Jeffrey Yass shared a lot of his personal motivations in an interview and revealed what drives his political views.
Pennsylvania’s richest billionaire, Jeffrey Yass, was recently profiled in the Washington Post, and the interview provides insight into the commonwealth’s largest Republican donor as he starts to form a budding relationship with President Donald Trump.
Yass, co-founder of Susquehanna International Group, a futures trading firm located outside of Philadelphia, has accumulated a net worth of $65.7 billion, making him the 27th richest person in the world thanks to his early investments in Byte Dance, the parent company of TikTok.
Here are five takeaways from Yass’ rare interview with the Washington Post.
School vouchers are Yass’ main motivation
Yass has been a long-time proponent of school vouchers, which send taxpayer dollars to private and religious schools in an attempt to undermine public education, and it is his main motivating factor when it comes to spending money in political races.
Yass told The Post that he wants vouchers to pay for students, including those who come from wealthy families, so they could attend any school that they would like to attend.
“I have come across what I think is a great way to relieve the suffering of tens of millions of kids,” Yass said in an interview with The Post. “To most people it’s like if you’re a libertarian billionaire, you must be Lex Luthor trying to do something nefarious. If I gave to a hospital, you wouldn’t be saying that.”
Funding pro-voucher politicians is a “philanthropy”
Yass has spent more than $350 million on political campaigns since 2015 and was the sixth largest donor during the 2024 political cycle. In Pennsylvania, he’s spent more than $75 million in local and statewide races.
Yass is the single largest individual donor in Pennsylvania politics and he sees himself as a philanthropist spending money on pro-voucher politicians who are willing to defund public education and go after the different teachers unions.
“They needed a philanthropist,” Yass said. “I felt it was my role to be that philanthropist.”
Yass compares himself to Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen, and others
If comparing your political spending to philanthropy wasn’t bad enough, Yass believes he’s like Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen, Oprah Winfrey, or any other high powered celebrities who have waded into the political waters.
Yass told The Post that an endorsement from Swift is more powerful than a billion-dollar contribution.
“No one would take away their right to free speech,” he said. “I am not nearly as powerful as Bruce Springsteen. If you want to shut me up, you have to shut him up, too.”
Yass’ first political contribution went to an unlikely source
Yass, who is 67 years old, gave his first political contribution in 2007 and it went to an unlikely source.
With the hopes of passing school vouchers on the national level, Yass donated $2,300 to future President Barack Obama in 2007 because of Obama’s support for charter schools and school choice, but Yass was quickly disappointed once Obama opposed a voucher program.
Taking his pro-voucher movement on the road
With little success in Pennsylvania, Yass has taken his pro-voucher movement on the road and is looking to influence voucher legislation in state legislatures around the country.
In 2024, Yass played an instrumental role in helping Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott remove Republican lawmakers who opposed Abbott’s voucher push that previous year by funding their primary opponents.
Yass donated $12 million to a political action committee controlled by Abbott and another $5.7 million to the Texas AFC Victory Fund, the political arm of the American Federation for Children, in a successful attempt to defeat the anti-voucher Republicans.
He called it the “Super Bowl of school choice.”
