A select group of top businessmen have joined forces to back the Democratic presidential campaign, donating more than $1 million each.
During a speech on her economic policy plans in August, Democrat Kamala Harris criticized Donald Trump for supporting tax cuts for the wealthy. “If you want to know who anybody cares about, look at who he’s fighting for,” she told the crowd in Raleigh , North Carolina . “Donald Trump is fighting for billionaires and big corporations. I’m going to fight to give money back to working-class and middle-class Americans.”
However, even as he attempts to claim the mantle of economic populism , his campaign is financed by a number of powerful businessmen.
Forbes last analyzed the top «Democratic mega donors» funding Joe Biden’s complex re-election campaign in June, using records updated through the end of May.
Since then, total donations from the top 10 contributors have increased by nearly $10 million through the end of July, according to the most recent federal filings. And many more capitalists have opened their wallets to Democrats: There are now 28 billionaires , with a combined net worth of $280 billion , who have donated more than $1 million to groups supporting the Democratic presidential nominee.
Biden’s fundraising apparatus, along with all the money raised, shifted to Harris shortly after the president dropped out of the race on July 21, meaning Biden’s donors became Harris’s donors.
And while the campaign and Democratic groups reported a flood of cash in the days and weeks after the candidate change — with some groups’ filings going back to late June and others to late July, when Harris was just nine days into her tenure — it remains to be seen how much of this group of mega-donors contributed specifically to her. And, more importantly, how much more they might give to her compared to what they would have given to Biden.
Who leads the list
So far, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman continue to lead the pack, with more than $20 million each to various groups supporting the vice president. That includes about $3 million each spread over the past two months on record.
Additionally, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt rose to the top 10. Other newcomers include hospitality magnate John Pritzker , whose cousin J.B. Pritzker is the Democratic governor of Illinois , and hedge fund financier Tom Steyer , who is running for the Democratic nomination in 2020. Half of the 28 live in California ; all but four—including Lynn Schusterman of Oklahoma and Pat Stryker of Colorado —live in a coastal state.
The $116 million contributed by these big donors is still nearly 10% less than the $125 million that a single billionaire, Timothy Mellon , donated to groups supporting Trump, not to mention the 25 others who supported his campaign.
And this sum is only slightly larger than the $72 million that a nonprofit called Future Forward USA Action gave to a super PAC backing Harris. However, thanks to its tax status, FF USA Action does not have to disclose its donors — a list that, if public, would almost certainly include more of these big contributors.
The donation figures listed are the sum of contributions to groups that supported Biden—and therefore Harris—according to the most recent records.
1. Michael Bloomberg
Donations: $23.7 million, up from $20 million previously.
Net worth: $104.7 billion.
Bloomberg spent more than $1 billion on his own campaign in 2020, dropped out of the race, and then endorsed Biden, contributing more than $100 million to groups that backed him. This cycle, he donated $19 million to Biden’s (now Harris’) main super PAC in late May.
Bloomberg’s money isn’t limited to the top of the ticket, though: In July, he sent $10 million to the main PAC supporting House Democrats.
The former New York mayor, who got rich selling data-filled machines to virtually everyone on Wall Street, donated billions to charity. Still, his fortune keeps growing: Bloomberg entered the exclusive $100 billion club earlier this year.
2. Reid Hoffman
Donations: $20.8 million, up from $17.7 million previously.
Net worth: $2.5 billion.
A venture capitalist with Greylock Partners, Hoffman co-founded PayPal with Elon Musk and Peter Thiel before founding LinkedIn , which he sold to Microsoft for $26 billion in 2016. While other members of the “ PayPal mafia ” have veered to the right in recent years, he has become one of the largest Democratic donors in the country.
He has already invested more than $40 million in progressive groups since 2020, and almost half of that money went to groups that now support the vice president.
After Biden dropped out, Hoffman wrote an op-ed in The New York Times urging Silicon Valley to back Harris: “An administration led by her would greatly benefit every American, and every American company, by having a president who has dedicated her career to upholding the rule of law rather than subverting it.”
3. Jim Simons (deceased)
Donations: $10.6 million, up from $10.2 million previously.
Net worth: $31.4 billion.
