The top 20 billionaires influencing American politics - WaPo

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In the past decade, billionaires have been more empowered than ever before to spend money to influence American elections.

The 20 most prolific donors on the Forbes billionaires list have collectively given nearly $5 billion between 2015 and 2024, spending on everything from state ballot measures to congressional elections and presidential races. Some have concentrated on supporting issues of interest. Finance billionaire Jeff Yass has poured millions into supporting pro-school-choice candidates in his home state of Pennsylvania and across the country.

While some billionaires have given similar amounts to both parties, the most prolific donors gave almost exclusively to one party. In federal races, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman gave just under 90 percent of his total donations to Democrats and liberal committees; all the other top 20 donors were even more lopsided. Nobody gave over $5 million to both Republicans and Democrats.

The Post’s analysis was confined to billionaires identified by Forbes, so some prolific donors, such as conservative investor Tim Mellon, who donated $197 million to influence federal elections last year, are absent from the count.

While the super-rich give massive sums of money, their political giving is often not a major expenditure given their massive net worths. The top donor, Miriam Adelson (along with her late husband, Sheldon), gave about $658 million to influence elections between 2015 and 2024. At a net worth of $32.1 billion, that represents about 2 percent of her current net worth. For a typical American family, worth about $191,000, that would be like giving $390 a year to political candidates. Elon Musk gave $294 million in 2024 alone, comparable to a typical family spending about $160.

We spent a year investigating billionaires for @washingtonpost.com.

We found: the wealthiest 100 Americans gave .1 billion to influence the 2024 elections — 140x more than they did in 2000. And almost all of that giving boosted Republicans.

washingtonpost.com/politics/int...

— ence morse (@ence.bsky.social) 2025-11-21T14:56:37.611Z

The partisan divide has grown, too. The wealthiest 100 tended to give more to Republicans than to Democrats before last year. But giving to the GOP spiked in 2024, with *84%* of donations going to back Republicans or conservative PACs.

— ence morse (@ence.bsky.social) 2025-11-21T14:56:58.303Z