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Timothy Mellon

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Timothy Mellon
Mellon in 1981
Born (1942-07-22) July 22, 1942 (age 82)
Guilford, Connecticut, U.S.
EducationYale University (BA, MS)
OccupationBusinessman
Parent(s)Paul Mellon
Mary Conover
RelativesAndrew Mellon (grandfather)
Rachel Lambert Mellon (stepmother)

Timothy Mellon (born July 22, 1942) is an American businessman, the grandson of Andrew Mellon, and an heir to the Mellon banking fortune.[1] As of June 2024, Forbes estimated the Mellon family's net worth at $14.1 billion.[2] He is a major donor to the Republican Party.

Biography

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Early life and education

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Mellon is the son of Paul Mellon and his first wife, Mary Conover Brown, and the grandson of U.S. Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon.[3]

According to Mellon's memoir, he grew up in a Virginia mansion, and a private plane shuttled him to boarding school in Massachusetts.

Mellon attended the Fenn School in Boston, Massachusetts, and Milton Academy.[4] He graduated from Yale University in 1964 with a bachelor's degree in literature.[5][6][7] Mellon then enrolled in Yale Law School but dropped out and instead obtained a degree in city planning from Yale.[8] A May 1971 New York Times article called him "a quiet Yale graduate with two college degrees who has applied computer techniques to city planning".[9]

Career

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In the 1960s Mellon founded a software company.[10]

Guilford Transportation

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Mellon was the chief financier in the 1977 formation of Guilford Transportation Industries (GTI),[11] a holding company named for his native Guilford, Connecticut. In 1981, GTI purchased the Maine Central Railroad from U.S. Filter Corporation, adding the Boston & Maine and Delaware & Hudson railroads in 1983 and 1984, respectively.

In 1998, GTI purchased the brand of bankrupt Pan American World Airways.

The "Pan Am Clipper Connection", operated by subsidiary Boston-Maine Airways, ceased operations in 2008 after the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) concluded that Boston-Maine's Air Carrier Certificate should be revoked on the basis of lack of financial fitness, poor management oversight, failure to follow federal laws and regulations, and filing false financial data with the department in its application for authority to fly large aircraft.[12]

GTI, renamed Pan Am Railways in 2006, was ultimately sold to the CSX Corporation; the sale closed in June 2022,[13] with the private owners paid $600 million;[14] Mellon owned the majority of the company[which?].

Other businesses

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In 1999, Mellon purchased the Goodspeed Airport in East Haddam, Connecticut, for $2.33 million. In 2020, he sold it to New England Airport Associates, LLC for $891,000.

In 2002, Mellon stepped down as a trustee of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation after 21 years on its board.[15]

Mellon moved from Connecticut to Wyoming in 2005.[1]

In July 2024, The New York Times reported that Mellon was responsible for the 2012 removal and subsequent 2013 return of the Narragansett Runestone.[16]

Mellon has been involved in a number of legal issues, often over relatively small dollar amounts. Testifying in a 2014 civil case, he estimated he had been deposed 15 to 20 times, and that he did not know how many lawsuits he was then involved in.[14]

Search for Amelia Earhart

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In 2012, Mellon donated over $1 million to The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), a nonprofit organization, to assist its efforts to find Amelia Earhart's plane and remains. In 2013, he sued TIGHAR for racketeering, alleging that it engaged in deceit by soliciting his money to search for Earhart's plane.[17] Mellon claimed that the plane had been found in 2010, before he made his donation.[18]

In 2014, U.S. District Judge Scott W. Skavdahl granted TIGHAR's motion for summary judgment after recognizing that even Mellon's own experts were unable to confirm his allegations about the 2010 photographs that he claimed showed the plane. Skavdahl concluded:

Defendants represented to Plaintiff they were planning another expedition in their continued quest to find the wreckage of Amelia Earhart's airplane. Upon reading about Defendants' efforts, Plaintiff contacted Defendants and expressed his interest in supporting the expedition with a monetary contribution. That's exactly what the parties then did. No false representations were made. Regardless, no rational trier of fact could find Defendants falsely represented they had not found Earhart's plane by embarking on another expedition in hopes of finding conclusive evidence to prove it. No matter how convinced or sincere Plaintiff is in his subjective belief and opinion that Amelia Earhart's airplane was or should have been discovered prior to the making of his donation, that belief and opinion is insufficient to create a genuine dispute of material fact.[19]

