Hansjorg Wyss, uses his fortune to help sway US elections
He’s the foreign billionaire you’ve never heard of and he’s using his vast fortune to help sway US elections.
Reclusive Swiss-born Hansjörg Wyss, 85, who lives in
Wyoming, gave $208 million over four years from his non-profits to other groups
that backed Democrats and progressive causes, The New York Times reported.
Wyss does not appear to be a citizen or permanent legal
resident of the US, which prohibits him from donating directly to political
campaigns. Federal Election Commission records show he made such contributions
until 2003 and then his donations disappeared.
“You don’t see his name show up in FEC filings but that
doesn’t necessarily mean that he hasn’t poured hundreds of millions of dollars
into influencing US politics or policy,” said Anna Massoglia, an investigative
researcher with the Center for Responsive Politics, a government transparency
group in Washington, DC.
Wyss has sent some of his vast fortune derived from a
medical device company into his eponymous foundation and a related non-profit
called the Berger Action Fund.
From there the cash has gone to causes supporting Democrats.
The Berger Action Fund gave $35 million in 2019 to the Sixteen Thirty Fund,
which has been described as a “dark money” network helping Democrats.
The fund helped seed others that worked to unseat Republican
Senators in 2020, including Martha McSally of Arizona, who lost to Democrat
Mark Kelly, and Cory Gardner of Colorado, who was defeated by John Hickenlooper.
Other Republicans it aimed at, including Sen Susan Collins of Maine, held on to
their seats.
The Sixteen Thirty Fund also gave money to PACS like the
Lincoln Project working to help Joe Biden defeat President Trump.
More than $1 billion in dark money — spending where the
source of the dollars isn’t disclosed — was pumped into the 2020 election, the
vast majority of it to benefit Democrats, Massoglia said.
The Wyss Foundation in 2019 gave $9.5 million to the New
Venture Fund, a sister organization to the Sixteen Thirty Fund. That entity
sends money to left-leaning causes like the Center for American Progress, The
Voter Registration Project, and America Votes.
The Berger Action Fund kicked in $1 million in 2019 to an
effort helmed by former US Attorney General Eric Holder to flip statehouses in
2020 in order to influence redistricting and get more Democrats elected to
Congress, said Hayden Ludwig, a researcher at the Capital Research Center, a
Washington, DC think tank that focuses on philanthropy.
“Here’s a foreign billionaire who in his own little way, or
not so little way, helps to basically unseat a sitting president and get a
Democrat elected. Pretty good for a guy who can’t give to Joe Biden’s campaign
legally,” Ludwig said.
Wyss was raised in Switzerland and started out as a project manager
for Chrysler working in Pakistan, Turkey and the Philippines, according to a
profile in a Harvard Business School alumni bulletin.
He received an MBA from the school in 1965. He later joined
Swiss medical device manufacturer Synthes, heading its US operations as CEO and
chairman. In 2009, company executives faced federal indictment for testing an
unapproved bone cement on patients, three of whom died.
Wyss stepped down as CEO in 2007, but remained company
chairman until 2012 when it was sold to Johnson & Johnson for $20 billion.
He reportedly owned half of Synthes’ shares.
Hansjörg Wyss gave $208 million over four years to groups
that backed Democrats and progressive causes.
Wyss signed a pledge in 2013 to give away at least half of
his wealth to charity. A few months later he announced a $5 million
contribution to a Clinton Foundation effort to review the progress made by
women and girls around the world.
He’s long supported environmental causes and, in recent
years, his foundation has backed several New York City based non-profits.
In 2018 and 2019, it gave a total of $2 million to the
Wildlife Conservation Society, which runs the Bronx Zoo and other attractions,
and $11.3 million to the Open Space Institute in Manhattan, which works to
fight climate change and protect land and water in the Eastern US and Canada.
The foundation also gave $14 million to New York University and $1.1 million to
Demos, a social justice organization, tax filings show.
Wyss came forward, and then dropped out last month, as a
potential investor in buying Tribune Publishing, the company that owns the New
York Daily News and other papers.
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