tycoons beyond Elon Musk and Bill Gates who finance Trump and Kamala’s campaign

While waiting to see – through the results – whether this is true or not, many observers have focused on the seven states that do not show any specific favoritism and could therefore opt for one or the other. That is to say: the seven states that experts believe will decide which way the coin will fall.

However, and given the importance of money in any electoral process, and more particularly in the American one, there is another variable to which we do not give all the attention it deserves: the 134 American billionaires – the figure comes from the magazine Forbes– who are behind both campaigns.

According to data provided by the analysis team of the Financial Timesof the 3.8 billion dollars collected by the Republican Party and the Democratic Party In the current campaign, $695 million comes from donations from these billionaires. 18% of the total accumulated since the start of the electoral cycle.

According to the same study, in purely proportional terms, these people invested more money in Trump’s campaign than in that of Harris: about 30% of the revenue collected by the champion of the Republican Party and his allies came from there, compared to 6 % collected by the party. progressive candidate. Of course: in the overall calculation, that is to say also adding other donations, Harris is ahead of Trump by having collected 2.2 billion out of these 3.8 billion in total.

Quantitatively, Harris is also ahead of Trump: 82 billionaires would be positioned with her compared to the 52 billionaires who opt for him, according to calculations by Forbes.

Although many of these contributions manage to remain anonymous, some names have been revealed in recent months. And if it is true that sometimes these donations respond to an ideological conviction, in other cases the identity of these people allows us to glimpse how certain industries breathe in the face of challenges. Some of the most relevant ones are cited below.

Harris’ Billionaires

Dustin Moskovitzwho co-founded Facebook with Mark Zuckerberg while a student at Harvard, donated nearly $40 million to Harris’ campaign. The tycoon, whose fortune is estimated at $15 billion, is one of Elon Musk’s biggest critics.

Another billionaire behind Harris is Reid Hoffmanco-founder of LinkedIn, who took a little over $15 million – out of a fortune estimated at $2.5 billion – to devote to his campaign. Hoffman’s main problem with Trump appears to be economic; The tycoon believes that the Republican Party candidate’s proposals, which include the imposition of customs duties, will increase inflation.

Michael Bloomberg is also on the list. The former mayor of New York – and himself a candidate in previous Democratic Party primaries – has a fortune of $102 billion. An outspoken critic of Trump for years, Bloomberg last spring donated about $20 million to the Democratic Party campaign. However, and as reported by New York Timesit is likely that Bloomberg has invested more money anonymously in recent months.

There would then be Bill Gatesco-founder of Microsoft and one of the richest men in the world, who privately admitted to signing a support check worth $50 million.

Trump’s billionaires

Tim Mellonheir to one of the best-known families in the American banking network and a major donor to the entire campaign, contributed $150 million to Trump’s efforts. Mellon, who sympathized with the Democratic Party decades ago, began voting conservative with the arrival of Ronald Reagan in politics. In recent years, he has been very supportive of stopping migratory flows that end in the United States.

A short distance from Mellon is the richest man in the world, Elon Muskwho reportedly gave about $120 million to the Trump campaign. At the same time, Musk gave $1 million to several of the people who signed a text supporting the first two amendments to the US Constitution; which guarantees freedom of expression and the right to bear arms. Musk, a businessman highly critical of the country’s regulatory laws, has become increasingly involved in Trump events, to the point of performing at several of them.

Miriam Adelsonthe widow of tycoon Sheldon Adelson and owner of a Las Vegas casino, the newspaper Las Vegas Review Journalfrom the Israeli newspaper Hayom and majority shareholder of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, donated more than $100 to the Republican Party candidate. Again according to Forbeshis fortune would reach 34 billion dollars. The relationship between Adelson and Trump goes back a long way; During his presidency, the former president presented the businesswoman with a medal of civil merit for her initiatives against drug use and for her work on behalf of Israel.

Marriage is also on the list. UihleinLiz and Dick, owners of the Uline package company, who reportedly donated about $80 million to the right-wing candidate. In the statements he made to himself Financial Times Just under a year ago, Liz Uihlein complained about the inability to Joe Biden when it comes to protecting Red Sea trade routes from attacks by Houthi rebels. The Uihleins have never been particularly supportive of Trump’s methods and, in fact, Liz has supported Ron DeSantis in the Republican Party primaries, but they feel aligned with the political program he intends to promote if he reaches the White House.

Another marriage that funds Trump’s candidacy is that between Jeff and Janine Yass; he co-founded a company trade and a technology investment called Susquehanna International Group. With a fortune of between $30,000 and $50,000 million, they are considered the richest couple in Pennsylvania, one of the undecided states and therefore one of those that will decide the election. Until last spring, Jeff Yass, who invested part of his money in the social network TikTok, paid money to conservative anti-Trump candidates. However, after a meeting in March, Trump decided to change his previously critical stance on TikTok and today the Yass have contributed $100 million to his campaign..

Those who don’t get wet

Many billionaires prefer not to position themselves in the American political cycle. To the point of even bothering to come out and deny based on the information. Mark Zuckerbergfounder of Facebook and one of the richest men on the planet, denied through a spokesperson that he blurted out during a meeting with Trump that he did not intend to vote for the Democratic Party in these elections. Something similar happened with Jamie Dimonthe CEO of the JP Morgan Chase bank, who also denied, through a spokesperson, the suggestion – made by Trump himself – that he was going to vote for the Republican Party. Dimon, like Zuckerberg, refused to publicly say who his vote would go to.

Ray Daliothe founder of hedge fund the world’s largest, Bridgewater Associates, also declined to say who it would vote for and said that, personally, it would prefer moderate candidates. In this wake they remained Sergei Brin either Larry Ellisonco-founder of Google and co-founder of Oracle respectively, unwilling to openly show sympathy despite the former harshly criticizing Trump in 2016 and the latter donating millions of dollars to conservative causes in the past .