New megadonors with major business before the government back Trump's super PAC

As President Donald Trump began his second decade at the center of American politics in 2025, a few wealthy donors took a step they hadn’t made in the previous 10 years: making major contributions to his super PAC, having never given such large donations before.

More than a dozen donors who gave at least $1 million to the Trump-affiliated MAGA Inc. super PAC after the president’s 2024 election win hadn’t previously given federal political donations to anyone approaching even 10% of that size, according to an NBC News analysis of Federal Election Commission records. For some, it was their first time sending a disclosed donation to any Trump-aligned political group, after he was a candidate in three straight presidential elections.

Those contributions came at a time when Trump’s super PAC wasn’t spending on elections, of course, but as Trump was governing or preparing to govern in the year-plus after he won. And while Trump maintains a large and loyal base of longtime supporters and donors, some of the brand-new financial backers have specific business interests in front of the federal government, important contracts with federal agencies or companies in sectors that could face dramatic shifts due to federal policies. Others had relatives facing years in federal prison.

It’s unclear if those people or others gave to other political groups in 2025. While MAGA Inc. filed a new report early due to its involvement in a December special election, other super PACs don’t have to detail their donors from the second half of 2025 until Jan. 31. And nonprofits and other groups give donors other avenues to contribute undisclosed amounts of money, too.

The list of people who gave $1 million or more to Trump for the first time in 2025 or late 2024 also includes a handful of America’s most prominent business leaders, including Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, Palantir CEO Alexander Karp, OpenAI President Greg Brockman and Todd Boehly, who co-owns several of the world’s most popular sports teams.

Federal campaign finance records show that Brockman, whose OpenAI is at the center of the artificial intelligence boom, gave $12.5 million to the Trump super PAC in September. His wife, Anna, appears to have also donated the same amount that same day. Brockman’s donation alone made him one of the top donors to the Trump-aligned super PAC in 2025.

The head of one of the top technology companies in the world and a Silicon Valley veteran, Brockman’s donation is a massive departure from the handful of smaller political gifts in his adult life, according to campaign finance records. Before this, FEC data shows his top donations were a handful of $2,700 contributions, to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016 and to then-Republican Rep. Patrick McHenry in 2018.

AI has been a major focus for the Trump administration. It announced new AI infrastructure investment from OpenAI and others on Trump’s first full day in office, has pushed for new federal AI initiatives, and signed an executive order last month aimed at superseding individual state AI policies.

Brockman, like the other donors mentioned in this article, did not answer questions NBC News sent to his company. But he spoke about his newfound political giving in an end-of-year post on the social media platform X.

“This year, my wife Anna and I started getting involved politically, including through political contributions, reflecting support for policies that advance American innovation and constructive dialogue between government and the technology sector. These views are grounded in a belief that the United States must work closely with builders, researchers, and entrepreneurs to ensure AI is developed responsibly at home and that we remain globally competitive,” Brockman wrote.

He added that “it’s been great to see the president’s and his administration’s willingness to engage directly with the AI community and approach emerging technology with a growth-focused mindset.”

Another prominent tech CEO, Palantir’s Alexander Karp, made a $1 million donation to MAGA Inc. in December 2024, during the presidential transition. His previous largest donation in FEC records came in 2023: $90,000 to a fundraising committee affiliated with GOP Sen. John Cornyn of Texas.

While Karp has cut a slew of five-figure checks to politicians, largely Republicans, over the years, his check to MAGA Inc. (as well as his $1 million donation to Trump’s inaugural committee around the same time) were his largest disclosed political gifts by an order of magnitude.

Karp’s Palantir has had a slew of important government contracts over the years, including to help track the coronavirus during Trump’s first term. More recently, the firm received high-profile contracts like one aimed at assisting in the administration’s tracking of immigrants. Palantir did not respond to a request for comment from Karp about his donation.

William Ford, the New York-based CEO of the General Atlantic growth equity firm, had a similar political giving profile to Karp’s. He made a number of four- or five-figure donations over the years before sending $1.25 million to MAGA Inc. days before Trump’s inauguration in 2025.

General Atlantic’s website says Ford is on the board of ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok. A law passed by Congress and signed by then-President Joe Biden in 2024 forced ByteDance to divest its majority ownership of TikTok or be banned starting in 2025, but Trump delayed the implementation of the ban upon taking office. Last month, ByteDance agreed to sell a majority stake in the U.S. version of the app to an American joint venture.

Konstantin Sokolov, a private equity investor, went from making a handful of four-figure donations in the past to dropping more than $11 million into MAGA Inc.’s coffers in just one year.

Lynsi Snyder-Ellingson, the president of the burger chain In-N-Out, gave MAGA Inc. a $2 million contribution in April, in what appears to be her first disclosed personal political donation, according to FEC records, though In-N-Out has made political donations in the past.

And Jerry Jones, the high-profile owner of the Dallas Cowboys football team who had made one six-figure donation in 2016, made a $1 million donation to MAGA Inc. in early January, a donation that appears to be his largest on record. The Cowboys declined to elaborate on Jones’ donation.

A handful of medical executives became new Trump megadonors too, including two co-owners of Extremity Care LLC, a medical supply company in Pennsylvania, who each donated $2.5 million to MAGA Inc. In February.

There’s been a simmering debate for years over how Medicare covers wound care and special bandages, and The New York Times reported last summer that one of Extremity Care’s co-founders, Oliver Burckhardt, spoke to the president about the company at a dinner for major donors in March, a month before the administration delayed new regulations limiting coverage for those bandages.

The concept of presidential megadonors having professional or personal business in front of the administration is hardly new. And while MAGA Inc., as a super PAC, must disclose its donors, nonprofit groups that supported past presidential administrations have not needed to divulge their backers. For example, tax records show that Building Back Together, the nonprofit that supported Biden’s agenda, brought in almost $41 million in 2021 as the new administration was crafting sweeping legislation on Covid relief, taxes, infrastructure and other federal spending.

In the year-plus since Trump’s 2024 election win, two other new MAGA Inc. megadonors had family members facing significant legal jeopardy when they donated to the super PAC, and those family members eventually got leniency from the administration.

Isabela Herrera gave $2.5 million to MAGA Inc. on New Year’s Eve 2024. Months later, the Justice Department dropped the most serious charges against her father, a banker who had been accused of trying to bribe the former Puerto Rican governor, when he agreed to plead to a misdemeanor. (Alex Spiro, a lawyer for Herrera’s father, has said the plea deal was proof “the facts never supported the serious accusations.”)

Herrera donated another $1 million in late July, after that decision, according to MAGA Inc.’s most recent FEC report. She did not return a telephone call from NBC News about her donations.

Elizabeth Fago, a Republican donor from South Florida, had made a handful of five-figure political donations over the years, along with one $100,000 donation to the Republican National Committee in 2002. But her $1 million contribution to MAGA Inc. in April was her largest in FEC records.

Shortly after that donation, her son, Paul Walczak, was sentenced to 18 months in prison following a guilty plea for tax crimes. But Trump pardoned him weeks later. The New York Times reported Fago attended a dinner with the president for his top donors shortly before the pardon.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com