Awesome Games Done Quick 2022 is over, but the online speedrunning charity event wrapped up its week-long run with a brand new, all-time record for any GDQ event, raising $3,422,122 across over 49,000 individual donations. It also reached a million dollars and two million dollars faster than any previous GDQ events.
Like last year, AGDQ 2022 was held online this year to keep everybody safe and healthy as the world struggles with the ongoing covid-19 pandemic. Participants streamed games from their own homes while viewers watched online and donated money to players for various reasons, including requesting character names and shoutouts. The event started Jan. 9 and ended earlier today.
And many, many people donated. According to stats shared by AGDQ staff, the average donation was $69 (nice) and the highest single donation was $236,656. All of this added up to $3.4 million. And like the folks speedrunning various games, the event reached this number very fast. It set records, reaching $1 million, $1.5 million, and $2 million faster than any previous GDQ event ever. For context: Last year’s event raised a still-impressive $2.7 million.
After doing this for over a decade, GDQ has now raised over $37 million for numerous charities, including Prevent Cancer Foundation and Doctors Without Borders.
This year’s event saw some awesome runs over the past week. Someone beat Sekiro blindfolded and even beat some bosses without taking any damage. Another speedrunner set a new record in Sonic 4 dressed as the blue hedgehog himself. It should be noted that the outfit he wore was so cumbersome that if he set his controller down he would be unable to easily pick it up. Didn’t matter still set a new world record in the game.
AGDQ 2022 has uploaded all the speedruns onto its official YouTube channel, so you can easily watch any of these runs or countless other runs whenever you want. You can also still donate to the event.
It seems possible, maybe even likely, that he’s put at least some of the money into SpaceX, the other company of which he is CEO and primary shareholder.
Most of the proceeds from his $16.4 billion in Tesla stock sales since November 8 will go to pay an estimated $11 billion federal tax bill, leaving him with more than $5 billion to do whatever he sees fit.
Even if he ends up paying $2 billion in additional income tax to the state of California, where Tesla was based for most of the year when he was granted the options on which he will now owe taxes, Musk will be left with a nest egg of more than $3 billion. And his recent moves of both his own residence and Tesla’s corporate headquarters to Texas, with its zero state income tax, makes it unlikely he’ll have to pay the maximum possible tax to California.
Perhaps more telling: Some footnotes in the filing disclosing details of the sales, along with the timing of the last two equity infusions into SpaceX, raise the possibility that Musk is shifting some of his wealth from publicly-traded Tesla(TSLA) into shares of his privately-held company SpaceX.
Those trades are unique for Musk, the nation’s highest profile CEO. It’s the first time in the 12 years that Tesla has been public that he’s held onto cash from the sale of that company’s shares, rather than selling only enough stock to pay looming tax bills.
His timing is good, as the sales free up cash at a time when Tesla is doing very well in the market, becoming the sixth company in history to be worth $1 trillion, and lifting Musk himself to the status of the richest person on the planet. And it’s being done at a time when his other high profile company, SpaceX, is out in the market raising hundreds of millions in cash to fund its ambitious goals. Those two facts, along with details disclosed in the various filings, certainly raise the possibility that he’s pumping money into SpaceX.
Neither SpaceX nor Tesla(TSLA) responded to requests for comments about how Musk is using the proceeds of his stock sales.
Most Tesla shares sold to cover taxes
Musk sold 10.3 million of the shares on the same days he exercised options to buy an additional 22.9 million shares of Tesla stock. The sales took place on 11 separate days spread out from November 8 through December 28.
Those options had been due to expire on August 13, 2022, so it made sense for him to use them to buy the shares. But once he did so, the value of the shares, less the modest exercise price, became taxable income.
Musk sold shares immediately after exercising the options, with the SEC filing noting that the transactions were made “solely to satisfy the reporting person’s tax withholding obligations related to the exercise of stock options.”
But not all of them.
The most recent sales included the notation that 219,000 shares that were sold on December 28 were “solely” to cover his tax bill. Another 715,000 shares he sold that same day, which netted Musk $776 million, went “partially to satisfy” his tax bill, according to the filing.
The next day, SpaceX made its own filing with the SEC, disclosing that it had raised $337.4 million in new equity investment from an undisclosed investor.
