00:00Today on Forbes, the true story of Trump's $75 million backer.
00:07The biggest donor in American politics today doesn't talk to reporters much, deriding
00:12the press as, quote, the propaganda arm of the federal government and the bureaucracy.
00:18So it came as little surprise when Timothy Mellon, a Gilded Age heir who has emerged
00:23as a modern power player, largely ignored a series of questions sent to him asking about
00:28his family, background, and political philosophy.
00:32Mellon responded with only a URL, linking to a story about an airplane flying over the
00:37Hamptons where Biden was hosting a post-debate fundraiser with a one-word trailer behind
00:42it, quote, Buy Done, spelled B-I hyphen D-O-N-E.
00:48Mellon has 76.5 million reasons to gloat in the wake of Biden's disastrous debate performance.
00:55No one has spent more trying to reinstall Trump in the White House.
00:59Linda McMahon, the WWE mogul who served in Trump's cabinet, has given the second most
01:04of any donor, $11.1 million, or about one-seventh as much as Mellon.
01:11Forty-three percent of all money that has gone into Trump's main super PAC, Make America
01:15Great Again, Inc., has come from the 81-year-old heir.
01:20Here's what's even more remarkable.
01:22Mellon is dumping in that much money without the kind of fortune that allows other billionaires
01:26— think Bloomberg or Adelson — to give away hundreds of millions of dollars without
01:31blinking.
01:32While those tycoons hold stakes in cash-gushing businesses worth tens of billions of dollars,
01:38Forbes thinks Mellon could be worth close to $1 billion, based on his inheritance and
01:43proceeds from the sale of his railroad company.
01:46He insists his fortune is even smaller.
01:48In another brusque email, he responded, quote,
01:51"'BILLIONAIRE NOT'."
01:54NOT was in all caps.
01:55He added, quote,
01:56"'NEVER HAVE BEEN, NEVER WILL BE.'"
02:00In any case, it's a remarkably modest sum, considering he has given federal political
02:04committees a total of $237 million, plus at least another $60 million to state candidates
02:11and the border wall.
02:14Despite being the grandson of banking titan Andrew Mellon, Timothy Mellon has earned a
02:18surprising amount of his money himself.
02:21His father used the family fortune to enjoy a life in aristocracy, devoting enough time
02:26to horses that he became a member of the National Racing Hall of Fame.
02:30Timothy Mellon, by contrast, went to work, borrowing from the Mellon Bank to buy three
02:35struggling railroads in the early 1980s and building them over four decades into a $600
02:41million empire.
02:43In a 2015 memoir, he wrote, quote,
02:46"'I have never been without a comfortable financial cushion, although I have always
02:49felt the need to use my brainpower to augment what I started with.'"
02:54He kept grinding until a month before his 80th birthday in 2022, when he finally cashed
02:59out and turned his attention more fully toward elections.
03:04Mellon's political philosophy has shifted over the years, but he has always strayed
03:08from the crowd.
03:10Coming from a family of Republican royalty — his grandfather served as Treasury Secretary
03:14for three Republican presidents — Timothy lurched left as a young man, routing money
03:19to causes backed by Gloria Steinem and Ralph Nader.
03:23When he got into the railroad business, employees demanded support of their unions.
03:27He went to war with them instead.
03:30More recently, he has not only spent mind-bending sums supporting Donald Trump, but he also
03:35has poured $25 million into Robert F. Kennedy's Super PAC, contributing more than half of
03:40its revenue.
03:43Mellon may not be answering questions much these days, but in a rare interview with Forbes
03:4736 years ago, he offered a window into his worldview.
03:51He said, quote,
03:52"'If you believe in something, what others call you is irrelevant.'"
03:57Heir to an heir, Timothy Mellon never had to wonder whether his family had money.
04:02The fortune began with his great-grandfather, an Irish immigrant named Thomas Mellon, who
04:07started a Pittsburgh banking empire shortly after the Civil War.
04:11Thomas eventually welcomed his children into the business, including Andrew, Timothy's
04:15grandfather.
04:16Andrew invested in companies like Gulf Oil, a predecessor to Chevron, before serving in
04:21the cabinets of Presidents Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover.
04:27He left a reported $22.7 million in 1930-something dollars, equivalent to roughly $500 million
04:33today, for his three grandchildren, including Timothy.
04:38Andrew Mellon also left enough for his son, Paul Mellon, to live a life of luxury, in
04:42which he obsessed over horses and penned an autobiography titled Reflections in a Silver
04:47Spoon.
04:49It's unclear how much Paul Mellon left to Timothy and his sister, though he bequeathed
04:53$110 million to his second wife, according to a book by Meryl Gordon, and left more than
04:58$200 million to charity.
05:02For full coverage, and to read our in-depth story about Timothy Mellon, check out Phoebe
05:06Liu and Zach Everson's piece on Forbes.com.
05:11This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes.
05:13Thanks for tuning in.
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