FUNDRAISING WAR CHEST
2 26 MEBBE BELATED/ REDUND; THIS IS FOR GENERIC, CUMULATIVE COST OF ELECTIONS
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ep files 6 guys? 2 26
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indep uk 1 26?
President Donald Trump’s biggest donors during the first year of his second term consisted of artificial intelligence and tech CEOs, an equity boss on the board of TikTok’s parent company and people whose relatives were facing years in prison.
For many of the wealthy donors, contributing to the Trump-affiliated super PAC MAGA Inc. was something they had never done before.
A dozen of them gave at least $1 million to the super PAC in late 2024 and 2025, eclipsing any federal political donations they had given to others previously, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission records conducted by NBC News.
Contributing to Trump’s war chest will likely prove critical to the upcoming midterms,where Republicans could lose their slim majority in the House.
Among the biggest donors to MAGA Inc. last year was OpenAI CEO Greg Brockman, who gave $12.5 million in September 2025, while his wife Anna also gave the same amount on the same day, according to contribution filings.
President Donald Trump’s biggest donors during the first year of his second term consisted of artificial intelligence and tech CEOs, and individuals whose relatives were facing years in prison (AFP via Getty Images)
Until Brockman dropped the multimillion-dollar donation, the most he had ever contributed to political campaigns was around the $2,700 mark, a sum he gave to 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, and former Republican Rep. Patrick McHenry in 2018, according to NBC News.
Brockma the donation in a social media post on X in December 2025, where he praised Trump directly for his “willingness to engage directly with the AI community and approach emerging technology with a growth-focused mindset.”
“This year, my wife Anna and I started getting involved politically, including through political contributions, reflecting support for policies that advance American innovation and constructive dialogue between government and the technology sector,” Brockman wrote.
Alexander Karp, the CEO of data analysis firm Palantir, gave $1 million to MAGA Inc. in December 2024 as Trump was preparing to take office for a second time, filings show.
Palantir has long served as a government contractor, working with a variety of U.S. agencies on issues ranging from tax data to distributing vaccines, but the firm has occupied a prominent — and lucrative — role as the Trump administration pursues its mass deportation campaign.
In April 2025, the firm won a $30 million Immigration and Customs Enforcement contract to deliver an operating system tracking and managing deportations, as well as granting “near real-time visibility” on those who “self-deport.”
Another significant donation came from the CEO of equity firm General Atlantic, who contributed $1.25 million to MAGA Inc. a few days before Trump was inaugurated in January 2025.
For many of the wealthy donors, contributing to the Trump-affiliated super PAC MAGA Inc. in late 2024 and during 2025 was something they had never done before (Getty Images)
The company’s CEO, William Ford, is on the board of TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance, General Atlantic’s website says. Trump spent much of last year helping to negotiate an agreement between ByteDance and a consortium of American investors to spin off TikTok U.S. into its own venture to allay privacy concerns and the potential misuse of users’ data.
ByteDance last month signed a deal to sell its U.S. entity in a joint venture majority-controlled by American investors.
Two other donors to MAGA Inc. had relatives who were facing federal prison when they contributed to the Trump war chest, and those family members later received leniency from the administration, NBC News reported.
Isabela Herrera, the daughter of a Venezuelan-Italian billionaire banker whose father was accused of attempting to bribe the former Puerto Rican governor, donated $2.5 million to MAGA Inc. in December 2024, according to The New York Timesand NBC News.
A few months later, the Department of Justice dropped the most serious charges against Herrera’s father and authorized a misdemeanor plea deal.
Following the decision, in July 2025, Herrera donated $1 million to MAGA Inc., according to NBC News, citing recent FEC filings.
A Justice Department spokeswoman toldThe Timeslast month that “the decision to settle this case was made through the proper channels and was not influenced by any donation to MAGA Inc.”
Elsewhere, a prominent Republican donor, Elizabeth Fago, made her largest contribution to MAGA Inc. of $1 million in April 2025, NBC News reports. Her son, Paul Walczak, a former nursing home executive who had pleaded guilty to tax crimes, was sentenced to 18 months in prison shortly after the donation.
But he was pardoned by Trump after his mother attended a Mar-a-Lago fundraising dinner, where she reportedly spoke with the president directly. Walczak’s pardon application also cited his mother’s contributions to the president’s campaigns, according to reporting at the time.
A White House spokesperson who talked to The Timesanonymously at the time said that Fago's words, rather than her cash, convinced the president to give her son a break.
“He spoke directly to a mother who pleaded for her son, and when you’re talking to a mother pleading for her son, that’s a pretty powerful thing,” the source reportedly said.
A White House official also told The Times that Walczak was “targeted by the Biden administration over his family’s conservative politics.”
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Donald TrumpTechartificial intelligencePACRepublicansTikTokWhite House
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Democrats are poised to take back at least one chamber of Congress after this November's midterm elections according to the latest polls. But Republicans are hoping their significant fundraising advantage can give them a critical edge this fall.
That's according to a Tuesday article by the New York Times' Shane Goldmacher and Theodore Schleifer, who reported that the GOP is going into the midterm race with a cash haul significantly larger than the opposition. According to the Times, President Donald Trump's main super PAC is sitting in more than $304 million, and other well-funded super PACs affiliated with the cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence are expected to write big checks to Republicans this cycle.
Goldmacher and Schleifer also found that between Republicans' three main campaign arms, along with the the two GOP super PACs aligned with House and Senate Republicans, the majority party is heading into the midterms "with more than double the cash of the equivalent Democratic groups." GOP groups have a combined $320 million to spend, while Democratic-affiliated super PACs have just $137.2 million between them.
"Any Democrat who isn’t concerned isn’t serious," American Bridge super PAC co-founder Bradley Beychok told the Times. "Yes, Democrats have momentum on our side and a wide opportunity map, but we have a glaring disadvantage in overall money."
The Times additionally reported that despite his previous falling out with Trump and brief flirtations with starting a third party, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has donated "tens of millions of dollars" to Republicans in recent months. Musk also made an appearance at Mar-a-Lago to attend the wedding of a Trump staffer. All told, Republicans have more than $550 million to enter the 2026 cycle when counting Trump's super PAC and a smattering of other federal campaign accounts.
"Donald Trump has 99 problems going into the midterms," Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson said. "But money ain't one."
A money advantage doesn't necessary guarantee electoral success. In 2024, Democratic nominee Kamala Harris raised a whopping $2 billion while Trump and the Republican National Committee brought in just $1.2 billion. Harris still ended up losing all seven swing states, in addition to the national popular vote.
And despite the disparity in party fundraising, individual Democratic candidates have been vastly out-raising their Republican opponents in a few marquee races. The Times reported that in the Alaska, Georgia, North Carolina and Ohio Senate races, Democrats Mary Peltola, Jon Ossoff, Roy Cooper and Sherrod Brown, respectively, are "running fund-raising laps around Republicans, driven mostly by liberal enthusiasm and small online donations," per the *Times.
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