And this isn’t the first time this year that a Musk sale of Tesla shares for purposes other than paying taxes was closely followed by SpaceX reporting a new infusion of equity investment.
From November 9 through 11, Musk sold 5.4 million shares, raising $5.8 billion. Those were shares he held in a trust, not shares he had just acquired as part of the exercise of options. And while his tax bill is likely much smaller on the sale of those shares, it’s still substantial – about $1.2 billion in federal long-term capital gains taxes, leaving him with about $4.6 billion.
There’s no indication in the filings as to why he completed those sales, which mark the first time he has sold shares that he has held for an extended period, rather than those he just acquired through the exercise of options.
It could be because he wanted to follow the outcome of a Twitter poll in which he asked followers if he should sell 10% of his stake in order to increase his taxable income. But it’s equally possible that the motivation was to provide much needed cash for SpaceX.
On November 15, a few days after he made that unusual sale of shares from his trust, SpaceX disclosed it had raised $388 million in additional equity investments from an undisclosed investor.
A cash-hungry SpaceX
That cash infusion arrived at an important time.
In an email sent to SpaceX staff just before Thanksgiving, Musk reportedly warned that the company was facing a cash crisis due to problems developing the Raptor rocket engines and Starship rockets needed to launch its Starlink satellites in 2022. Starlink is a constellation of satellites designed to provide high speed Internet service from orbit.
“We face a genuine risk of bankruptcy if we can’t achieve a Starship flight rate of at least once every two weeks next year,” according to the email reported by Space Explored and also by CNBC. Musk’s email said that the company needed virtually all employees at work during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend to address the problems.
He also said the company planned to ramp up production of ground stations needed to connect Starlink customers to the Internet. He said it would be making “several million units per year,” which he said will “consume massive capital.”
In a tweet that followed reports of the email, Musk said that problem with the Starship rocket and its Raptor engines were “getting fixed.” But in a December 29 tweet he said the first orbital test launch of the Starship rocket was delayed to the end of February due to the need to get approval for the unmanned flight from the FAA.
SpaceX and NASA also did not respond to questions from CNN Business about the email to SpaceX staff.
If SpaceX can fix the problems with its Starship rocket and Raptor engines and get Starlink up and running as planned, the value of SpaceX, already estimated to be worth more than $100 billion, could soar.The money that Musk and other investors have poured into it could lead to a financial bonanza once the company goes public.
SpaceX raised $1.2 billion in equity investments earlier this year, before these two most recent capital infusions.While the names of whomever purchased those additional shares are not public, the amounts of four separate infusions were disclosed in filings with the SEC.
It’s not clear how much cash Musk had available to him to invest in SpaceX before he started selling his Tesla shares on November 8.
The overwhelming majority of his estimated $275 billion net worth comes from the nearly $250 billion value of Tesla shares and options he owns, as well as a chunk of money from his undisclosed stake in SpaceX. If Musk was going to make additional investments in SpaceX, selling Tesla shares was the most likely way for him to do so.
The reported email to SpaceX staff right before Thanksgiving is not the first time Musk discussed the financial challenges and cash drain involved in getting Starlink’s internet service up and running.
“SpaceX needs to pass through a deep chasm of negative cash flow over the next year or so to make Starlink financially viable,” he said in a tweet in February. “Every new satellite constellation in history has gone bankrupt. We hope to be the first that does not.”
Shares in Digital World Acquisition Corp.
DWAC,
+7.15%,
a special-purpose acquisition company that has agreed to merge with a media property being developed by former President Donald Trump, increased more than 24% in after-hours trading Wednesday, after a report that the entity is seeking to raise up to $1 billion. Reuters reported just as markets closed Wednesday that two “people familiar with the matter” say the entity is looking to raise up to $1 billion from hedge funds and others in a private investment tied to the SPAC, known as a PIPE. DWAC shares jumped just before the close Wednesday for a 7.2% daily gain to $44.35, then increased 24.2% in the extended session. DWAC representatives are trying to sell PIPE shares for $30 apiece, which would push the company to a $3 billion valuation, according to the report, which says one source attended a recent “roadshow” seeking to drum up funding for the PIPE. Reuters reported that many Wall Street firms did not attend the roadshows, which were instead largely populated by representatives from hedge funds, family offices and high-net-worth individuals, and that attendees were shown a demonstration of a service called TRUTH Social that resembled Twitter Inc.