Simons left his position in the mathematics department at Stony Brook University to found the pioneering quantitative trading firm Renaissance Technologies. He died on May 10 at the age of 86, and was survived by his wife Marilyn.
The couple had been liberal donors for decades, and Jim continued to make large contributions in the final months of his life, including a $6.6 million donation to Biden’s super PAC just a week before he died. Together, they contributed a total of $10.6 million to the election effort.
4. Michael Moritz
Donations: $8.8 million, up from $8.3 million previously.
Net worth: $5.9 billion.
A native of Wales , Moritz was working in the San Francisco offices of Time magazine in the 1980s when he sensed something was brewing in Silicon Valley and decided to jump into venture capital. He eventually became a partner at Sequoia Capital , one of the world’s most renowned venture capital firms. Early investments in companies like Google, Yahoo, and PayPal earned Moritz billions.
He donated heavily to Barack Obama ’s campaign in 2008, sat out the 2016 election, then re-emerged as a big donor in 2020, giving more than $4 million to pro-Biden groups. Moritz is betting big again, donating more in a single contribution in April of this year than he did in the entire 2020 election cycle. For four years running, he’s sent $500,000 to The Lincoln Project , an anti-Trump group that reportedly runs scathing ads targeting Trump properties.
5. Stephen Mandel, Jr.
Donations: $6.9 million, up from $6.8 million previously.
Net worth: $2.5 billion.
Mandel , who founded the hedge fund Lone Pine Capital in 1997, wrote a $5 million check to Biden’s (now Harris’) largest PAC in 2022. He’s also donated millions to support the charter school movement and sits on the board of Teach for America .
A longtime reliable Democratic donor, Mandel has grown more generous in recent years, giving $200,000 to support Hillary Clinton in 2016 and nearly $5 million to back Biden in 2020. He has already topped $5.4 million in this round; his wife Susan donated another $1.4 million.
6. Henry Laufer
Donations: $4.4 million, up from $3.5 million previously.
Net worth: $2.6 billion.
A former math professor, Laufer followed Simons to Renaissance Technologies , where he served as vice president and chief scientific officer. He used his fortune to support Democratic campaigns, donating $2.5 million to pro-Clinton groups in 2016 and $1.6 million to support Biden in 2020.
Laufer revealed he has donated nearly $2.3 million so far to pro-Harris groups, and his wife Marsha has given another $2.2 million. The couple sent millions more to groups backing Democratic candidates for the House and Senate .
7. Dustin Moskovitz
Donations: $4.2 million.
Net worth: $18.4 billion.
Moskovitz co-founded Facebook with his Harvard roommate Mark Zuckerberg , making him, for a time, the world’s youngest billionaire. He and his wife have pledged to give away most of their fortune over the course of their lifetimes. Moskovitz burst onto the political scene in 2016, when he donated nearly $20 million to progressive causes.
He spent even more in 2020, donating nearly $50 million to support Biden. Most of Moskovitz’s recent donations to pro-Harris groups came during the 2022 midterms, so a large portion of the $4.2 million he spent went to helping Democrats on runoff ballots. He may have gotten off to a relatively slow start this cycle, but Moskovitz tends to write big checks in the second half of the year.
8. Seth Klarman
Donations: $3.7 million, up from $3.6 million previously.
Net worth: $1.3 billion.
Klarman co-founded a Boston hedge fund called the Baupost Group in 1982. He was once a major Republican donor, giving thousands of dollars to support George W. Bush , John McCain and Mitt Romney , though he always gave smaller amounts of money to Democrats as well. Klarman switched allegiances after Trump took control of the party.
In 2016, the hedge fund mogul contributed $100,000 to a pro-Clinton group and backed Republicans in House and Senate races. He has since donated more to Democrats, contributing millions to support Biden and liberals in runoff ballots in 2020. Klarman has already donated $3.7 million to pro-Harris groups this cycle.
9. Eric Schmidt
Donations: $3 million.
Net worth: $22.4 billion.
The former Google CEO has worked in technology his entire life, with stops at Sun Microsystems , the software company that developed the Java programming language , and Novell , another software company, before leading Google for a decade. A longtime Democratic donor, Schmidt has written checks for nearly $2.9 million this cycle, including a one-time $1.6 million donation to the main pro-Harris super PAC in June. His wife Wendy contributed another $160,000.
