Post by the Scribe on Feb 4, 2021 6:21:55 GMT
THE BILLIONAIRES BACKING DONALD TRUMP'S CAMPAIGN
www3.forbes.com/business/here-are-the-billionaires-backing-donald-trumps-campaign-vue/?utm_campaign=Here-Are-The-Billionaires-Backing-Donald&utm_source=Outbrain&utm_medium=ob182177d3us03&lcid=ob182177d3us03&utm_content=0052c780f1716a81944ed9a75df4bc30bc&utm_term=Shore+News+Network&dicbo=v1-eb9e699df6f01620bcac7ceb09e8f6d2-00ade71dacf3187f055570427eedb3fee0-my2domzvgi3weljuga3wcljuha3tsllcgy4tsljxgy3tqnzsgmzdmylfgq
Nearly five years ago Donald Trump descended an escalator inside Trump Tower and announced a long-shot bid to become president of the United States. Standing on a stage in the building’s lobby, in front of eight American flags, he spoke to a gaggle of cameras. “I’m using my own money,” Trump said, indicating that he would self-fund his campaign. “I’m not using the lobbyists. I’m not using donors. I don’t care. I’m really rich.” Contributions made by nearly all donors were made to two joint fundraising committees, Trump Make America Great Again Committee or Trump Victory and then transferred in part to the Donald J. Trump For President Committee.
Trump’s billionaire backers, ordered by amount given:
#29 Charles & Helen Dolan
Net worth: $4.7 billion
Source of wealth: Cable television
Contributions: $125,000
Gave to 2016 Trump campaign? No
Cable pioneer Charles Dolan, along with his wife Helen and 6 children, owns controlling stakes in AMC Networks and The Madison Square Garden Company. Dolan sold Cablevision, the cable giant he launched in 1973 with 1,500 customers, to billionaire Patrick Drahi’s Altice for $17.7 billion in 2016. After dropping out of John Carroll University, the Cleveland native got his start creating sports newsreels for TV stations from his home. He moved to New York in 1952, making industrial films before wiring lower Manhattan with cable and founding HBO’s predecessor, which he sold in 1973. He is the chairman emeritus of the Lustgarten Foundation, the largest private funder of pancreatic cancer research in the world.
#28 Ronald Perelman
Net worth: $7.3 billion
Source of wealth: Leveraged buyouts
Contributions: $125,000
Gave to 2016 Trump campaign? No
Ronald Perelman is a dealmaker who built a fortune with a diverse array of holdings, from candy to cosmetics. He earned a reputation in the 1980s as one of the era’s fiercest corporate raiders. He is a longtime shareholder of cosmetics giant Revlon; his daughter Debra became the firm’s CEO in 2018. Perelman learned about business from his father. He attended board meetings with him while in elementary school. He is a prolific art collector with thousands of items in his portfolio.
#27 Tilman & Paige Fertitta
Net worth: $4.7 billion
Source of wealth: Houston Rockets, entertainment
Contributions: $140,000
Gave to 2016 Trump campaign? No
Tilman Fertitta is the owner of the Houston Rockets. The NBA approved the $2.2 billion purchase by Fertitta in October 2017. Fertitta also owns the Golden Nugget Casinos and Landry’s, a Texas-based restaurant and entertainment company. Landry’s brands include Landry’s Seafood House, Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. and Saltgrass Steak House. Fertitta took Landry’s private in 2010 in a deal worth $1.4 billion. Fertitta released his first book titled “Shut Up And Listen!” in September, detailing his experiences in the dining and entertainment industries.
#26 Stephen & Melinda Winn
Net worth: $1.6 billion
Source of wealth: Real estate services
Contributions: $150,000
Gave to 2016 Trump campaign? Yes, $100,000
Stephen Winn is the founder and CEO of RealPage, a firm that provides rental management software to landlords across the nation. Its products help landlords manage finances and compliance requirements, and enable tenants to pay rent and file maintenance requests electronically. An electrical engineer by training, Winn started his career working for his father’s accounting software firm, Computer Language Research. He eventually took over as CEO of the family business, and founded RealPage in 1998. Winn took the Texas company public in 2010; he owns around fifteen percent of the stock.
#25 Ronald & Joyce Wanek
Net worth: $2.4 billion
Source of wealth: Furniture
Contributions: $170,000
Gave to 2016 Trump campaign? No
Ronald Wanek is the founder of America’s largest home furniture manufacturer and retailer, Ashley Furniture. He started his first furniture manufacturing business, Arcadia Furniture, in 1970 with a loan from his father and money he got from selling his home. In 1976, he bought retailer Ashley Furniture, which had been around since the 1940s. He remains chairman of Ashley Furniture; his son Todd, also a billionaire, has been CEO since 2002. Wanek has donated millions to the Mayo Clinic to help improve treatment for a heart defect that affected his granddaughter at birth.
