Meet Timothy Mellon, the reclusive Wyoming billionaire revealed as the $130 million donor funding military pay during the federal shutdown

As the US government shutdown approaches its 29th day, President Donald Trump has turned to a banking heir to help ensure hundreds of thousands of service members, including members of the military, are paid.

Mellon is also the 83-year-old great-grandson of former US Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon and the great-grandson of Thomas Mellon, founder of Mellon Bank.

He burst onto the political scene as a major donor in 1996, and over two decades has given $350,000 in political donations to George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney.

Since 2020, he has reportedly funneled $227 million to federal candidates and political committees, nearly all of them Republicans. Last year, Mellon made a $50 million donation to MAGA Inc., the super PAC backing Trump’s bid. It was one of the largest single contributions ever made public.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Trump administration’s 2025 budget requested about $600 billion in total military compensation. The $130 million donation would equate to about $100 per service member, though it remains unknown how the money will be distributed among them. In addition, critics point out that the amount would have covered the pay of 1.3 million active-duty service members in America for less than a day.

Where Tim Mellon donated his wealth

Although Mellon keeps a low profile, his donations are large and often reflect conservative ideology. Mellon, who had supported liberal social initiatives, later shifted toward conservative views, expressing criticism of large federal social welfare programs.

“I will not use his name unless he allows me to,” Trump said in a press conference when announcing the donation. “He doesn’t really want to confess,” he continued.

In the 1970s, his charitable giving supported feminist, environmental, and Native American causes. Mellon donated about $115 million to the pro-Trump political action committee Make America Great Again Inc. Since 2023 — including millions of dollars in contributions that helped boost Trump’s 2024 campaign efforts.

In 2024, he also donated stock to support the construction of a wall along the US-Mexico border worth $54 million.

Mellon also donated at least $25 million to groups supporting Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the current Secretary of Health and Human Services, who previously ran as an independent.

Forbes It was reported that Mellon has likely donated more than half of his fortune to politics. He has now given at least $504 million to politics. Separately, they reported that no other billionaire donated more than $20 million or more than 1% of their wealth to Trump, Biden, or Harris during the last presidential campaign.

luck I have reached out to Timothy Mellon for comment.

Where did Timothy Mellon get his net worth?

Aside from inheriting wealth from his family’s banking dynasty — his grandfather, Andrew Mellon, reportedly left Tim and his two other grandchildren a gift worth $23 million, roughly $500 million today — he has also expanded his own ventures.

In the 1980s, Mellon spent an estimated $22 million of his own money to buy a series of struggling railroads. He owned Pan Am Systems, a New England-based shipping, railroad, and aviation holding company, which included Pan Am Railways.

The railroad, which was a small regional line that often faced worker safety and environmental issues, was sold to CSX Transportation in 2022 for about $600 million.

Mellon says he’s not a billionaire, however Forbes His net worth is estimated at around $1 billion, based on his family’s wealth and the sale of his railway company – however, with one large anonymous donation after another, the true extent of his wealth remains unknown.