Jeffrey Yass’ personal wealth ballooned to $65.7 billion thanks to TikTok. With its ban on the table, he turned to Trump.
TikTok billionaire Jeffrey Yass poured $16 million into the coffers of MAGA Inc., President Donald Trump’s super PAC, as the deadline to ban the popular social media platform in the US was delayed over the past year.
According to Sludge, Yass donated $1 million on Jan. 17, three days before Trump took office and issued the first TikTok ban delay. He then offered another$15 million on Mar. 6, roughly a month before the second delay.
Yass is a co-founder of the Susquehanna International Group, an investment firm located outside of Philadelphia and the largest American investor in Tiktok’s parent company, ByteDance, of which it owned 15%. Forbes lists him as the 25th richest person in the world with a net worth of $65.7 billion.
ByteDance is a China-based company and has long been considered a national security threat by US officials.
As a result, Congress proposed a TikTok ban last year, and it was signed into law by former President Joe Biden. The ban was supposed to go into effect one day before Trump started his second term, but he announced that he would not enforce it before taking office.
“Jeff Yass’s $16 million to MAGA Inc. reveals the playbook for how billionaires use their wealth to shape policy and serve their own financial interests,” Arielle Klagsburn, Pennsylvania Campaign Director with ACRE and member of the All Eyes On Yass campaign, said in a statement.
“Yass made his fortune betting on TikTok. Just weeks after cutting a massive check to Trump’s super PAC, the president suddenly reversed course on banning the app, skyrocketing Yass’s net worth and solidifying his loyalty to the president.”
It’s estimated that Yass’ shares in the social media company are worth between $34 billion to $41 billion, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
All Eyes on Yass estimates that he has spent over $75 million supporting Republicans at the state level through a network of political action committees (PACs) since 2017. Last year, his groups spent over $13 million supporting Attorney General Dave Sunday’s campaign.
According to Open Secrets, Yass dropped the sixth most amount of money, topping $100 million, on federal races during the 2024 election cycle, and Federal Election Commission reports show that he’s already spent over $20 million for next year’s midterm elections.
Advocates worry that he will pour millions of dollars into Pennsylvania’s upcoming Supreme Court and other judicial elections this November. Democrats have three Supreme Court Justices up for a “yes” or “no” retention vote, and Republicans are urging their supporters to vote no.
Yass is also starting to peddle his influence in other states, especially when it comes to supporting the privatization of public education. He gave Texas Gov. Greg Abbott $10 million in 2024 to help pro-voucher Republicans win their primaries, and that money paid off in 2024, when Abott signed a $1 billion voucher bill into law.
“For billionaires like Yass, politicians aren’t public servants, they’re investment vehicles, expected to deliver returns,” Klagsburn added. “We’ve seen this playbook first hand in Pennsylvania, where Yass has given to one in three PA state legislators, lobbied for school vouchers and spent big to tilt the scales of justice and rewrite the rules to benefit the ultra-wealthy.”
