By D. Maan, Jadetimes News
Timothy Mellon, Trump's New Mega Donor
An octogenarian billionaire and heir to one of America's wealthiest families has emerged as a significant supporter of Donald Trump's 2024 election campaign. On May 31, 81 year old Timothy Mellon made a $50 million (£39.5 million) donation, making him the largest donor to the former president so far in this election cycle.
Mr. Mellon, an heir to the Pittsburgh based Mellon banking family, has also been the biggest contributor to independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy's campaign. Known for his reclusive nature, the Wyoming based Mr. Mellon avoids the limelight and the social circles frequented by other American billionaires.
Who is Timothy Mellon?
According to Forbes magazine, Timothy Mellon is a descendant of Thomas Mellon, an Irish immigrant who arrived in the U.S. in 1818 and built a substantial fortune in real estate and banking. The Mellon family, which includes Timothy's grandfather Andrew Mellon, a former U.S. Treasury Secretary, is currently worth over $14 billion (£11 billion), making them the 34th richest family in the U.S.
Born in 1942, Timothy Mellon studied city planning at Yale University, where his father was a major donor and funded the establishment of the Yale Center for British Art the largest collection of British art outside the United Kingdom.
In 1981, Mellon founded Guilford Transportation Industries, a holding company named after his hometown of Guilford, Connecticut. The company swiftly acquired three major railways spanning from Canada, through New England, and into the mid Atlantic region of the U.S. In 1998, the firm pivoted its focus by purchasing the brand of the historic but bankrupt Pan American World Airways. This decision was likely influenced by Mellon's passion for flying, having logged over 11,500 hours as a pilot.
"As owner of the company [Pan Am] and with the skill necessary to do the job, he became a commercial pilot and quite literally kept the American institution that is Pan Am flying," states a synopsis for his upcoming autobiography, set to be published in 2025.
Throughout his career, Mellon served as a trustee of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for 21 years before stepping down in 2002. In 2005, he relocated from Connecticut to Wyoming, where he has lived ever since, maintaining a low profile and rarely engaging with the media.
Mellon's Political Views
Even before his recent donation to Trump's campaign, Timothy Mellon has a history of supporting conservative candidates and causes. In 2010, he donated approximately $1.5 million to Arizona to help cover the legal costs for defending SB 1070, a controversial anti immigration bill. More recently, in 2021, Mellon contributed over $53 million to support Texas Governor Greg Abbott's construction of a wall along the Mexican border. Additionally, he has donated to various Republican aligned super PACs to support conservative candidates.
Mellon outlined some of his political views in a self published memoir in 2015. In the book, he criticized social safety net programs, referring to them as "Slavery Redux," and argued that black voters received "freebies" in exchange for votes. He claimed this "largess" was funded by hardworking people who refused to rely on such programs, and alleged that black Americans became "more belligerent" and "slaves of a new master, Uncle Sam."
Despite his strong conservative leanings, Mellon has occasionally made small donations to Democrats, including a $2,700 contribution to progressive New York representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez's 2018 campaign. According to Mellon, when Ocasio Cortez attempted to return the donation, he refused to cash the check.
In a rare 2020 interview with Bloomberg News, Mellon expressed his admiration for Trump, stating that "he's done the things he promised to, or tried to do the things he's promised to." He highlighted Trump's achievements in trade, particularly in balancing the relationship between the U.S. and the rest of the world, especially China, as one of Trump's most notable accomplishments.
Mellon's Quest for Amelia Earhart
In 2012, Timothy Mellon donated $1 million to the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), a group dedicated to locating the remains and aircraft of Amelia Earhart, the famous American aviator who disappeared over the Pacific in 1937. Ric Gillespie, the executive director of TIGHAR, later recounted to NOTUS, a U.S. media outlet, that Mellon accompanied them on an unsuccessful expedition to find the plane.
“We didn’t find anything," Gillespie said. "But he wasn’t complaining about anything; he was just along for the ride and didn’t involve himself very much. He spent most of his time sitting on the ship, reading."
The following year, Mellon filed a lawsuit against TIGHAR, alleging that the plane had already been discovered before he made his donation. However, a judge ruled against him, citing that Mellon's own experts were unable to prove that the plane had been found.