They gave Donald Trump millions. Here's what they want
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For many of America’s top business and finance leaders, backing Trump in his quest to return to the White House was a straightforward financial investment that in some cases is already paying off handsomely. It’s not unusual for presidents to hand out diplomatic posts to — and make policy to benefit — their supporters. What happens next could be at another level.
“Megadonors can have a variety of financial, ideological, or personal motivations for pouring millions into politics,” Brendan Fischer, deputy executive director of Documented, an investigative watchdog group, told CBS News. “These motivations can operate on a spectrum or as a Venn diagram.”
Let’s take a look at who’s given, and what they might be getting from Donald Trump’s second trip to Washington.
Elon Musk: $200 million
No one bet bigger or collected faster than the world’s richest man. Musk spent more than $200 million through his America PAC to support Trump in the last months of the campaign. And since Trump won the election, Musk’s net worth has jumped by almost $67 billion, or more than 25%, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Musk built a ground operation that reportedly had mixed success. But he also used his social media network X, formerly Twitter, to pump out hundreds of millions of messages supporting Trump — many of them filled with misinformation, according to the fact-checking website Politifact. In fact, as Vanity Fair writer Clive Irving argues, Musk was so effective at building Trump’s base that he’s replaced Rupert Murdoch, the Fox News creator, as Trump’s most valuable media ally.
That’s given Musk some hefty rewards. Just the notion that his closeness to Trump will bend federal policies in as-yet-undetermined ways to benefit SpaceX and Tesla has boosted Tesla stock by 40% since the election. But the rewards for Musk could be greater: A study by The New York Times last month mapped $3 billion worth of business with the U.S. government spread across nearly 100 contracts with 17 federal agencies. The big player there is SpaceX, which has $15.4 billion in contracts with the government, including $3.6 billion with the Defense Department and $11.8 billion with NASA. Musk’s disparaging comments about NASA and the success of his Falcon 9 rocket in fulfilling NASA contracts have space watchers wondering if Musk’s aim is to effectively replace NASA’s operational arms with his own company.
The big unknown for Musk is Trump’s crowd-pleasing call for 60% tariffs on Chinese imports, and his MAGA pledge that would halt Biden administration subsidies for electric vehicles. The threat of reciprocal tariffs from China could effectively shut Tesla out of that country’s EV market, where Tesla has only a 7.8% market share. Trump famously hates to be indebted to anyone, but Musk may be able to engineer some wiggle room on Trump’s policies.
Timothy Mellon: $150 million
The 81-year-old heir to the steel and banking fortune donated $150 million to pro-Trump PACs, and $25 million to Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s campaign, in an apparent bid to siphon votes from then-candidate Joe Biden. But Mellon seems to have few business interests these days. “No one really knows what he’s up to or what motivates him,” said a Trump adviser, who surmised that Mellon’s large donation after Trump’s New York criminal conviction was motivated by that event but acknowledged, “I don’t know what his issues are.” Timothy’s grandfather, the banker Andrew Mellon, bankrolled Warren G.Harding’s presidency and earned himself a spot as Treasury Secretary. Timothy Mellon appears to have sold his last remaining business interest, a railroad, in 2020.
“I think what it comes down to is he wants to be left alone, and he wants no one to tax him,” one member of the Mellon family told Vanity Fair. “It’s that libertarian viewpoint that’s become radicalized.”
Miriam Adelson: $100 million
With her late husband Sheldon, a Las Vegas casino magnate and an outspoken supporter of Israel and its right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Adelson has given about $100 million to Trump’s campaign. She owns the Las Vegas Sands casino, a right-wing Israeli tabloid newspaper called Israel Hayom (Israel Today), and with her family owns the Las Vegas Review-Journal. She is also the majority owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team. Adelson’s payback is likely to be more political than financial. Adelson was influential in Trump’s Middle East policy in his first term, and Trump moved the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which the Adelsons had been pushing the U.S. to do for more than a decade. Trump also awarded Miriam the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
This time around, Trump has named three Adelson favorites to top foreign policy posts: Trump‘s pick for ambassador to Israel, the evangelical Mike Huckabee, was given the Adelson Defender of Israel Award in 2013. Trump’s U.N. Ambassador pick, Rep. Elise Stefanik, won the same award this year. And Sen. Marco Rubio, Trump’s pick for Secretary of State has long been a recipient of Adelson largesse.
Diana Hendricks: $15 million
The former Playboy Bunny’s Hendricks Holding Co., has a diverse portfolio, from insurance and steakhouses to trucking and aluminum siding, which she founded with her late husband Ken. Now 77, Hendricks donated big to Trump’s last campaign and benefitted significantly from a tax change the Trump administration pushed through easing taxes on large landholdings.
Robert Bigelow: $14 million
The space-obsessed hotelier made his fortune in short-stay accommodation with Budget Suites of America, and in 1998 started a space technology company that built an add-on to the International Space Station, before devising an inflatable space station. The project never took off, and in 2020, Bigelow shut the company and transferred its assets to NASA.
Energy Transfer LP: $10 million
A major oil and gas pipeline company — run by Thomas Long, Marshall “Mackie” McCrea, and founder Kelcy Warren — see Trump’s plans to boost U.S. oil and gas drilling and exports as good for their business. Trump will bring “a breath of fresh air” for the oil and gas industry, McCrea said last week on the company’s quarterly earnings call. “We’re not arguing that we don’t need to be regulated,” he said, “but what we’re asking for is reasonable, not onerous regulation.”
Andreessen Horowitz: $7 million
The Silicon Valley venture firm has a host of investments that will bloom if Trump follows through on de-regulating cryptocurrency and easing liquidity rules on banks and financial services, not to mention Trump’s plans to lower the headline corporate income tax rate to 15% and cut taxes for the ultra-wealthy. Co-founder Mark Andreesen’s net worth is reported at $1.9 billion by Forbes.
Howard Lutnik: $6 million
Lutnik and other partners and employees in his mid-sized Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald got a lot of bang for their buck. Lutnik is leading Trump’s transition team. And after losing out in the race to become Treasury Secretary (no one had won yet as of Friday), he’s been nominated for Secretary of Commerce. The job will have a lot to do with tariffs, Lutnik’s passion. He recently told a gathering that America was at its richest at the end of the 19th century, when the country had yet to implement an income tax and most government spending was funded by tariffs. Never mind that Social Security and Medicare didn’t exist, there was no Border Patrol, and the average life expectancy back then was about 44 years (Lutnik is 63).
Elliott Management: $5 million
Under its notoriously adversarial CEO Paul Singer, the $70 billion activist investor fund stands to benefit immensely from Trump’s tax and regulatory policies. Singer, who back in 2016 tried to keep Trump from getting into the White House, appears to have changed his tune. Elliott would benefit from eased income taxes and a rollback of the corporate tax rate, as well as continued favorable treatment for carried interest, a money manager’s favorite, and Trump’s long-promised evisceration of regulators including the Securities and Exchange Commission. Singer has also been mentioned as a possible candidate for Treasury Secretary.