Mellon appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, which affirmed the district court's ruling without holding oral argument. The Tenth Circuit concluded that the lack of actionable falsity precluded Mellon's claims.[20]

Politics

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Political donations

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Mellon gave $227 million to federal candidates and political committees from January 2020 through June 2024, nearly all of it to Republicans.[14] As of August 2024, he had donated $165 million in the 2024 elections.[21]

2010–2021

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In 2010, Mellon donated $1.5 million to Arizona's defense fund to help cover the costs of legal challenges against Arizona SB 1070,[22] the broadest and strictest anti-illegal immigration measure in the U.S. at the time of its passage.[23][1] It received national and international attention and spurred considerable controversy.[24][25]

In the 2018 election cycle, Mellon was a major political donor, especially to the Republican-aligned Congressional Leadership Fund.[26] In April 2020, he donated $10 million to Donald Trump's super PAC America First Action.[1] According to OpenSecrets, in 2020 and 2022, he was the 6th- and 5th-most prolific donor in the U.S., spending $60 million and $47 million, respectively, to support Republican candidates and causes.[27]

In August 2021, Mellon donated $53.1 million in stock to the state of Texas to pay for construction of walls along the US–Mexico border.[28]

2024 presidential campaign

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In the second quarter of 2023, Mellon donated $5 million to American Values 2024, a super PAC affiliated with the presidential campaign of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.; that, together with a large donation from billionaire Gavin de Becker, accounted for 97% of donations the PAC received through the end of June 2023.[29] By March 2024, Mellon's donations to the PAC totaled $20 million,[30] and by July 2024 it had increased to $25 million.[14]

Between April 2023 and March 2024, Mellon donated $15 million to MAGA Inc. (Make America Great Again), a Trump super PAC.[30] On May 31, 2024, the day after Trump was convicted of 34 felonies, Mellon gave MAGA Inc. $50 million, one of the largest disclosed donations ever.[31][32] By July 2024, Mellon had given $75 million toward supporting Trump's campaign,[14] and by October, the total amount donated to the PAC had reached $150 million.[33]

Political views

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Mellon's self-published autobiography, announced in 2016, described his political views.[34][35] He calls social safety net programs "Slavery Redux", adding:

For delivering their votes in the Federal Elections, they are awarded with yet more and more freebies: food stamps, cellphones, WIC [the U.S. Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children] payments, Obamacare, and on, and on, and on. The largess is funded by the hardworking folks, fewer and fewer in number, who are too honest or too proud to allow themselves to sink into this morass.

In 1984, Mellon wrote:

Something had obviously gone dreadfully wrong with the Great Society and the Liberal onslaught. Poor people had become no less poor. Black people, in spite of heroic efforts by the "Establishment" to right the wrongs of the past, became even more belligerent and unwilling to pitch in to improve their own situations. ... Drugs rose to the level of epidemic. Single parent families became more and more prevalent. The likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton pandered endlessly to fan the flames.[34][32]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d Thrush, Glenn; Ruiz, Rebecca R.; Yourish, Karen (August 16, 2020). "Trump's Policies Are a Boon to the Super Rich. So Where Are All the Seven-Figure Checks?". The New York Times. Retrieved June 21, 2024.
  2. ^ Dorn, Sara. "Who Is Timothy Mellon? Trump's Biggest Donor Is A Secretive Billionaire Banking Scion Who Paid $53 Million For Border Wall". Forbes. Retrieved 2024-07-30.
  3. ^ BBC News Who is Trump's new mega-donor, Timothy Mellon? June 21 2024 [1]
  4. ^ Reginato, James (2024-09-18). "The Mellon Family Is Famed for Restraint, but MAGA Mega-Donor Tim Mellon Is Rocking the Boat". Vanity Fair. Retrieved 2024-11-07.
  5. ^ Stanley-Becker, Isaac; Dawsey, Josh (2024-07-17). "Trump's biggest donor is a Gilded Age heir also backing RFK Jr". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2024-08-23 – via www.washingtonpost.com.
  6. ^ "Pi Sigma Alpha Elects". Yale Daily News. 1963-10-02. Retrieved 23 August 2024.
  7. ^ Gillette, Christine, "Cambridge train yard made new[permanent dead link‍]," Portsmouth Herald, 30 July 1999
  8. ^ Liu, Phoebe. "The True Story Of Trump's $75 Million Backer". Forbes. Retrieved 2024-11-07.
  9. ^ Jensen, Michael C. (1971-05-02). "Four Generations of Mellons". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-07-28.
  10. ^ Abram Brown (2014-07-08). "175 Years Later, The Mellons Have Never Been Richer. How'd They Do It?". Forbes.
  11. ^ 175 Years Later, The Mellons Have Never Been Richer. How'd They Do It? Forbes (July 8, 2014)
  12. ^ Haberman, Shir (2008-02-04). "U.S. DOT ready to pull Boston-Maine's license to fly". Seacoastonline.com. Archived from the original on 2014-03-18. Retrieved 2008-02-05.
  13. ^ "STB Approves CSX-Pan Am Combination". RailwayAge. April 14, 2022.
  14. ^ a b c d e Berzon, Alexandra; McIntire, Mike (2024-07-28). "A Pedigreed Rail Magnate Is Pouring Millions Into Electing Donald Trump". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-07-28.
  15. ^ Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in 2002 after 21 years on its board.2002 President's Report Archived 2007-10-07 at the Wayback Machine, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
  16. ^ Berzon, Alexandra; McIntire, Mike (2024-07-28). "A Pedigreed Rail Magnate Is Pouring Millions Into Electing Donald Trump". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-07-28.
  17. ^ Wyoming Man Denies Plot Against Amelia Earhart Plane Recovery Group, Casper Star Tribune (Aug. 11, 2013)
  18. ^ The Obsessed, Feuding Searchers Still Looking For Amelia Earhart, Atlas Obscura (Dec. 12, 2016)
  19. ^ Mellon v. International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, 33 F. Supp. 3d 1277 (D. Wyo. 2014)
  20. ^ Mellon v. International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, 612 Fed. Appx. 936 (10th Cir. 2015)
  21. ^ Maia Cook (2024-08-23). "Billionaire Timothy Mellon has poured $165 million into 2024 elections". OpenSecrets.
  22. ^ Rough, Ginger (3 September 2010). "Ariz. immigration law's legal costs could top $1 million". USA Today. Retrieved 16 March 2011.
  23. ^ Archibold, Randal C. (April 24, 2010). "U.S.'s Toughest Immigration Law Is Signed in Arizona". The New York Times. p. 1.
  24. ^ "Los Angeles approves Arizona business boycott". CNN. May 13, 2010.
  25. ^ Nowicki, Dan (July 25, 2010). "Arizona immigration law ripples through history, U.S. politics". The Arizona Republic.
  26. ^ Jones, Natalie (November 2, 2018). "Midterm big spenders: the top 20 political donors this election". The Guardian. Retrieved March 22, 2019.
  27. ^ "2022 Top Donors to Outside Spending Groups". OpenSecrets. Retrieved January 15, 2024.
  28. ^ Barragán, James; Astudillo, Carla (2021-10-06). "Texas has raised $54 million in private donations for its border wall plan. Almost all of it came from this one billionaire". The Texas Tribune. Retrieved 2021-12-08.
  29. ^ Yang, Mary (August 2, 2023). "Robert F Kennedy Jr's campaign bankrolled by Republican mega-donor". The Guardian. Retrieved August 2, 2023.
  30. ^ a b Swan, Jonathan; Haberman, Maggie; Goldmacher, Shane; Davis O'Brien, Rebecca (April 10, 2024). "Trump Allies Have a Plan to Hurt Biden's Chances: Elevate Outsider Candidates". The New York Times. Archived from the original on April 10, 2024. Retrieved April 10, 2024.
  31. ^ Kamisar, Ben (June 21, 2024). "Pro-Trump businessman leads huge month for megadonors pouring cash into election". NBC News. Retrieved June 21, 2024.
  32. ^ a b Goldmacher, Shane; Theodore, Schleifer (June 20, 2024). "Timothy Mellon, Secretive Donor, Gives $50 Million to Pro-Trump Group". The New York Times. Retrieved June 21, 2024.
  33. ^ Schleifer, Theodore; Sun, Albert (2024-10-21). "Harris sets a record for the biggest fund-raising quarter ever". The New York Times. Retrieved 2024-10-21.
  34. ^ a b Timothy Mellon, top donor to Trump super PAC, used racial stereotypes to describe African Americans in his autobiography Washington Post (June 18, 2020)
  35. ^ Mancuso, Christina (2016-02-09). "Timothy Mellon Releases Autobiography". BroadwayWorld.com. Retrieved 2024-08-23.
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