#24 Charles & Lisa Simonyi
Net worth: $4.1 billion
Source of wealth: Microsoft
Contributions: $200,000
Gave to 2016 Trump campaign? Yes, $52,700
Early Microsoft employee Charles Simonyi is the man behind some of the company’s most successful software, including Word and Excel. The developer has a Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford, and worked on one of the first personal computers at Xerox. He joined Microsoft, then a fledgling firm, as employee No. 40 in 1981, and spent two decades in application development. A native of Hungary, he left Microsoft and in 2002 and founded Intentional Software, which develops platforms for productivity apps. Microsoft acquired Intentional Software in April 2017 for an undisclosed price, bringing Simonyi back to the Redmond, Washington giant. He supports arts and science initiatives, including a $5 million gift to the University of Washington for a computer science building in 2017.
#23 Joe Liemandt
Net worth: $3 billion
Source of wealth: Software
Contributions: $200,000
Gave to 2016 Trump campaign? No
Joe Liemandt is the founder of ESW Capital, an investment firm that purchases software companies. ESW Capital has purchased dozens of small U.S.software companies with a strategy of moving their workforce to foreign freelance workers. Liemandt is known for founding Trilogy Software, a product and sales configuration software company that was prominent in the 1990s. He dropped out of Stanford U. to start Trilogy Software. By age 27, he was on the cover of Forbes magazine. A few months later, he appeared as the youngest self-made member of the 1996 issue of The Forbes 400 , with a $500 million net worth.
#22 Ronald Lauder
Net worth: $4 billion
Source of wealth: Estée Lauder
Contributions: $200,000
Gave to 2016 Trump campaign? No
Ronald Lauder is the youngest son of makeup maven Estée Lauder, who founded her eponymous beauty company in 1946. He became the chairman of Clinique Laboratories in 1994 and still occupies that position today. Lauder spent a total of 40 years as a board member. He stepped off in 2009, but was reelected to the board in 2016. The president of the World Jewish Congress and Trump donor, Lauder has informally advised the White House on Israel. Lauder served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for NATO affairs from 1983 to 1986 and was ambassador to Austria for one year.
#21 Ken & Sherrilyn Fisher
Net worth: $4.4 billion
Source of wealth: Money management
Contributions: $250,000
Gave to 2016 Trump campaign? Yes, $50,000
Fisher is executive chairman and co-chief investment officer of Fisher Investments, which he founded in 1979 with $250. The firm ended 2018 with $94 billion in assets under management. The author of 11 books, 6 of which are national best sellers, he now writes for USA Today, the Financial Times and several other publications. In the summer of 1964, a 13-year-old Fisher earned $1.20 an hour picking fruit, sawing and fertilizing in his native San Mateo County, California. Fisher dropped out of high school “because it was a waste of time” and headed to community college where he could “take better classes.”
#20 Peter Thiel
Net worth: $2.3 billion
Source of wealth: Facebook, Palantir
Contributions: $250,000
Gave to 2016 Trump campaign? Yes, $250,000
PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel became a venture capitalist and early investor in Facebook. He also cofounded CIA-backed big data startup Palantir, recently valued at around $20 billion. Thiel, the first big investor in Facebook, has sold most of his stake in the social network but still sits on the company’s board. His Thiel Foundation gives a small number of young entrepreneurs $100,000 over two years to skip college and pursue their business dreams. Thiel moved to Los Angeles from San Francisco in early 2018 after calling Silicon Valley a “one-party state.”
#19 Stewart Rahr
Net worth: $2.3 billion
Source of wealth: Drug distribution
Contributions: $250,000
Gave to 2016 Trump campaign? Yes, $449,650
Stewart Rahr expanded Kinray, a pharmaceutical distributor his father founded in 1944, and sold it to Cardinal Health in 2010 for $1.3 billion (cash). Rahr is known for his extravagant lifestyle, which he funds through conservative investments in private equity, hedge funds and natural resources. After getting a bachelor’s in history at NYU, he briefly attended NYU Law before dropping out to run the family business. He has a sizable art collection that includes works by Picasso, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons and Alexander Calder. He has donated over $25 million to Make-A-Wish, a nation-wide nonprofit that grants the wishes of critically ill children.