TWTR,
-2.55%
A tangentially-related stock, Phunware Inc.
PHUN,
+11.68%,
saw shares jump 40% in after-hours trading.
Encircle founder and CEO Stephenie Larsen speaks during
a press conference at the Silicon Slopes Summit at the Salt Palace
in Salt Lake City on Wednesday. (Deseret News)
Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
SALT LAKE CITY — An unexpected team of prominent figures in tech, music, sports and politics came together to raise $8 million in eight months to support LGBTQ youth, and now they’re doing it again.
In February, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Imagine Dragons lead singer Dan Reynolds and Jazz owner Ryan Smith appeared on Good Morning America and announced that they were going to raise $8 million to build eight new homes for Encircle, a Utah-based nonprofit that provides safe spaces and mental health services for LGBTQ youth. They met and then exceeded their goal and, with the sponsorship of the Kahlert Foundation, will be building a ninth Encircle house in the southern end of Salt Lake County.
The team, along with former NBA player Dwyane Wade; Domo founder Josh James and his wife, Rayna; Heather Kahlert of the Kahlert Foundation; as well as Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and his wife Abby, announced a new goal of raising $13 million to sustain the 13 Encircle homes for the next few years at a press conference during the Silicon Slopes Summit Wednesday.
“We know it’s a huge ask. We also know that these mental health services are keeping children alive,” said Encircle founder Stephenie Larsen.
The goal of Encircle is to “bring family and community together to enable LGBT youth to thrive,” she explained. And gathering leaders from so many areas shows those youth that they are supported, she added.
Cook said that reaching that goal and starting a new campaign was “another milestone” and “(it) represents another major step forward.”
The Apple CEO came out as gay in a 2014 editorial for Bloomberg Business, saying, “I’m proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me.”
Encircle founder and CEO Stephenie Larsen speaks during a press conference at the Silicon Slopes Summit at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2021. (Photo: Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)
Because of his personal experience, Cook says that he sees himself in many queer youth and knows what it’s like to be isolated and lonely.
“It’s not easy when you’re made to feel different because of who you are,” he said. “Slowly, too slowly, we’ve seen that begin to change, especially through the inspiring efforts of Encircle.”
Smith pointed out that Encircle didn’t happen in Utah merely by chance. Utah was a place that needed it and had the people to support it, he said.
The nonprofit currently has homes in Utah, Idaho, Arizona and Nevada, but Smith said “every city in the United States needs an Encircle.”
Wade, also a part-owner of the Utah Jazz, visited the Salt Lake Encircle home before the Wednesday press conference and invited everyone to go in and see the vision. He explained that he stood there as a representative of the Jazz, but he was also there as a parent.
Wade’s daughter Zaya is transgender, and when she approached her parents about it when she was 8 years old, her parents wanted her to live by who she is; but they also “had to do a lot of learning and a lot of listening,” Wade said.
“We’re living in a world where everyone is different and we all have the same goal to be the best version of ourselves,” he continued.
Aja Volkman, lead singer for Nico Vega, looks up at her husband, Dan Reynolds, lead singer of Imagine Dragons, as Reynolds speaks during a press conference for Encircle at the Silicon Slopes Summit at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City on Wednesday. (Photo: Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)
Reynolds told reporters that his wife, Aja Volkman, who is the lead singer of Nico Vega, was a large part of how his eyes were opened up to LGBTQ issues.
“It’s really easy for straight, white, hetero man to skate through life and not have the difficult conversations,” he said. “The strange thing is that it’s really such an easy concept that we’re all fighting for. Our kids are born knowing this.”
Volkman encouraged LGBTQ youth to be who they are because the world needs “the wholeness of you are.”
“We need evolution,” she said. “We need to grow through this.”
Larsen was thrilled when she first saw billboards from tech company Domo in one of the most conservative counties in Utah that read, “Domo loves LGBTQ+ (and everyone else too!).”
The billboards drew strong reactions from the community — both negative and positive.
“I experienced firsthand what a polarizing issue this topic is,” said Domo founder Josh James.
