Timothy Mellon, a reclusive billionaire and a major financial backer of President Trump, is the anonymous private donor who gave $130 million to the US govt to help pay troops during the shutdown, according to two people familiar with the matter.Trump announced the donation Thursday, but he declined to identify the person who provided the funds, only calling him a “patriot” and a friend. But the two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the donation was private, identified him as Mellon.Shortly after departing Washington on Friday, Trump again declined to identify Mellon while talking to reporters aboard Air Force One. He only said the individual was “a great American citizen” and a “substantial man.” “He doesn’t want publicity,” Trump said as he headed to Malaysia. The White House declined to comment. Multiple attempts to reach Mellon and representatives for him were unsuccessful.It remains unclear how far the donation will go toward covering the salaries of the more than 1.3 million troops who make up the active-duty military. The Trump administration’s 2025 budget requested about $600 billion in total military compensation; a $130 million donation would equal about $100 a service member.Mellon, a wealthy banking heir and railroad magnate, is a longtime backer of Trump and gave tens of millions of dollars to groups supporting the president’s campaign.Last year, he made a $50 million donation to a super political action committee supporting Trump, which was one of the largest single contributions ever disclosed.A grandson of former treasury secretary Andrew W. Mellon, Mellon was not a prominent Republican donor until Trump was elected. But in recent years, he has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into supporting Trump and the Republican Party.The Pentagon said it accepted the donation under the “general gift acceptance authority.” “The donation was made on the condition that it be used to offset the cost of service members’ salaries and benefits,” Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, said in a statement. Still, the donation appears to be a potential violation of the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits federal agencies from spending money in excess of congressional appropriations or from accepting voluntary services.
