Who Is Jeff Yass, the GOP's Billionaire Donor Dominating 2024?

27/03/2024 18:28

As the 2024 election cranks into high gear (to the consternation of most Americans), the name of one Republican billionaire donor keeps popping up. Jeff Yass, a onetime critic of Donald Trump, has put the full force of his wealth behind the GOP in 2024, donating more than any other individual this cycle as he seeks to influence the party's platform — and help its financially embattled presidential candidate. Below are some of the most important details about the GOP's new power player, his background, and his business connections to Trump.

Yass is a former pro gambler turned private-equity giant

Born in Queens in 1958 to Jewish parents who were both accountants, Yass attended the State University of New York at Binghamton in the 1970s, where he meet the men with whom he would later found Susquehanna International Group, the massive private equity firm he still manages today.

After graduating, Yass moved to Las Vegas for a year to play professional poker before relocating to the Philadelphia area, where he traded options and bet on the side. In 1985, he and his friends figured out a way to maximize his odds at Illinois horse races to pull in the biggest payout in U.S. racing history at the time. With money drawn partly from those winnings, he and his college friends founded Susquehanna in 1987. Gambling still informs his mind-set as chairman: "All of sports betting, all of playing poker, and all of options trading is making sure you're betting against someone you're smarter than," Yass said on a podcast in 2021. "If you're not asking yourself Am I the sucker? or Am I the [bait]?, you get arrogant and you get crushed." On another recent podcast appearance, he even said he bet on his children's sports games.

Yass's true wealth is mysterious, but he owns a good chunk of the company behind Tiktok

Susquehanna is one of the largest players in the security market of exchange-traded funds, but because it is privately held, it is unclear just how much the firm is making each year. It is definitely a lot, though. Court filings analyzed by ProPublica suggest that Yass owns around 75 percent of Susquehanna and is worth around $30 billion as of 2022. He is the richest man living in the state of Pennsylvania.

One of the firm's many holdings is ByteDance, the Chinese parent company that operates TikTok. Susquehanna reportedly owns 15 percent of the social-media app — one of the largest foreign investors, including General Atlantic and Sequoia Capital, that have stakes in ByteDance.

Did he influence Trump's surprise turnaround on the TikTok ban?

As president, Donald Trump was vehemently against TikTok, signing an executive order in 2020 in an attempt to restrict the company from operating in the United States. Like many American politicians, he expressed alarm about ByteDance's ties to the Chinese government and said he was concerned about the data it was collecting on its tens of millions of American users. Yass, naturally, has been on the other side of this issue. In early March, he threatened to stop donating to Republicans who voted in favor of the so-called TikTok ban.

As he was campaigning against such restrictions, Yass went to Mar-a-Lago to speak with Trump. After their meeting, Trump suddenly and loudly flip-flopped on the issue. "If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business," he wrote on Truth Social in early March. "I don't want Facebook, who cheated in the last Election, doing better. They are a true Enemy of the People!" According to the New York Times, Trump's campaign is now expecting a major PAC donation from Yass, though the billionaire's spokesperson denied such an arrangement.

Yass has a major stake in Truth Social

Despite losing millions for years with almost no revenue or user base to show for it, Trump's Twitter knockoff Truth Social suddenly offers Donald Trump a huge potential payout during a year of major liquidity trouble. Yass, via Susquehanna, may have a stake in the firm. After Truth Social announced it was going public through a SPAC on March 22, the New York Timesreported that Susquehanna may own about 2 percent of the company. If Susquehanna still holds that stake, it would make the company one of the largest single investors in Truth Social — a platform that has been used as a vehicle for Trump supporters to bet on his victory in November. (In a statement, the company claimed it has "zero economic interest" in the company and that its "long position is offset by short positions of the same size.)

Yass is the largest single donor in the 2024 cycle so far

Yass has put up millions for conservative candidates and PACs in previous elections, including $5 million in 2016 and around $30 million in 2020. But this year, Yass has really opened his wallet, giving $46 million to date — with more than seven months to go until the election. His biggest donation so far was a $6 million to Texas governor Greg Abbott, which Abbott has touted as the "largest single contribution in Texas history." He also gave to failed GOP primary candidates including Vivek Ramaswamy, Ron DeSantis, Tim Scott, and Chris Christie.

Yass was skeptical of Trump in the past

Yass has not yet donated to Donald Trump and reportedly does not have plans to attend a blowout fundraiser the former president is hosting in early April. But the meeting at Mar-a-Lago in March suggests that Yass is warming up somewhat to the figure who controls Republican politics. As recently as 2022, he presented himself as a "Never Trumper."

He's really good at not paying taxes

According to a ProPublica report from 2022, Yass has successfully dodged at least $1 billion in taxes over the past six years, paying an average of just 19 percent in each — less than Americans who make $95,000 per year. "They hate fucking taxes," a former Susquehanna trader told ProPublica.

One of the key ways Susquehanna has avoided them is through an investing method called "straddling." This involves betting both for and against a certain stock or market, which allows the company to enjoy long-term gains, which are taxed at a lesser rate, while writing off the losses, which would have been taxed at a higher rate. The process has allowed Susquehanna to write off billions in losses over the years. Susquehanna has employed other methods as well: ProPublica reports that the company once tried to get a tax refund for repairs it made to its ice machines. And through a process called a grantor retained annuity trust, Yass's two adult children likely will not pay any taxes on their eventual multibillion-dollar inheritances.