Gov. Spencer Cox, left, speaks at a press conference for Encircle at the Silicon Slopes Summit at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City on Wednesday as his wife, Abby, looks on. (Photo: Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)
Even people within his own community and company “came in hot” ready to criticize the billboards, James said; but when he didn’t engage, they eventually came to the conclusion on their own that it does make sense to spread love to vulnerable youth. Josh and Rayna James donated $1 million dollars to Encircle’s February campaign.
Gov. Spencer and Abby Cox also spoke about how children are born with the inherent ability to love people. They raised their children in a rural, conservative community; however, their children still learned this and brought home their LGBTQ friends. One day when Cox came home to a house full of kids and Abby said, “I think we have every color of the rainbow in that room.”
“It was an awesome feeling to see those kids interact,” Cox said, citing data that shows that even one person who accepts someone who comes out decreases suicide rates among LGBTQ youth drastically.
And Encircle is providing that kind of support, he added.
Conservative radio show host Larry Elder has surged to the lead in Republican fundraising efforts in his campaign to replace California Gov. Gavin Newsom in the recall election.
“The numbers announced by my campaign today solidify my candidacy to defeat Gavin Newsom in the upcoming recall election,” Elder said in a statement Thursday. “Californians have shown up and believe in our mission to recall Newsom and elect me in his place. Newsom can raise an unlimited amount of funds for this election; therefore, every single donation to my campaign counts, whether small or large.”
He has raised $4.5 million for his campaign in just 19 days, eclipsing his Republican rivals. Elder has averaged $235,000 in funds each day since he entered the race on July 12, according to campaign filings.
LARRY ELDER BLASTS GOVERNMENT FOR RISING CRIME AND FAILURE TO PROTECT CITIZENS
He ended the month of July with $2.3 million of funds after covering other expenses. The recall election will be held on Sept. 14.
Meanwhile, a committee opposing the recall of Newsom has fundraised $46 million through the end of July, with about $26 million available in the bank.
Elder has also eclipsed other high-profile Republicans in polling, receiving 18% support from likely voters. While former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer and 2018 gubernatorial candidate John Cox both received 10% support in the Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies/Los Angeles Times survey.
GAVIN NEWSOM SLAMMED FOR MASK ‘HYPOCRISY’ AND ‘IGNORING SCIENCE’ BY GOP GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE LARRY ELDER
Elder has criticized the embattled Democratic governor during various campaign events, including last Saturday when he took aim at Newsom for “ignoring science” during the pandemic.
”Where do I start about the job this man, Gavin Newsom, has done in the last two years?” Elder told supporters in the Pacific Palisades.
He has also slammed the incident that helped spark Newsom’s recall: Photos from November showing the Democratic governor dining in a swanky restaurant maskless and surrounded by people from outside of his own household.
“He incurred a $12,000 wine tab,” Elder said of the dinner. “That’s just for the wine.”
GOV. NEWSOM PULLS SON FROM SUMMER CAMP AFTER MASKLESS PHOTOS SURFACE
“He was sitting with the very same lobbyists and medical professionals who drafted the mandates they were violating by not wearing masks and by not socially distancing,” he continued, calling it “hypocrisy.”
Republican National Committee members Harmeet Dhillon and Shawn Steel urged Republican delegates to not yet endorse a candidate, according to an email dated Friday and obtained by the Associated Press.
“The polls are showing that the recall is in a statistical tie and we cannot afford to discourage voters who are passionate about a particular candidate, yet may not vote because their favored candidate didn’t receive the endorsement,” they wrote.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“Any of our GOP candidates would be superior to Gavin Newsom. We believe that the voters should decide his replacement, which will not only ensure a higher turnout of recall proponents but give Newsom’s successor the best chance of reelection in 2022.”
Stripe has become the most valuable private company Silicon Valley has produced, after investors struck a deal valuing the online payments processor at $95bn.
Participants in Stripe’s latest financing, which raised $600m of new equity, include Ireland’s National Treasury Management Agency, Allianz, Fidelity, Baillie Gifford, AXA and Sequoia Capital.
Founded in 2010 by Irish brothers Patrick and John Collison — now aged 32 and 30 — Stripe’s valuation has almost tripled in less than a year, surpassing those achieved by Facebook and Uber before they went public.
