Reclusive Mellon Heir Donates $50M to Trump Super PAC

Reclusive billionaire Timothy Mellon, a day after former President Donald Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts in New York City, donated $50 million to the pro-Trump super PAC Make America Great Again Inc., marking one of the largest single contributions ever made to a presidential campaign, according to new federal filings.

Mellon, 81, heir to the Mellon banking fortune and the grandson of late Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, is the first donor giving $100 million in disclosed federal contributions this election cycle, with $25 million each already going to super PACs representing Trump and independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., The New York Times reported.

MAGA Inc. said it will start reserving $100 million in ads through Labor Day days after getting the $50 million windfall. The PAC started reserving $30 million in ads this week that will air in Pennsylvania and Georgia around the Fourth of July.

At the end of April, the super PAC had $34.5 million, but Mellon's contribution was a major part of the nearly $70 million raised in May after the Trump trial.

Mellon's contributions to Kennedy have been toggled along with those for Trump, with him donating $5 million to the Kennedy super PAC in April.

Meanwhile, further large donations are either pouring into Trump's campaign or are on their way. Miriam Adelson, a casino billionaire and widow of megadonor Sheldon Adelson, who died in 2021, said her family plans to donate $90 million to the Trump campaign, as much money as the Adelsons gave him in 2020.

Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, a couple from Illinois who are among the Republican Party's largest donors, gave $5 million to MAGA Inc. in May. Billionaire energy executive Kelcy Warren, the chairman and chief executive of Energy Transfer Partners, builders of the Dakota Access pipeline, gave $5 million.

Meanwhile, outside groups supporting President Joe Biden have announced more than $1 billion in spending, anchored by $250 million in reserved funding from Future Forward, the leading pro-Biden super PAC.

Trump's MAGA Inc., was initially seeded through $60 million from Trump's Save America political action committee before he declared his campaign for the presidency. However, Trump asked for that money to be refunded, and MAGA Inc. returned it to Save America, which has been helping to pay his legal bills.

Mellon, meanwhile, has gained a reputation for being reclusive, despite the huge checks he's cut to Republicans, including a $10 million donation to a GOP super PAC, the first of nine eight-figure donations to Republican groups.

Mellon has also donated $53 million worth of stock to help pay for the private construction of a border wall in Texas.

Next month, he's publishing a book, "panam.captain" about the work he did in turning around Pan Am Systems, several companies including aviation, rail, and marketing corporations.

Mellon also has self-published an autobiography that was pulled down in 2016 after some passages were deemed questionable, including a line claiming Black people had become "even more belligerent" after the expansion of social programs in the 1960s and 1970s.