#18 Thomas Peterffy
Net worth: $16.2 billion
Source of wealth: Discount brokerage
Contributions: $250,000
Gave to 2016 Trump campaign? Yes, $100,000
A digital trading pioneer, Thomas Peterffy is CEO of Interactive Brokers, which markets its specialized trading platform to sophisticated investors. He founded Interactive Brokers in 1993 after originally starting in market-making. In March 2017, he announced part of his market-making operation would phase out. It had been under attack by faster competitors. Peterffy arrived in America in 1965 at age 21, the penniless descendant of Hungarian aristocrats who lost nearly everything to the Soviets. Peterffy is a major landowner with more than 500,000 acres of timberland, primarily located in Florida, the state where he lives.
#17 Farris & Jo Ann Wilks
Net worth: $1.2 billion
Source of wealth: Natural gas
Contributions: $250,250
Gave to 2016 Trump campaign? No
Farris and his brother Dan got a combined $3.5 billion (pretax) in 2011 selling their fracking company to a group led by Singapore-based firm Temasek. The brothers have acquired more than 672,000 acres of land in six different states across the West, becoming America’s 12th-largest landowners. The brothers began their careers as stone masons, like their father, founding Wilks Masonry in 1995. In 2002 they went into fracking, launching Frac Tech and growing it into an oil and natural gas giant before cashing out less than a decade later. The brothers are also investing in oil and gas businesses, including Canadian oilfield services company Trican Well Service.
#16 John Paulson
Net worth: $4.2 billion
Source of wealth: Hedge funds
Contributions: $331,372
Gave to 2016 Trump campaign? Yes, $250,000
John Paulson made his fortune betting against subprime mortgages at the peak of the 2007 credit bubble. His hedge fund firm, Paulson & Co., was started in 1994 and enjoyed success as a niche fund until Paulson put on his “big short.” Paulson’s foundation has committed nearly $2 billion to charity. Paulson’s hedge funds managed $36 billion at their peak, but by the end of 2018 they totaled about $6 billion. A Queens native, Paulson had stints at several firms, including Boston Consulting Group and Bear Stearns, before founding Paulson & Co.
#15 Linda McMahon, wife of Vincent McMahon
Spouse’s net worth: $1.9 billion
Source of wealth: Entertainment
Contributions: $360,600
Gave to 2016 Trump campaign? Yes, $152,700
In a 2007 IRS filing, the McMahon family was listed as the Trump Foundation’s biggest donor. Following the WWE Hall of Famer’s election to the highest office in 2016, President Donald Trump, who hosted WrestleManias IV and V from his Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, appointed Linda McMahon as Chief of the Small Business Administration. McMahon left her post in 2019 to become chair of the aforementioned America First Action.
#16 John Paulson
Net worth: $4.2 billion
Source of wealth: Hedge funds
Contributions: $331,372
Gave to 2016 Trump campaign? Yes, $250,000
John Paulson made his fortune betting against subprime mortgages at the peak of the 2007 credit bubble. His hedge fund firm, Paulson & Co., was started in 1994 and enjoyed success as a niche fund until Paulson put on his “big short.” Paulson’s foundation has committed nearly $2 billion to charity. Paulson’s hedge funds managed $36 billion at their peak, but by the end of 2018 they totaled about $6 billion. A Queens native, Paulson had stints at several firms, including Boston Consulting Group and Bear Stearns, before founding Paulson & Co.
#14 Christopher “Kit” & Angela Goldsbury
Net worth: $1.7 billion
Source of wealth: Salsa
Contributions: $400,000
Gave to 2016 Trump campaign? Yes, $52,500
Christopher “Kit” Goldsbury’s fortune comes from selling salsa maker Pace Foods to Campbell Soup for $1.12 billion in 1994. Goldsbury worked on the assembly line at Pace in 1969, two years after marrying founder David Pace’s daughter Linda. He became president in 1977. After Goldsbury and Linda separated in 1987, Goldsbury purchased her half for $95 million, a fraction for what he sold it for seven years later. The San Antonio billionaire is backing the revitalization of the downtown Pearl neighborhood through his private equity firm Silver Ventures.
#13 Darwin Deason
Net worth: $1.3 billion
Source of wealth: Xerox
Contributions: $405,000
Gave to 2016 Trump campaign? Yes, $449,400
Tech entrepreneur Darwin Deason sold his Affiliated Computer Services to Xerox in 2010 for $6.4 billion. The day after he graduated high school, the Arkansas native moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma and got a job as a mail boy at Gulf Oil. Deason eventually joined Dallas data-processing firm MTech; he became its CEO at age 29 after all but his division failed. He sold it in 1988. Within days of sale, he started ACS to handle computer and other business process services for clients such as E-ZPass.