The company’s rising valuation reflects a boom in ecommerce and digital payments activity that has boosted the values of listed rivals such as Adyen and Square, as well as Checkout.com, a London-based payments start-up that was valued at $15bn in January.
However, some investors have questioned the sustainability of surging tech valuations, as rising inflation expectations send ripples through the US bond market and vaccine rollouts accelerate the reopening of locked-down economies.
The Biden administration’s $1.9tn stimulus bill has also drawn investors towards “old economy” sectors, such as banks and industrials.
Stripe has ridden the wave of ecommerce growth, with more than 200,000 new companies in Europe signing up to the platform since the start of the pandemic. John Collison said its systems handled almost 5,000 requests a second in 2020, including payments, refunds, customer data checks and other queries to its application programming interface.
“Stripe itself is now bigger [by payment volumes] than the entire ecommerce market was when we started working on Stripe,” he added.
200,000
Number of new companies in Europe that signed up to the platform since the start of the pandemic
Former Bank of England governor Mark Carney and Christa Davies, chief financial officer at Aon, both joined Stripe’s board earlier this year. The company also brought in Dhivya Suryadevara from General Motors as chief financial officer.
Despite the new CFO and board members, whose appointments are often seen as forerunners to a public listing, Stripe has opted to stay private at a time when many other tech companies are going public.
Keeping away from the public markets has allowed Stripe to keep a tight lid on financial details; it has not disclosed revenues or profitability.
However, a person close to the San Francisco-based company said it handles a larger volume of payments than its European rival Adyen, which has a market capitalisation of €60bn and processed €303.6bn in 2020.
Stripe’s latest funding will fuel its expansion in Europe, including a plan to hire 1,000 more people in its Dublin office over the next five years, and support forthcoming launches in Brazil, India and Indonesia later this year.
Investors previously valued Stripe at $35bn in September 2019 before adding $600m to that financing as the pandemic spread last April.
The Collison brothers founded Stripe after swapping Limerick for Silicon Valley to sell their first company, a tool for eBay sellers called Auctomatic, for more than €3m in 2008. That deal turned the then teenagers into millionaires.
Early investors in Stripe included PayPal founders Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, as well as Silicon Valley’s influential start-up accelerator, Y Combinator.
Today, Stripe’s valuation is higher than the $80bn mark Facebook received from private secondary trades before its initial public offering in 2012. Uber’s valuation rose as high as $72bn before its IPO in 2019.
Stripe has also leapfrogged Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX, which briefly became the largest venture-backed company in the US after investors gave it a $74bn valuation last month. Globally, it lags behind only ByteDance, the $180bn Chinese parent of TikTok, and Ant Group, the fintech company that was forced to delay its listing last year.
Stripe, which takes a cut of each transaction is processes, started out selling payments services to developers at other tech start-ups, allowing it to piggyback on some of the world’s fastest-growing companies.
Customers now include enterprise software companies Zoom, Salesforce and Atlassian, and ecommerce services Shopify, Instacart and Deliveroo, as well as Uber and Facebook-owned Instagram.
The Republican National Committee has responded to a cease-and-desist letter from former President Trump that demanded that the RNC and other GOP campaign committees stop using his name and likeness in their fundraising materials.
The RNC told the ex-president’s lawyer that it “has every right to refer to public figures as it engages in core, First Amendment-protected political speech.” The RNC’s response was first reported by Politico.
RNC lawyer Justin Riemer, asserted that the party would continue to refer to public figures, and he stated that Mr. Trump had in fact “reaffirmed” with RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel just this past weekend that he approves of the RNC’s use of his name to raise money. The RNC continued to use Mr. Trump’s name in its correspondence, including one email on Sunday that urged supporters to “DEFEND President Trump’s America First policies.”
Last week, Politico reported that attorneys for Mr. Trump sent cease-and-desist letters to the RNC, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and National Republican Senatorial Committee for — according to them — using his name in fundraising merchandise and emails. Other “faux PACs” that were also using Mr. Trump’s name also received letters.
The cease-and-desist letter to the RNC asked the committee to “immediately cease and desist the unauthorized use of President Donald J. Trump’s name, image and/or likeness in all fundraising, persuasion and/or issue speech.”
