Timothy mellon

Birthday: July 22nd, 1942

Hometown: Guilford, CT, USA

Primary residence: Wyoming, USA

Current role: Former Chairman of Pan Am Systems

Net worth/salary: At least $1.1B

Education: 

• Bachelor’s Degree from Yale University

• Master’s Degree from Yale University

Board memberships, affiliations, and roles:

• Trustee at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

Past roles: 

•  Executive of Vertical Systems

Fun facts: 

• The Mellon family is worth over $14 billion and is the 34th richest family in the United States. 

• Timothy Mellon’s political donations have sharply veered right over time; in the 1970s his donations supported feminist and ecological causes. 

• Mellon bought three properties neighboring Patsy Cline’s childhood home in Virginia and has spent several years building a park dedicated to the country singer.

Investments in the Fossil Fuel Industry:

• The Mellon Family’s bank, The Bank of New York Mellon (BNY Mellon), has 35 million  dollars invested in various oil and gas companies. Major investments include:

  • $4,754M in Exxon Mobil Corporation

  • $2,831M in Chevron Corporations

  • $1,878M in ConocoPhillips

  • $1,878M in General Electric Company

  • $1,206 in Marathon Petroleum Corporation

• The Mellon family funds the Sarah Scaife Foundation, which has donated $21.5 million to the Heritage Foundation. The Heritage Foundation is financed by the Koch Brothers and has strong ties with many climate denial groups and is the leading group behind Project 2025.

• Timothy Mellon has also donated millions to the Sentinel Action Fund- a super PAC with close affiliations to the Heritage Foundation. Mellon has donated $11 million to the Sentinel Action Fund from 2022-2024 and was the Fund’s top donor for the 2024 election cycle.

Environmental Damage:

• PanAm Railways, which Mellon owned for over 40 years, has committed numerous violations of federal and state environmental and safety laws. PanAm has been fined hundreds of thousands of dollars for environmental violations such as improper storage and disposal of hazardous waste. In a case brought forward by the Massachusetts Attorney General, the company was found guilty of concealing a 2006 hazardous oil spill of over 900 gallons of diesel fuel in its railyard. 

Wealth

• The Mellon family's collective net worth has increased by almost $4 billion since 2020, and they have one of the longest billionaire dynasties in American history. According to WealthX, Mellon has a personal net worth of at least $1.1 billion dollars. He has properties in Lyme CT, Winchester, VA, and Old Lyme, CT. Mellon owns a 1979 Cessna Citation I/SP jet, estimated to value $300,000. 

Praise 

• Mellon has been praised by RFK Jr., who proclaimed that “Tim Mellon is a maverick entrepreneur who embodies the most admirable qualities of what FDR called ‘American industrial genius.’” The Mellon family has been lauded for their philanthropic donations through the Mellon Foundation, which is a major donor to the arts and humanities. 

• Timothy Mellon’s fortune and the millions he donated to president-elect Donald Trump’s campaign are the result of a tax system championed by his grandfather that allows wealth to be consolidated in the hands of the largest corporations and wealthiest individuals. This system helps oil and gas companies maintain unprecedented power at the expense of the planet.  

• Andrew Mellon, Timothy’s grandfather, was a major contributor to the expansion of American industry; he was interested in coal, steel, chemicals, oil, and more, and allocated his investments accordingly. As a result, millions of Americans had their energy needs met through Mellon coal or natural gas. Mellon entered the oil industry by using his family banking firm to invest in and provide capital to growing oil companies, most notably Gulf Oil. Much of Timothy Mellon’s fortune has come from these investments in the fossil fuel industry. 

• In 1984, Chevron bought Andrew Mellon’s GulfOil LP for $13.2 billion dollars. At the time, this was the second largest merger in corporate history, and it doubled oil and natural gas reserves worldwide. Today, climate criminal Mike Wirth stands at the helm of Chevron, which is now the largest combined oil and natural gas producer in the lower 48 U.S. states. In addition to continuing to produce fossil fuels, Chevron has a poor history of compliance with environmental regulations and has one of the industry’s worst oil spill records. 

• “Trust fund baby Donald Trump and his new best friend Tim Mellon have something in common besides getting rich without doing any work: Trump, like Mellon, is completely dependent on fossil fuel billionaires for his continuing “success.” That’s why Donald Trump has been promising Big Oil CEOs to extend tax cuts for the ultrawealthy while asking them for $1 billion on campaign contributions – tax cuts that would let Andrew Mellon hold onto his unearned oil fortune, which Trump surely relates to.” -Climate Power

• Although he overwhelmingly supports Republican politicians, in 2018 Mellon donated to Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign because he believed her outspoken nature would make things difficult for Democrats. Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign said they did not ask for the donation and returned it.   

