Republican mega donor and billionaire TikTok investor Jeff Yass is speculated to be be the person behind a sudden change of heart that saw Donald Trump oppose banning the Chinese-owned video app despite having tried to do it himself while in office.
Billionaire Jeff Yass of Susquehanna International Group.
Trump, who cited national security concerns when he issued a 2020 executive order demanding parent company ByteDance sell TikTok within 45 days or face a ban, last week spoke against the latest push in Congress to ban the app, saying it would only help Facebook, which he considers “an enemy of the people.”
Days after the sudden reversal, Trump spoke at a retreat for donors to the conservative PAC Club for Growth and called Yass, one of the group’s major supporters and an investor with a $33 billion stake in TikTok, “fantastic.”
Yass, who lent his Republican primary campaign support to Vivek Ramaswamy, Chris Christie and Tim Scott over Trump, reportedly met the former president at Mar-a-Lago earlier this month, before Trump spoke against the TikTok ban working its way through Congress.
Media reports from Politico, NBC News and others have noted the support of Yass, who had donated $46.4 million to outside groups in the 2024 election through the end of 2023, could be a major boon for a Trump campaign that’s struggling with cash needs.
Yass has made donations to conservative politicians who stand against the TikTok ban—including $24 million to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and $32,200 to Rep. Thomas Massie (R., Ky.), who also received $192,000 from the Club for Growth, according to the Wall Street Journal—and has reportedly threatened to stop donating to members of Congress who support the ban.
The TikTok application is seen on an iPhone 11 Pro max,
Commentators on both sides of the aisle have criticized Trump for possibly switching sides for a big donor, especially since he’s facing a serious cash problem. Conservative columnist David French wrote in the New York Times the change of heart over the TikTok ban "indicates that Trump’s positions may well be for sale, even when they threaten national security." Chris Hayes, the liberal host on MSNBC, said: “You don't have to be a genius to put two and two together here. Yass visits, Trump announces he now opposes the ban." Steve Bannon, a far-right former White House strategist under Trump, posted to social media a link to an article on Trump's change in position with the commentary, "Simple: Yass Coin." New York magazine’s liberal political columnist Jonathan Chait wrote it would be "hardly unprecedented" for Trump to "leap to the defense of the Chinese Communist Party" to gain political favor.
Yass is the world's 64th richest person as of Monday with an estimated net worth of $27.6 billion. A former professional gambler, Yass co-founded trading firm Susquehanna International Group in 1987 and has invested in hundreds of private companies, including TikTok owner ByteDance.
Susquehanna recruits and trains traders using poker tournaments to sharpen decision-making skills. Its traders have won three World Series of Poker bracelets.
$46,418,281. That's how much Jeffrey Yass and his wife, Janine, had donated to outside spending groups in the 2024 election by the end of 2023, more than any other single person or couple, according to data compiled by Open Secrets. The Yasses donated $16 million to Club for Growth Action, $10 million to the Congressional Leadership Fund and $6 million to Protect Freedom PAC, among other groups. All of Yass’s money went to conservative causes.
Yass has contributed heavily to several specific causes over the years, including school choice, economic freedom and government spending on opportunity zones. He's donated more than $209 million over the last 10 years to groups and candidates to promote school choice, according to the Dallas Morning News, including $6.25 million to Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. In 2023, the biggest recipients of his donations were Club for Growth Action (which aims to replace "big-government politicians" with "limited government conservatives"), the Congressional Leadership Fund (dedicated to electing Republicans to the House) and the American Exceptionalism PAC, which supported Republican primary candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
Dubbed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, the House last week approved legislation that calls for ByteDance to sell TikTok or see it face a ban. The bill is the latest attempt to regulate the social media platform, which has for years raised national security and privacy concerns, including fears the Chinese government could force ByteDance to relinquish U.S. users’ data. Politicians on both sides of the aisle have expressed concerns over TikTok and support for the bill, and President Joe Biden has said he will sign it into law if Congress passes it.