10. Avram Glazer
Donations: $2.6 million, up from $1.6 million previously.
Net worth: $1.7 billion.
The son of sports entrepreneur Malcolm Glazer , Avram Glazer is best known as the co-chairman of Manchester United , in which his family has a majority stake. Glazer used to be a staunch independent, donating to George W. Bush in 2004, Obama in 2008 and Jeb Bush in 2016.
But he has recently moved further to the left, donating $700,000 to a Biden PAC in 2020 and contributing $1.7 million to Democratic groups during the 2022 midterms. His wife, Jill , donated $900,000 to a pro-Biden, now pro-Harris, group in late June.
11. John Pritzker (tie)
Donations: $2.1 million (+$250,000 pending)
Net worth: $2.7 billion.
One of the heirs to the Hyatt hotel family fortune , Pritzker worked at the hotel chain until he sold his shares in 2010. He stayed in the hotel industry for a time, starting another hotel management company that was eventually acquired by Hyatt. His cousin J.B. Pritzker is the governor of Illinois—and the richest sitting politician in the United States , with a net worth of $3.7 billion. John kept his political contributions small until the 2020 cycle, when he gave $2.8 million to Democrats.
“I began increasing both my political giving and my democracy-focused philanthropy in 2019 in response to the growing threat to American democracy,” Pritzker told Forbes . This year, Pritzker has already contributed $2.1 million to pro-Harris groups, nearly all of it going to the Republican Accountability PAC , an anti-Trump super PAC that also counts Hoffman, Klarman , and Susan Mandel among its top donors.
That number is sure to grow: Pritzker confirmed he has a $250,000 “pending” donation to the Harris Victory Fund , “with more to come.”
11. Steven Spielberg (tie)
Donations: $2.1 million.
Net worth: $4.8 billion.
The Academy Award -winning director of such blockbusters as “E.T. ,” “ Jaws ” and “ Schindler’s List ,” and franchises including “ Indiana Jones ” and “ Jurassic Park ,” makes even more money today from a percentage of Universal Studios theme park admissions . He and his wife, actress Kate Capshaw , have long funneled those earnings into political donations; federal records show donations to Democratic groups dating back to 1986. In 2020, they contributed $4.5 million to defeat Donald Trump and Republicans down the ballot. If they maintain their current pace, Spielberg and Capshaw will likely surpass that figure this cycle: They each donated more than $900,000 to the Biden Victory Fund — now renamed the Harris Victory Fund in November 2023 — and have already given more than $2 million to PACs supporting Democrats in congressional races.
13. Amos Hostetter, Jr.
Donations: $2 million.
Net worth: $3.8 billion.
Hostetter made his fortune in cable television, spending the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s growing Continental Cablevision into a behemoth that was acquired by U.S. West in 1996. A resident of Boston , Massachusetts , and a member of the Broadcasting Hall of Fame , he now runs a philanthropic operation that gives tens of millions of dollars a year to various causes, including fighting climate change.
In 2020, he and his wife Barbara donated $1.7 million to Democratic groups. Hostetter has already doubled that figure this cycle, with $2 million in contributions to pro-Harris groups, including $1 million to a super PAC in late June that now supports her, plus more than $3 million to other Democratic groups.
14. Haim Saban
Donations: $1.85 million.
Net worth: $3.1 billion.
Born in Egypt and raised in Israel , Saban began his business career in France after the Yom Kippur War by founding a record company. He moved to Hollywood in 1983, where he built entertainment companies that eventually produced children’s television shows, including » Mighty Morphin Power Rangers .»
His joint venture with Rupert Murdoch , Fox Family Channel , was eventually purchased by Disney for $5.2 billion in 2001. He also made several investments in Israeli, German, and American telecommunications. In addition to millions in contributions to other Democratic groups, both Haim and his wife Cheryl donated more than $900,000 to the Harris Victory Fund this cycle.
15. Gwendolyn Sontheim Meyer (tie)
Donations: $1.75 million.
Net worth: $5.2 billion.
The California- based Cargill heiress trains show horses and donates to Democrats, totaling about $8 million since 2021. Her contributions to groups supporting Harris occurred when Biden was still the nominee, but as recently as June, Meyer also wrote checks to organizations supporting Democratic House candidates and state parties.