• “The grandson of Andrew Mellon peering out from behind a shrubbery to drop $50 million on an effort to defeat the strongest anti-monopolist element in government in decades is poetic.” - David Dayen, executive editor of progressive magazine The American Prospect. 

• “Timothy Mellon — and the tens of millions he is shelling out to Trump, RFK Jr and Republican candidates for the Senate and House — is the product of a tax system pioneered by his grandfather that allows the perpetuation of dynastic wealth and the maintenance of its political power.” -Robert Reich, labor secretary under Bill Clinton 

• Mellon’s donations speak louder than his words; he almost completely stays out of the public eye and spends most of his time on his ranch in rural Wyoming.

• “Black people, in spite of heroic efforts by the ‘Establishment’ to right the wrongs of the past, became even more belligerent and unwilling to pitch in to improve their own situations… For delivering their votes in the Federal Elections, they are awarded with yet more and more freebies: food stamps, cell phones, WIC payments, Obamacare, and on, and on, and on.” -Mellon in his 2015 autobiography.

• “I said everything I wanted to say. I don’t have any regrets,” -Mellon defends racist comments in his autobiography in a rare public comment. 

• “He’s done the things he promised to, or tried to do the things he’s promised to…in trade and righting the balance between our country and the rest of the world, especially China.” - Timothy Mellon on Donald Trump’s presidency in 2020. 

Mellon’s Family Ties 

• The story of Timothy Mellon’s inheritance begins in the 19th century, when a private bank owned by his great-grandfather attracted the investments of famous American robber barons Andrew Carnegie and Henry Frick. The next generation of Mellons organized a new bank, the Union Trust Company, which became even more successful. They invested their private capital heavily into burgeoning oil and coal companies. Financial backing from Mellon’s grandfather Andrew Mellon led to the creation of the Gulf Oil Company, which was acquired by Chevron in 1984.   

• Andrew Mellon also ran the United States Treasury Department under President Warren G. Harding, which he was appointed to after one of his banks lent $1.5 million to Harding’s campaign. During his time as secretary in the Treasury, he focused on debt and tax reduction for the wealthy and large businesses. He was an early prophet of “trickle-down” economics, arguing that tax cuts for big businesses and the wealthiest Americans would spur investment and lead to prosperity for the nation. This paradigm that Andrew Mellon championed in office enabled him to bestow much of his personal fortune tax-free to his heirs, which include Timothy Mellon. His fortune equals around $9 billion dollars today. 

Political Donations

• Timothy Mellon has made several contributions to the Trump campaign via Make America Great Again Inc and donations through Trump’s super PAC America First Action. Mellon’s political donations have made him the first donor that’s exceeded $100M in contributions for the 2024 election. 

Contributions to Make America Great Again Inc. 

• $25,000,000 on 9/17/2024

• $50,000,000 on 7/15/2024

• $50,000,000 on 5/31/2024

• $10,000,000 on 4/17/2024

• $5,000,000 on 1/30/2024

• $5,000,000 on 8/16/2023

• $5,000,000 on 7/10/2023

• $1,500,000 on 10/5/2022

Contributions to America First Action

• $10,000,000 on 9/11/2020

• $10,000,000 on 4/14/2020

Mellon has donated to the Congressional Leadership Fund, a Super PAC that supports electing Republicans to the House of Representatives, on several occasions. 

• $5,000,000 on 3/6/2024

• $5,000,000 on 6/8/2023

• $5,000,000 on 10/19/2022

• $10,000,000 on 6/3/2022

• $10,000,000 on 7/9/2020

• $10,000,000 on 11/15/2019

• $10,000,000 on 5/14/2018

• When Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced plans to build a border wall in 2021, Mellon transferred $53.1 million in stock to a fund set up by Abbott for the wall. This donation comprised 98% of all the private money Abbott raised for the effort. 

Lobbying

• Timothy Mellon’s company Pan Am Systems and Pan Am Railways was bought by the transportation company CSX Corporation in 2022. CSX Corp has lobbied for many politicians and political groups.

CSX Corp 2024 Lobbying (>$15,000)

• $31,191 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee

• $30,875 to the National Republican Congressional Committee

• $30,793 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee

• $30,456 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee

• $16,772 to Donald Trump

  • Special mention: CSX Corp donated $40,759 to Donald Trump in 2020

• $15,000 to Steer PAC, a PAC that promotes the election of conservatives to the Senate

Pan Am Systems Lobbying 2020 (>$1,000)

• $1,030 to Responsibility & Freedom Work PAC

• $1,000 to Mitch McConnell

  • League of Conservation Voters lifetime environmental score: 9%

• $1,000 to Steve Negron