Join us Read
Listen
Watch
Book
Technology AI, Science and New Things

Jeff Yass: Republican megadonor in the spotlight

Jeff Yass: Republican megadonor in the spotlight

Jeff Yass, the Republican megadonor, seems to be popping up everywhere. The billionaire Wall Street financier is a major investor in TikTok’s parent company ByteDance and is a donor to Club for Growth, an influential conservative group lobbying Congress against a ban. He met Trump days before the former president reversed his anti-TikTok stance (Trump maintains TikTok wasn’t discussed). He’s the top donor in this US election cycle, giving $46 million to Republican causes. Notably, Yass has not yet donated to Trump. But yesterday, Trump’s social media company began trading on the US Nasdaq stock exchange after it merged with Digital World Acquisition Corp. The NYT reports that Yass’s trading firm was the biggest institutional shareholder of Digital World, with the most recent filings showing a 2 per cent stake, worth roughly $22 million pre-merger. Which means, if it retained the stake, Yass’s firm is now a player in Trump’s world too. The company told the NYT it had “zero economic interest” in Trump Media, but did not comment on whether it still held the stake.


Enjoyed this article?

Sign up to the Daily Sensemaker Newsletter

A free newsletter from Tortoise. Take once a day for greater clarity.



Tortoise logo

A free newsletter from Tortoise. Take once a day for greater clarity.



Tortoise logo

Download the Tortoise App

Download the free Tortoise app to read the Daily Sensemaker and listen to all our audio stories and investigations in high-fidelity.

App Store Google Play Store

Follow:


Copyright © 2025 Tortoise Media

All Rights Reserved