15. Robert Hale, Jr. (tie)
Donations: $1.75 million.
Net worth: $5.4 billion.
Hale founded his Massachusetts -based company Granite Telecommunications in 2002, growing it into a wholesale voice and data provider with annual revenues of more than $1.8 billion. The 58-year-old and his wife Karen weren’t always staunch Democratic donors, occasionally writing checks to Republican PACs in Congress.
This cycle is no different: they gave generously to a pro-Harris group (and nothing to pro-Trump groups), but on the same day in March 2024, Robert wrote nearly identical checks for about $300,000 to Hakeem Jeffries’ fund for Congressional Democrats and to Steve Scalise’s fund for Congressional Republicans.
17. John Doerr (tie)
Donations: $1.65 million.
Net worth: $12.6 billion.
Doerr is the chairman of Kleiner Perkins , a venture capital firm that made early bets on tech successes like Google, Amazon , DoorDash , and Slack . Today he calls himself a “pioneer of the Silicon Valley cleantech movement” and wrote a book in 2021 called Speed & Scale about how to address climate change. He and his wife Ann each donated more than $800,000 to groups supporting Harris, plus hundreds of thousands more to Democratic groups in Congress. They’ve already surpassed their political donations from 2020, when they gave a total of about $1.4 million.
17. Thomas Steyer (tie)
Donations: $1.65 million.
Net worth: $2 billion.
Steyer made his fortune while running a hedge fund, but he burst onto the national stage when he ran for president in 2020, pouring more than $300 million into a campaign that fizzled after South Carolina . If not for Michael Bloomberg ’s equally quixotic candidacy that year, he would likely be the biggest spender on his own campaign in American history.
After that, Steyer and his wife, Kat Taylor , poured even more money into electing Democrats and funding climate-focused groups. They made fewer donations this cycle, but each gave more than $800,000 to a pro-Harris group. In May, Steyer also donated $250,000 to environmentalist Jane Fonda ’s super PAC , which seeks to “elect climate champions at every level of government.”
19. Neil Bluhm
Donations: $1.45 million.
Net worth: $6.7 billion.
As a developer of casinos, hotels and commercial real estate, Bluhm is more like, at least financially, Kamala Harris’s opponent than her. The Illinois-based billionaire also owns stock in the Chicago Bulls and Chicago White Sox , and chairs an online sports betting company, in addition to being a loyal Democratic donor since the 1990s.
Bluhm increased his donations in 2016 with a $1 million check to a Democratic Senate group, more than $200,000 to Hillary Clinton. In 2020, he donated more than $2 million, and has now given three-quarters of that amount to groups working to elect the Democratic presidential nominee. His spending shows no signs of slowing: In June, he wrote a $250,000 check to a PAC supporting Democrats in Congress.
20. Bruce Karsh
Donations: $1.35 million.
Net worth: $2.4 billion.
Bruce Karsh began his career in law, including working as a clerk for then-future Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. But after working as an attorney, he pivoted and eventually found his calling in private equity: his Oaktree Capital Management, which he founded in 1995 alongside Howard Marks, invests heavily in corporate and distressed debt.
In addition to philanthropic and educational donations, Karsh and his wife, Martha , supported Obama in 2012, Clinton in 2016, and Biden in 2020. Most of the recent donations have been made by his wife—for example, in the 2020 cycle, about $1.6 million of the roughly $2 million in political donations came from her—and this year is no different: Bruce donated about $250,000 to groups supporting the Democratic presidential nominee, while Martha contributed more than $1 million.
21. Arthur Blank (tie)
Donations: $1.3 million.
Net worth: $9 billion.
Blank co-founded Home Depot with Bernie Marcus in 1978, but while both became billionaires, they differ on which party should receive their donations. Marcus became a GOP megadonor , investing $5 million in Trump’s first election and $10 million in his second, but Blank, who is also a major investor in Atlanta sports teams and stadiums , stuck with the Democrats, contributing $300,000 to Biden’s election and $2 million to Democratic Senate candidates in 2020.
Now, he’s spent about $1.3 million to keep Trump out of the White House , most recently contributing more than $400,000 to a pro-Harris group in May.