The Trump campaign and RNC joint fundraising committee, Trump Victory, raised $366 million dollars in 2019 and 2020. In his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Mr. Trump encouraged donors to give to his new PAC, Save America, which will have him competing with other GOP groups for money.
“There’s only one way to contribute to our efforts to elect America first Republican conservatives and in turn, make America great again and that’s through Save America PAC and DonaldJTrump.com,” Mr. Trump said. He repeated the fundraising pitch in a statement Monday night and said, “No more money for RINOS (Republican in name only). They do nothing but hurt the Republican Party and our great voting base – they will never lead us to Greatness.”
His move to control the use of his image sets up a competition with the GOP for donations that could result in giving Mr. Trump more power to recast the Republican Party in his image. While in many cases their interests will be aligned, the former president and Republicans could clash during the primaries. The RNC does not take a position in primaries, and the campaign arms of the Senate and House GOP are likely to stand by any GOP incumbents, though their levels of support may vary.
But Mr. Trump has already signaled he’s out for vengeance and looking for people to challenge the Republican lawmakers who voted to impeach him earlier this year. He has already endorsed Max Miller, a former aide who is running to unseat Ohio Congressman Anthony Gonzalez, one of the ten House Republicans who voted for Mr. Trump’s impeachment.
“Get rid of them all,” Mr. Trump said during his CPAC speech, referring to the Republicans who backed impeachment.
“President Trump’s Legacy is in your hands,” another pleaded.
Others advertised “Miss Me Yet?” T-shirts featuring Donald Trump’s smiling face.
While some Republicans grapple with how fiercely to embrace the former president, the organizations charged with raising money for the party are going all in. The Republican National Committee and the party’s congressional campaign arms are eager to cash in on Trump’s lure with small donors ahead of next year’s midterm elections, when the GOP hopes to regain control of at least one chamber of Congress.
But there’s a problem: Trump himself. In his first speech since leaving office, the former president encouraged loyalists to give directly to him, essentially bypassing the traditional groups that raise money for GOP candidates.
“There’s only one way to contribute to our efforts to elect ‘America First’ Republican conservatives and, in turn, to make America great again,” Trump said Sunday at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida. “And that’s through Save America PAC and donaldjtrump.com.”
The comment was particularly notable because Trump is generally loath to ask for money in person. It amounts to the latest salvo in the battle to shape the future of the GOP, with Trump making clear that he holds no allegiance to the party’s traditional fundraising operation as he tries to consolidate power.
That could help him add to an already commanding war chest, aiding his effort to influence the party. Save America has more than $80 million cash on hand, including $3 million raised after the CPAC speech, according to a person familiar with the total.
Some of that money could help Trump settle scores with incumbent members of Congress who have crossed him. In his Sunday speech, Trump read aloud the names of every Republican who voted against him and called for them to be defeated. He’s already endorsed a Republican challenger to GOP Rep. Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, who voted to impeach him over the U.S. Capitol riot.
“Trump’s call to give directly to him shows that the normal organs of the party … are going to have to fight for relevance in the 2022 cycle,” said Dan Eberhart, a longtime Republican donor who has given large sums to all three as well as to Trump’s campaign.
Bill Palatucci, a RNC member from New Jersey, called Trump’s comments “unwelcome” and “counterproductive” and voiced concern that the GOP would suffer further losses, like Georgia’ Senate runoff elections in January, if they don’t work together.
“Listen it’s a free country. Anybody can form a federal PAC or a super PAC and there’s always lots of competition for dollars. But the crossing the line there is then to also tell people to not give to the important committees of the national party,” said Palatucci. “There’s got to be a willingness on the former president to look beyond his own self-interest.”
The RNC and spokespeople for the House and Senate campaign committees declined to comment. But others sought to downplay the apparent tensions. They noted, for instance, that Trump is scheduled to speak at the RNC’s spring donor retreat — a major fundraising source — in April in Palm Beach.
And Trump told the party’s chair, Ronna McDaniel, in recent days that he wants to continue fundraising for the RNC, according to a person briefed on the conversation who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to disclose private conversations.
