Here are Trump’s 10 biggest billionaire donors

WASHINGTON: The former president has plenty of rich friends, who are handing over a fortune to put him back in the White House—even though he is giving nothing.

“I don’t need anybody’s money—it’s nice,” Donald Trump said when he launched his 2016 presidential campaign, which personally cost him $66 million. “I’m not using donors.”

He did, in fact, rely on donors in 2016—but nowhere near as much as he is today. The former president has so far not given a dime to his campaign, while other billionaires have poured millions into groups that back him (and in some cases, other candidates as well).

The top 10 biggest billionaire donors are all longtime supporters of the former president, and they have already given $123 million to groups supporting Trump this cycle, according to the most recent Federal Election Commission filings.

1. Timothy Mellon

Donations to Trump groups: $76.5 million | Net worth: $1 billion+

A scion of the Mellon family, whose roughly $14 billion fortune dates to the Gilded Age, Timothy Mellon turned heads by plowing $50 million into a pro-Trump super-PAC the day after a New York jury convicted the former president on 34 felony charges. Mellon, who gave $20 million to another Trump group in 2020, launched a computer-programming company in the 1960s, then started buying railroads to form a firm, which he sold in 2022 for $600 million. He has also spent more than $1 million trying to find the wreckage of Amelia Earhart’s plane.

2. Linda McMahon (spouse of Vince McMahon)

Donations to Trump groups: $11.1 million | Net worth: $2.9 billion

McMahon, whose husband Vince turned a regional wrestling league into the multibillion-dollar World Wrestling Entertainment empire, served as head of the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first stint in the White House. She left her post to co-chair Trump’s main super-PAC ahead of the 2020 election. Her husband, Vince, resigned from his role as the executive chairman of WWE’s parent company in January amid sexual misconduct allegations. Today, Linda McMahon, who unsuccessfully ran for Senate in Connecticut in 2010 and 2012, chairs Trump-friendly nonprofit America First Policy Institute (Fox Business host Larry Kudlow is vice chair). She also serves on the board of the Trump Media and Technology Group.

3. Kelcy Warren

Donations to Trump groups: $5.8 million | Net worth: $6.3 billion

Warren is the executive chairman of Energy Transfer, the company that owns the Dakota Access Pipeline, which Trump helped expedite after taking office in 2017. The oil began to flow later that year, and Warren, who gave $100,000 to support Trump’s 2016 campaign, has remained loyal to the former president. He gave more than $11 million to support his reelection, and he has already dished out close to $6 million to pro-Trump groups this year.

4. Diane Hendricks

Donations to Trump groups: $5.5 million | Net worth: $20.9 billion

Donald Trump didn’t think much of it when former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker dropped out of the presidential race in 2015. “See if you can get his one vote, Corey,” Trump scoffed to his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski at the time. The real-estate mogul ended up luring Walker’s most important backer, Diane Hendricks, the richest self-made woman in America. Hendricks served as vice chair of one of Trump’s 2016 fundraising committees, donated more than $6 million during the 2020 cycle and has already given $5.5 million this round. A former Playboy bunny, Hendricks cofounded ABC Supply with her late husband Ken, then built it into a $20-billion construction materials behemoth.

5. Timothy Dunn

Donations to Trump groups: $5 million | Net worth: $2.2 billion

Dunn got rich in the oil fields of West Texas, where he founded a privately owned well operator named CrownQuest. He began giving to Trump in 2020 but scaled up his donations this cycle. In December, Dunn donated $5 million into Trump’s biggest super-PAC. Dunn has given another $2.5 million to other Republican committees, including ones supporting Indiana Representative Jim Banks and Florida Senator Rick Scott.

6. Elizabeth Uihlein

Donations to Trump groups: $5 million | Net worth: $6.6 billion

7. Richard Uihlein

Donations to Trump groups: $5 million | Net worth: $6.6 billion

Elizabeth and Richard Uihlein started the Wisconsin-based packaging materials company Uline out of their basement in 1980. Today, it does $6.1 billion in yearly sales, and the couple is worth a combined $13.2 billion. Their fortune has emerged as a critical source of cash for Republican campaigns in the past few cycles—Richard poured $84 million into the 2022 midterms alone. They have been somewhat consistent Trump backers, giving more than $500,000 to a pro-Trump group in 2016 and over $1 million in 2020. Richard, however, also gave $2 million to a group opposing Trump during the 2016 primary, and last year, the pair donated $3 million to a super-PAC supporting Trump challenger Ron DeSantis.

8. Phil Ruffin

Donations to Trump groups: $3.3 million | Net worth: $2.6 billion

Few billionaires are closer to Trump than Ruffin, who co-owns the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas with the former president. After Trump failed to secure more money from Deutsche Bank during his 2016 campaign, Trump and Ruffin took out a $30-million loan against the Vegas hotel. Over the next six weeks, Trump injected $12 million of his own money into his campaign. It’s all a rounding error for Ruffin, whose $2.6-billion empire also includes the Treasure Island and Circus Circus casinos, mainstays of the Vegas Strip.

9. Geoffrey Palmer

Donations to Trump groups: $3 million | Net worth: $3.1 billion

One of Los Angeles’ largest landlords, with more than 11,000 apartments in his portfolio, Palmer has long been involved in politics. His firm was fined in the 1990s for laundering California campaign funds to avoid contribution caps. Election rules aren’t as tight as they once were, though, and Palmer can now dump as much as he wants into federal elections. He contributed $6.3 million to Trump super-PACs in 2016 and $10.5 million to them in 2020. He has already handed over $3 million in 2024.

10. Robert “Woody” Johnson

Donations to Trump groups: $2.7 million | Net worth: $3.2 billion

The New York Jets owner, an heir to healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson, served as Trump’s ambassador to the United Kingdom. One of the tasks Trump reportedly assigned to him: securing the British Open for Trump Turnberry, a historic golf course that the former president purchased two-and-a-half years before taking office.

Johnson never lured the Open, but he has remained faithful to Trump, courting big-money Republicans who turned away after the Jan. 6 riot, according to CNBC.

Johnson has given groups that support Trump $1.9 million this cycle, and his wife Suzanne has chipped in more than $800,000.