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WASHINGTON — Timothy Mellon, a reclusive billionaire and a major financial backer of President Donald Trump, is the anonymous private donor who gave $130 million to the U.S. government to help pay troops during the shutdown, according to two people familiar with the matter. Trump announced the donation Thursday night, but he declined to identify the person who provided the funds, only calling him a “patriot” and a friend. But the two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the donation was private, identified him as Mellon. Shortly after departing Washington on Friday, Trump again declined to identify Mellon while talking to reporters aboard Air Force One. He only said the individual was “a great American citizen” and a “substantial man.” “He doesn’t want publicity,” Trump said as he headed to Malaysia. “He prefer that his name not be mentioned which is pretty unusual in the world I come from, and in the world of politics, you want your name mentioned.” The White House declined to comment. Multiple attempts to reach Mellon and representatives for him were unsuccessful. It remains unclear how far the donation will go toward covering the salaries of the more than 1.3 million troops who make up the active-duty military. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Trump administration’s 2025 budget requested about $600 billion in total military compensation. A $130 million donation would equal about $100 a service member. Mellon, a wealthy banking heir and railroad magnate, is a longtime backer of Trump and gave tens of millions of dollars to groups supporting the president’s campaign. Last year, he made a $50 million donation to a super political action committee supporting Trump, which was one of the largest single contributions ever disclosed. A grandson of former Treasury Secretary Andrew W. Mellon, Mellon was not a prominent Republican donor until Trump was elected. But in recent years, he has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into supporting Trump and the Republican Party. Mellon, who lives primarily in Wyoming, keeps a low profile despite his prolific political spending. He is also a significant supporter of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who also ran for president last year. Mellon donated millions to Kennedy’s presidential campaign and has also given money to his anti-vaccine group, Children’s Health Defense. The Pentagon said it accepted the donation under the “general gift acceptance authority.” “The donation was made on the condition that it be used to offset the cost of service members’ salaries and benefits,” Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, said in a statement. Still, the donation appears to be a potential violation of the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits federal agencies from spending money in excess of congressional appropriations or from accepting voluntary services. More than three weeks into the government shutdown, the Trump administration has taken a series of unorthodox steps to redirect funds to pay certain government workers. Trump has vowed to pay military members, immigration agents and law enforcement officials even though lawmakers have not approved the money for their wages. Workers in those categories are considered essential and must continue working during the shutdown, although they are entitled to back pay under a 2019 law. As part of that promise, Trump signed an executive order this month directing the Pentagon to use unspent research and development funds to cover troops’ salaries. But congressional leaders have warned that moving funds around is only a temporary fix. Thousands of federal workers missed their first paychecks this past week. About 670,000 workers have been furloughed, according to a tally by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington-based think tank. An additional 730,000 or so are working without pay. In an autobiography that he self-published in 2015, Mellon described himself as a former liberal who moved to Wyoming from Connecticut for lower taxes and to be surrounded by fewer people. His book also contains several incendiary passages about race. He wrote that Black people were “even more belligerent” after social programs were expanded in the 1960s and ’70s, and that social safety net programs amounted to “slavery redux.” Mellon wrote another book in the summer of 2024 about his work turning around Pan Am Systems, a collection of companies that includes rail, aviation and marketing firms. The book was put out by Skyhorse Publishing, which also published a recent memoir by first lady Melania Trump. Tony Lyons, president of Skyhorse Publishing, cofounded a super PAC, American Values 2024, that backed Kennedy’s presidential bid. In 2020, during a rare and brief interview with The New York Times, Mellon declined to answer questions about his political giving. “I’ll contribute to him or Biden or whoever I want to,” he said, referring to Trump and his rival, Joe Biden. “I don’t have to say why.” This article originally appeared in The New York Times. © 2025 The New York Times Company