Before making his money pitch on Sunday, Trump’s team quietly updated its fundraising filings. They converted his Save America leadership PAC to an entity that can also support other candidates, and turned his main Donald J. Trump for President campaign committee into the Make America Great Again, or MAGAPac. Money raised through Trump’s website now goes to Save America JFC, a joint fundraising agreement between the two.
While Trump left office as a deeply unpopular figure, he remains a powerful draw for small-dollar, grassroots donors, a reality that has been abundantly clear in fundraising appeals over the last week.
Over the course of a single hour last Thursday, the RNC, both GOP congressional campaign committees and the Republican State Leadership Committee, which tries to elect Republicans to state office, blasted supporters with urgent fundraising appeals that included urgent references to Trump.
And the National Republican Senatorial Committee warned this week that its “limited edition” T-shirts featuring Trump were almost sold out.
Regardless of Trump’s next move, the GOP is unlikely to remove him from its sales pitch anytime soon.
“Our digital fundraising strategy is simple: raise as much money as possible,” said Andrew Romeo, a spokesman for the RSLC.
“President Trump’s Legacy is in your hands,” another pleaded.
Others advertised “Miss Me Yet?” T-shirts featuring Donald Trump’s smiling face.
While some Republicans grapple with how fiercely to embrace the former president, the organizations charged with raising money for the party are going all in. The Republican National Committee and the party’s congressional campaign arms are eager to cash in on Trump’s lure with small donors ahead of next year’s midterm elections, when the GOP hopes to regain control of at least one chamber of Congress.
But there’s a problem: Trump himself. In his first speech since leaving office, the former president encouraged loyalists to give directly to him, essentially bypassing the traditional groups that raise money for GOP candidates.
“There’s only one way to contribute to our efforts to elect ‘America First’ Republican conservatives and, in turn, to make America great again,” Trump said Sunday at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida. “And that’s through Save America PAC and donaldjtrump.com.”
The comment was particularly notable because Trump is generally loath to ask for money in person. It amounts to the latest salvo in the battle to shape the future of the GOP, with Trump making clear that he holds no allegiance to the party’s traditional fundraising operation as he tries to consolidate power.
That could help him add to an already commanding war chest, aiding his effort to influence the party. Save America has more than $80 million cash on hand, including $3 million raised after the CPAC speech, according to a person familiar with the total.
Some of that money could help Trump settle scores with incumbent members of Congress who have crossed him. In his Sunday speech, Trump read aloud the names of every Republican who voted against him and called for them to be defeated. He’s already endorsed a Republican challenger to GOP Rep. Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, who voted to impeach Trump over the U.S. Capitol riot.
“Trump’s call to give directly to him shows that the normal organs of the party … are going to have to fight for relevance in the 2022 cycle,” said Dan Eberhart, a longtime Republican donor who has given large sums to all three as well as to Trump’s campaign.
Bill Palatucci, a RNC member from New Jersey, called Trump’s comments “unwelcome” and “counterproductive” and voiced concern that the GOP would suffer further losses, like Georgia’ Senate runoff elections in January, if they don’t work together.
“Listen it’s a free country. Anybody can form a federal PAC or a super PAC and there’s always lots of competition for dollars. But the crossing the line there is then to also tell people to not give to the important committees of the national party,” said Palatucci. “There’s got to be a willingness on the former president to look beyond his own self-interest.”
The RNC and spokespeople for the House and Senate campaign committees declined to comment. But others sought to downplay the apparent tensions. They noted, for instance, that Trump is scheduled to speak at the RNC’s spring donor retreat — a major fundraising source — in April in Palm Beach.
And Trump told the party’s chair, Ronna McDaniel, in recent days that he wants to continue fundraising for the RNC, according to a person briefed on the conversation who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to disclose private conversations.
Before making his money pitch on Sunday, Trump’s team quietly updated its fundraising filings. They converted his Save America leadership PAC to an entity that can also support other candidates, and turned his main Donald J. Trump for President campaign committee into the Make America Great Again, or MAGAPac. Money raised through Trump’s website now goes to Save America JFC, a joint fundraising agreement between the two.
While Trump left office as a deeply unpopular figure, he remains a powerful draw for small-dollar, grassroots donors, a reality that has been abundantly clear in fundraising appeals over the last week.
