Timothy Mellon, the grandson of banking tycoon Andrew Mellon, is the biggest and earliest funder of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s presidential campaign. On April 13, 2023 Mellon gave $5 million to the Kennedy SuperPAC, “American Values 2024.” Mellon’s self-published autobiography features recollections of a childhood spent flying to and from boarding school on his father’s private jet and a visit by Queen Elizabeth II to the family’s farm near Aldie, Virginia.
Mellon over the years has funded the Republican Party, and has given massively both to SuperPACs of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. He also, in 2020, put his money into Donald Trump’s campaign against Joe Biden. Then in 2021, he donated over $53 million in stock to finance the construction of a wall on the border with Mexico, a fund set up by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
Four days after Mellon’s kickstart, Dr. Gavin De Becker, the “threat assessment” specialist, put in $200,000 (and then he added another $4.3 million in June). The author of The Gift of Fear, he began a career dealing with stalker threats to Hollywood personalities. (Curiously, his eulogy at actress Carrie Fisher’s memorial service explained that the “first time I had sex was at Carrie’s house,” which she had set up for him.) Abby Rockefeller came in a week later, on April 24, with $100,000. Those three accounted for $9.6 million of the $9.8 million raised from April to June 2023. Apparently, the $9.8 million raised in that first period—almost a million/week—still beats the rate since then, which appears to be at about two-thirds of that rate.
