(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Nearly $900 million in secretive donations funded the 2024 presidential election, with the majority of that “dark money” going to the Democrats’ Kamala Harris campaign, according to the New York Times.
The Times reported Wednesday that Future Forward USA Action, the super PAC backing Joseph Biden at first and then Harris, received $613 million from anonymous donors last year
“About $252 million of that money flowed into the candidates’ main super PAC, called FF PAC,” the Times reported.
“Strikingly, $515 million of the $613 million raised overall came from just the 10 largest donations, the biggest of which was for $97.5 million from an unidentified person or group.”
Trump’s main PAC, Securing American Greatness, received about $275 million.
DNC email says they are not "beholden to dark money billionaires."
Just yesterday, NYT reported that Dem dark money juggernaut Future Forward gave $613 million to Kamala/Biden last year, including $97 million from an unidentified donor. pic.twitter.com/Dwd4AP5sum
— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) December 18, 2025
“The largest donation to Securing American Greatness was for $35 million from an unidentified giver,” the Times added. “Its top 10 donations accounted for $163 million of its $275 million.”
The Times report comes as Democrats are campaigning on the notion that they don’t fundraise from “dark-money billionaires.” Last year’s race proves otherwise—though moving forward, some billionaires have pulled their support in the wake of Harris’s loss.
For instance, Bill Gates made a secretive $50 million donation to support Harris’s presidential run. But after Trump’s victory, he’s changed his tune.
The Microsoft co-founder told the Wall Street Journal in January that he recently spoke with Trump about global health challenges, and came away from the meeting impressed. Gates also tightened the purse strings on funding Democratic causes.
According to the Times, the Gates Foundation said in June that it’s not making any more grants to the consulting firm Arabella Advisors, which has long funded pro-Democrat groups. The Gates Foundation has reportedly pledged some $450 million to Arabella-associated groups over the last 16 years.
“The Gates Foundation said it would not make new investments with ‘Arabella-related entities,’ including a consulting firm bought by Arabella in 2023 called the Redstone Group. The foundation said it would not extend existing grants and would even try to ‘pursue early exits’ from a few long-term investments,” the Times reported in August.
According to the Times, Arabella disperses much of its money to Democrats through the New Venture Fund, which is a fiscal sponsor for 170 nonprofit projects. The New Venture Fund, in turn, sends much of that cash to a dark-money group called the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which has donated $97 million to Democratic super PACs, the Times reported.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