#12 Phillip Ruffin & Oleksandra Nikolyenko-Ruffin
Net worth: $3.1 billion
Source of wealth: Casinos, real estate
Contributions: $695,400
Gave to 2016 Trump campaign? Yes, $625,000
Phil Ruffin owns the Treasure Island Hotel & Casino plus 50% of the Trump International Las Vegas hotel alongside friend Donald Trump. Son of a grocer, Ruffin dropped out of college to sell hamburgers with his buddies, then used the profits to buy convenience stores. From there he expanded into real estate: strip malls, office parks, and hotels, including Marriotts in Alabama, California and the Bahamas. In 1998 he bought the New Frontier Hotel & Casino for $165 million; he sold it for $1.2 billion in 2007 to Israeli billionaire Yitzhak Tshuva. He bought Treasure Island from MGM in 2009, amid the great recession, for $775 million. Now it’s worth twice as much. His first job was working at a W.T. Grant department store, where he once was tasked with repossessing a monkey a customer didn’t pay for.
#11 Stephen Schwarzman
Net worth: $16.8 billion
Source of wealth: Blackstone
Contributions: $699,400
Gave to 2016 Trump campaign? No
The son of a dry goods store owner, Stephen Schwarzman founded private equity firm Blackstone with fellow billionaire Peter Peterson in 1985. Initially a boutique merger-and-acquisition advisory business, Blackstone grew into the world’s largest buyout firm, with $545 billion in assets. While Peter Peterson (d. 2018) retired shortly after Blackstone’s 2007 IPO, Schwarzman still presides over the business as chairman and CEO. Schwarzman got his start on Wall Street at Lehman Brothers; he writes in his 2019 memoir about mistakes by management at that firm. He started his first business, a lawn-mowing operation, at age 14, employing his younger twin brothers to mow while he brought in the clients.
#10 Charles B. & Ann L. Johnson
Net worth: $3.7 billion
Source of wealth: Money management
Contributions: $700,000
Gave to 2016 Trump campaign? Yes, $210,800
Charles Johnson is the largest shareholder in Franklin Resources, a global investment management firm also called Franklin Templeton Investments. Johnson became CEO at age 24 in 1957, a decade after his father, Rupert Johnson Sr., founded the company. Johnson spent 56 years with the company before handing over the chairman’s post to his son, Gregory, who also serves as CEO, in 2013. Under his leadership, the firm’s assets under management rose from $2.5 million in 1957 to more than $800 billion when he retired. In 2012, Johnson and his wife donated their historic, 67,000-square-foot Carolands Chateau in Hillsborough, California to the Carolands Foundation.
#9 Kelcy & Amy Warren
Net worth: $2.5 billion
Source of wealth: Pipelines
Contributions: $721,200
Gave to 2016 Trump campaign? Yes, $100,000
Kelcy Warren cofounded pipeline company Energy Transfer with Ray C. Davis (now also a billionaire) in 1995. Warren’s fortune stems from publicly traded company Energy Transfer LP, of which he is CEO and chairman. In 2017, following protests, Energy Transfer finished building the $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline after an executive order from President Trump. Energy Transfer says the 1,172-mile pipeline can transport almost 500,000 barrels of oil daily.
#8 Isaac & Laura Perlmutter
Net worth: $4.2 billion
Source of wealth: Marvel comics
Contributions: $721,200
Gave to 2016 Trump campaign? Yes, $449,400
Isaac “Ike” Perlmutter beat out fellow billionaire Carl Icahn for control of bankrupt comic book firm Marvel in 1998; he serves as the chairman. He revived the company’s stock by producing action-hero movies like ‘Spiderman,’ ‘Daredevil,’ ‘Hulk’ and ‘Iron Man.’ In 2009, he sold a majority of Marvel to Disney for $4 billion in cash and stock. Perlmutter immigrated to the U.S. from Israel with just $250 in 1967 and sold toys on the streets of Brooklyn, where he was introduced to Marvel. He and his wife have donated over $50 million to cancer research at NYU Langone Medical Center.
#7 Lorenzo & Teresa Fertitta, Frank & Jill Fertitta
Net worth: $1.7 billion
Source of wealth: Casinos, mixed martial arts
Contributions: $721,200 each
Gave to 2016 Trump campaign? Yes, $793,000
Frank Fertitta III and his brother, Lorenzo, made the bulk of their fortune through mixed martial arts promoter UFC. The brothers bought UFC for $2 million in 2001; it sold to an investment group led by WME/IMG for $4 billion in 2016. They sold their remaining stakes in UFC in August 2017 at a $5 billion valuation. The Fertittas took their casino business, Red Rock Resorts, public in 2016. It was founded by their father. They each pledged $7.5 million in 2016 to NYU’s Stern School of Business for a scholarship for veterans.
