Billionaire banking heir Tim Mellon gave $50m to Donald Trump’s election campaign after the former US president’s hush-money trial in New York, a sum that significantly boosted Trump’s post-conviction cash haul.
Mellon, a reclusive scion of the banking dynasty founded in America’s gilded age, gave the sum to Trump’s political action committee Make America Great Again. According to federal filings, Mellon, 81, has now given $75m to Trump, and $25m to a Pac fund supporting the independent candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr, this year.
Mellon’s gift to both candidates makes him the first donor to give $100m in disclosed federal contributions in this year’s election. His contribution is among the largest ever single disclosed contributions in American politics and highlights how the country’s billionaire class is rallying behind Trump.
Trump had been behind Joe Biden in fundraising, and his Pac campaign fund has spent upwards of $100m on legal fees relating to the criminal indictments he is facing, but Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings revealed on Thursday that after his conviction in New York his fundraising has soared.
Trump’s cash haul in May was so large, at $141m, that he erased Biden’s financial advantage in what is anticipated to be a tight election in November. Trump’s campaign had $116.6m in the bank at the end of May, compared with $91.6 for Biden, according to FEC filings.
The cash advantage comes ahead of a crucial campaign event in Atlanta, Georgia, next week at which the two candidates will face off in a 90-minute debate – the first that the men have joined since 2020.