Trump directly, rather than GOP giving more broadly. You can see a breakdown of how much each person gave—and where the money went—by scrolling over or tapping each name.
Last February, the billionaire financier Nelson Peltz summoned a group of about 20 wealthy, predominantly Republican donors and a handful of G.O.P. strategists to dinner at his $334 million waterfront estate in Palm Beach, Fla. After Donald Trump was elected president, it was clear that he was going to be the candidate and it was time to get on board. There were a lot of problems. One was very uneasy that many of the donors would be paying for Trump’s legal bills rather than building a political campaign.
The chairman of the Republican National at the time was Ronna McDaniel, one of the high rollers that Peltz gathered, along with the hedge-fund manager John helmed and the casino tycoon Steve Wynn. He invited Musk as well.
For much of his career, Musk gave modestly to candidates of both parties. He was drawn to President Barack Obama, making several visits to meet with him in the Oval Office and inviting him to Cape Canaveral to see SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. But he didn’t really like spending time with politicians, and never aspired to be a political power broker, at least in the traditional sense. His business empire spanned the globe, and administrations everywhere came and went. He seemed to view himself as being bigger than any party.