#6 Jeffery & Melinda Hildebrand
Net worth: $2.5 billion
Source of wealth: Oil
Contributions: $775,000
Gave to 2016 Trump campaign? Yes, $2,700
Jeffrey Hildebrand cofounded Hilcorp in 1990; he later bought out his partner for $500 million. The former Exxon geologist has specialized in reinvigorating old oil and gas fields like in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska. He has built Hilcorp into America’s biggest privately owned oil company (by production volumes). In 2015, Hildebrand gave each of his 1,400 employees a $100,000 bonus after they doubled the size of his company in five years.
#5 Kenny & Lisa Troutt
Net worth: $1.5 billion
Source of wealth: Telecom
Contributions: $925,000
Gave to 2016 Trump campaign? Yes, $200,000
Kenny Troutt founded long-distance phone company Excel Communications in 1988 and took the company public in 1996. In 1998, Troutt sold Excel Communications to Teleglobe in a $3.5 billion deal and reinvested the profits in stocks, bonds and horses. An avid horse racing fan, Troutt owns WinStar Farm in Versailles, Kentucky, breeder of Thoroughbreds including a Kentucky Derby winner.
#4 Diane Hendricks
Net worth: $7.8 billion
Source of wealth: Roofing
Contributions: $935,600
Gave to 2016 Trump campaign? Yes, $212,700
Diane Hendricks chairs ABC Supply, one of the largest wholesale distributors of roofing, siding and windows in America. Hendricks cofounded the business with her late husband, Ken, in Beloit, Wisconsin, in 1982. She has run it since his death in 2007. She led ABC to make the two biggest acquisitions in its history, buying rival Bradco in 2010 and building materials distributor L&W Supply in 2016. The company has 780 branch locations and over $10 billion in sales. Hendricks sold custom homes for a builder before meeting Ken, a roofer. She has spent millions on local economic development, rebuilding entire blocks in Beloit and bringing in several new businesses to the state.
#3 Dennis & Phyllis Washington
Net worth: $5.9 billion
Source of wealth: Construction, mining
Contributions: $1 million
Gave to 2016 Trump campaign? No
Dennis Washington parlayed an early love of machinery into a diversified business group called Washington Companies. Washington owns a copper mine, a regional railroad and stakes in two diamond mines. After working for his uncle’s construction business, he struck out on his own with a $30,000 loan to start Washington Construction. Montana’s richest person also has an investment in Seaspan Corp., cofounded by son Kyle, which now has more than 110 container ships. Though he didn’t step onto a boat until age 45, he has since fixed up 9 including the one featured in the movie “Overboard.” He and his wife, Phyllis, have given $840 million to their foundation, which in turn has doled out $276 million to approximately 1,000 groups.
#2 Andrew Beal
Net worth: $8.1 billion
Source of wealth: Banks, real estate
Contributions: $1,038,400
Gave to 2016 Trump campaign? Yes, $549,400
Andrew Beal is the founder and owner of Beal Financial Corporation, which owns Beal Bank and has assets of more than $7 billion. The Texas banker is known for gobbling up distressed assets, including mortgages, bonds backed by commercial planes and IOUs to power plants. He made a tidy sum during the Great Recession, scooping up beaten-down assets while the nation’s biggest banks were being bailed out by taxpayers. Born in Lansing, Mich., he scraped together cash early on fixing used televisions. Beal, who dropped out of both Michigan State University and Baylor University, says he has subscribed to Forbes for over three decades.
#1 J. Joe & Marlene Ricketts
Net worth: $2.1 billion
Source of wealth: TD Ameritrade
Contributions: $1,050,600
Gave to 2016 Trump campaign? No
Online stock trading pioneer Joe Ricketts founded brokerage firm Ameritrade four decades ago in Omaha, Nebraska and took it public in 1997. His company acquired TD Waterhouse for $2.9 billion in stock and cash in 2006 and renamed itself TD Ameritrade. In 2011 Ricketts retired from the board of directors of TD Ameritrade; he still owns 7% of the company, making him the largest individual shareholder. Ricketts funded the construction of religious silent retreat center, the Cloisters on the Platte, in Nebraska, which hosted its first session in July. His four children are the majority owners of the Chicago Cubs, which won the World Series in 2016 for the first time in 108 years. His personal investments include High Plains Bison, which sells bison meat products, and Jackson Fork Lodge in Wyoming.