21. Pat Stryker (tie)
Donations: $1.3 million.
Net worth: $3.9 billion.
A legacy of medical equipment — her grandfather founded Stryker Corp , which sells everything from hospital beds to cameras used in surgery — Stryker runs the Bohemian Foundation , which makes grants to music and community groups, among other causes. In addition to $1 million in contributions to the then- Biden Victory Fund , Stryker donated $250,000 to Women Vote 2023, a super PAC that spent on Biden’s behalf but also got involved in the Democratic Senate primary in Maryland with $2.5 million in spending.
23. Amy Goldman Fowler (tie)
Donations: $1.2 million.
Net worth: $1.1 billion.
Heiress Amy Goldman Fowler has written five books for gardeners and won four American Horticultural Society awards , but her money comes from a New York real estate empire her father spent decades building. Goldman Fowler has shared some of the family fortune with Democratic politicians, sending $1.2 million to groups supporting Harris over the past two years. During the 2018 midterm elections, she was a top donor to Planned Parenthood ’s political action committee , giving $3 million.
23. George Marcus (tie)
Donations: $1.2 million.
Net worth: $1.7 billion.
The billionaire hails from the same region as Harris: the Bay Area , where the vice president began her career as a prosecutor. Marcus , who owns about a third of the publicly traded real estate brokerage Marcus & Millichap , reportedly hosted a fundraiser for President Biden in February at his San Francisco mansion . He’s donated about $1.2 million this cycle to groups supporting Harris, including $100,000 to Californians for Choice , a pro-reproductive rights group focused on defeating Trump and winning congressional districts in the state.
25. Lynn Schusterman (tie)
Donations: $1.1 million.
Net worth: $4.8 billion.
Schusterman ‘s wealth comes from her late husband, Charles , who founded Oklahoma oil and natural gas company Samson Resources in 1971. His daughter assumed control of the company after Charles’ death in 2000; most of its assets were sold in 2011.
Schusterman, a longtime philanthropist focused on children, equity and support for Israel , increased her giving for the 2022 midterms, putting $3.5 million into a super PAC called Democracy First that claims to be “mobilizing the ideologically diverse pro-democracy coalition that must come together to defeat authoritarianism.” In 2023, she donated nearly $1.1 million to Planned Parenthood Votes , a super PAC that spent against Trump’s reelection.
25. Sheryl Sandberg (tie)
Donations: $1.1 million.
Net worth: $2.2 billion.
In 2016, Facebook’s then-COO, Sheryl Sandberg , voiced her support for Hillary Clinton both rhetorically and financially, writing a lengthy Facebook endorsement post that ended with “#ImWithHer” and contributing more than $400,000 to a group backing Clinton’s campaign. Sandberg’s donations in 2020 were relatively minimal by comparison, but today she’s back in the game, donating $600,000 in 2023 to two groups now supporting Harris. Her husband Thomas Bernthal also contributed $500,000.
25. Vinod Khosla (tie)
Donations: $1.1 million.
Net worth: $7.3 billion.
Khosla came to the United States from India to study biomedical engineering, but gravitated toward technology. He founded two companies—one of which was Sun Microsystems , the company Eric Schmidt later ran, in 1982—before spending nearly two decades at Kleiner Perkins , the Silicon Valley venture capital firm run by John Doerr .
He then founded his own firm, Khosla Ventures. In the early 2000s, he began making his first political donations, almost exclusively to Democrats — a pattern that has continued ever since. He gave $3 million to liberal election efforts in 2020 and is on track to surpass that figure this cycle. He and his wife of 50 years, Neeru , sent more than $500,000 each to a group supporting Harris and much more to other Democratic groups.
25. David Shaw (tie)
Donations: $1.1 million.
Net worth: $8.3 billion.
Shaw left academia to join the world of finance and found success, founding a quantitative hedge fund, D.E. Shaw , in 1988 that made him a billionaire. By 2005, he had returned to Columbia University , no longer overseeing the day-to-day operations of the hedge fund.
He also served on the science advisory boards of two Democratic presidents, Clinton and Obama, and was a reliable contributor to the party since the 1990s. Shaw sent about $800,000 to groups supporting Harris for president, and another $300,000 from his wife Beth puts the couple over $1 million.