Over the course of a single hour last Thursday, the RNC, both GOP congressional campaign committees and the Republican State Leadership Committee, which tries to elect Republicans to state office, blasted supporters with urgent fundraising appeals that included urgent references to Trump.
And the National Republican Senatorial Committee warned this week that its “limited edition” T-shirts featuring Trump were almost sold out.
Regardless of Trump’s next move, the GOP is unlikely to remove him from its sales pitch anytime soon.
“Our digital fundraising strategy is simple: raise as much money as possible,” said Andrew Romeo, a spokesman for the RSLC.
“President Trump’s Legacy is in your hands,” another pleaded.
Others advertised “Miss Me Yet?” T-shirts featuring Donald Trump’s smiling face.
While some Republicans grapple with how fiercely to embrace the former president, the organizations charged with raising money for the party are going all in. The Republican National Committee and the party’s congressional campaign arms are eager to cash in on Trump’s lure with small donors ahead of next year’s midterm elections, when the GOP hopes to regain control of at least one chamber of Congress.
But there’s a problem: Trump himself. In his first speech since leaving office, the former president encouraged loyalists to give directly to him, essentially bypassing the traditional groups that raise money for GOP candidates.
“There’s only one way to contribute to our efforts to elect ‘America First’ Republican conservatives and, in turn, to make America great again,” Trump said Sunday at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida. “And that’s through Save America PAC and donaldjtrump.com.”
The comment was particularly notable because Trump is generally loath to ask for money in person. It amounts to the latest salvo in the battle to shape the future of the GOP, with Trump making clear that he holds no allegiance to the party’s traditional fundraising operation as he tries to consolidate power.
That could help him add to an already commanding war chest, aiding his effort to influence the party. Save America has more than $80 million cash on hand, including $3 million raised after the CPAC speech, according to a person familiar with the total.
Some of that money could help Trump settle scores with incumbent members of Congress who have crossed him. In his Sunday speech, Trump read aloud the names of every Republican who voted against him and called for them to be defeated. He’s already endorsed a Republican challenger to GOP Rep. Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, who voted to impeach Trump over the U.S. Capitol riot.
“Trump’s call to give directly to him shows that the normal organs of the party … are going to have to fight for relevance in the 2022 cycle,” said Dan Eberhart, a longtime Republican donor who has given large sums to all three as well as to Trump’s campaign.
Bill Palatucci, a RNC member from New Jersey, called Trump’s comments “unwelcome” and “counterproductive” and voiced concern that the GOP would suffer further losses, like Georgia’ Senate runoff elections in January, if they don’t work together.
“Listen it’s a free country. Anybody can form a federal PAC or a super PAC and there’s always lots of competition for dollars. But the crossing the line there is then to also tell people to not give to the important committees of the national party,” said Palatucci. “There’s got to be a willingness on the former president to look beyond his own self-interest.”
The RNC and spokespeople for the House and Senate campaign committees declined to comment. But others sought to downplay the apparent tensions. They noted, for instance, that Trump is scheduled to speak at the RNC’s spring donor retreat — a major fundraising source — in April in Palm Beach.
And Trump told the party’s chair, Ronna McDaniel, in recent days that he wants to continue fundraising for the RNC, according to a person briefed on the conversation who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to disclose private conversations.
Before making his money pitch on Sunday, Trump’s team quietly updated its fundraising filings. They converted his Save America leadership PAC to an entity that can also support other candidates, and turned his main Donald J. Trump for President campaign committee into the Make America Great Again, or MAGAPac. Money raised through Trump’s website now goes to Save America JFC, a joint fundraising agreement between the two.
While Trump left office as a deeply unpopular figure, he remains a powerful draw for small-dollar, grassroots donors, a reality that has been abundantly clear in fundraising appeals over the last week.
Over the course of a single hour last Thursday, the RNC, both GOP congressional campaign committees and the Republican State Leadership Committee, which tries to elect Republicans to state office, blasted supporters with urgent fundraising appeals that included urgent references to Trump.
And the National Republican Senatorial Committee warned this week that its “limited edition” T-shirts featuring Trump were almost sold out.
Regardless of Trump’s next move, the GOP is unlikely to remove him from its sales pitch anytime soon.
“Our digital fundraising strategy is simple: raise as much money as possible,” said Andrew Romeo, a spokesman for the RSLC.
