Who Are the Billionaires Backing Trump or Harris? Bloomberg dug into its Billionaire Index to find out which candidates the super-wealthy are supporting.
By David James
Key Takeaways
- Bloomberg's analysis of the Federal Election Commission shows that Trump has gotten at least $24.4 million from 13 members of the Billionaires Index.
- Harris has received $12.8 million from 20 people.
If you are a registered voter, there is a very good chance that you are besieged on a daily basis by texts and emails from campaign fundraisers begging you for money. As annoying as it is, it works. In the first full month of her candidacy, Vice President Kamala Harris's campaign announced it raised $361 million from nearly 3 million donors. Former President Donald Trump's team says he raised $130 million over the same period and had $327 million going into August.
That's a lot of money coming in from a lot of sources. And one of those sources is billionaires. Bloomberg's Kristine Owram and Bill Allison used Federal Election Commission data as of August to find members of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index who've donated to the Harris or Trump campaigns. They also included some billionaires like Elon Musk and Bill Ackman who "don't show up in the FEC data but have endorsed one of the candidates."
Related: How Billionaires, Millionaires and Market Analysts Are Reacting to the Trump-Harris Debate
Their research found that Trump has gotten at least $24.4 million from 13 members of the Billionaires Index and Harris has received $12.8 million from 20 people. Here are some of the more high-profile billionaire backers. Visit Bloomberg to see the entire list.
Trump's Billionaire Backers
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and X
- Net Worth: $236.8 billion
Stephen Schwarzman, Chairman of Blackstone
- Net Worth: $45.8 billion
Miriam Adelson, Majority shareholder of Las Vegas Sands
- Net Worth: $32.1 billion
Woody Johnson, Owner of the New York Jets
- Net Worth: $8.7 billion
Joe Ricketts, Founder of TD Ameritrade
- Net Worth: $7.6 billion
Bernie Marcus, Co-founder of Home Depot
- Net Worth: $7.2 billion
Harris's Billionaire Backers
Eric Schmidt, Former CEO of Alphabet
- Net Worth: $30.2 billion
Christy Walton, Daughter-in-law of Walmart founder Sam Walton
- Net Worth: $15.4 billion
Melinda French Gates, Former co-chair of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
- Net Worth: $13.5 billion
Steven Spielberg, Filmmaker
- Net Worth: $9.3 billion
Mark Cuban, Co-owner of the Dallas Mavericks
- Net Worth: $7.6 billion
Joe Gebbia, Co-founder of Airbnb
- Net Worth: $7.4 billion
Reed Hastings, Co-founder of Netflix
- Net Worth: $5.9 billion
Undeclared
As of yet, Bloomberg notes that these big-name billionaires have yet to officially endorse or donate to a candidate:
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms
- Net Worth: $177.9 billion
Bill Gates, Co-founder of Microsoft
- Net Worth: $156.9 billion
Warren Buffett, Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway
- Net Worth: $144.9 billion
Peter Thiel, Founding partner of Founders Fund
- Net Worth: $11.3 billion
Rupert Murdoch, Former chairman of News Corp.
- Net Worth: $10.5 billion
