The political operation founded by Charles and David Koch raised and spent well over half a billion dollars during the 2024 election cycle, showing that the family unit remains a financial juggernaut despite its opposition to President Trump’s re-election.
Mr. Trump is no fan of the libertarian politics long pushed by Charles Koch, now 90, and David Koch, who died in 2019. But their network’s huge 2024 spending, revealed in new tax filings provided to The New York Times, points to the operation’s staying power even in a party in which it has diminished influence.
During the two-year 2024 election cycle, the family’s network raised about $578 million and spent about $548 million, the documents show. The two flagship Koch political and policy organizations, the nonprofit group Americans for Prosperity and a sibling super PAC, Americans for Prosperity Action, took in $397 million and $181 million from donors over that period.
Much of the overall money raised appears to stem from more than $5 billion in Koch Industries stock that Charles Koch directed into the network between 2020 and 2022.
The figures in this article are based on a Times analysis of tax filings and a review of Federal Election Commission records.
Last year alone, Americans for Prosperity raised $215 million, its biggest annual total in its two decades of existence. The organization largely spent its money on its grass-roots field operation, employing 616 people in the calendar year.
Notably, the Koch network pursued a failed mission to try to stop Mr. Trump from claiming the Republican presidential nomination. Americans for Prosperity Action endorsed Nikki Haley in late 2023 and spent over $40 million on her behalf, records show. That deepened the Koch operation’s rift with Mr. Trump, who has long considered the network too opposed to his agenda on tariffs and immigration.
The Koch operation reportedly spent about $250 million during the 2016 cycle. That is a rough estimate because some of the operation’s political work is done quietly through nonprofit groups.
The Koch operation retooled its political philanthropy in the wake of Mr. Trump’s victory in 2016. In 2019, the network renamed itself Stand Together and centralized its operations. The death that year of David Koch, the more politically active brother, also shifted the network’s footing.
Beyond its spending on campaigns and elections, the Koch family has continued to lavish money on organizations aligned with its libertarian agenda, such as the Cato Institute and other think tanks. The Kochs prefer to draw attention to their nonprofit work, such as on criminal-justice reform and artificial intelligence.
A Stand Together spokeswoman, Corinne Clark, said in a statement that the network’s “community includes hundreds of organizations in more than 1,300 communities across the country,” adding, “Public policy, while important, is just one part of our work.”
Presidential campaign cycles are typically when political groups are at their largest, and allow for the most clarity on their operations. And a review of the Koch operation’s newly filed tax returns for 2024 shows that the network now revolves around several large “dark money” nonprofit groups, which often pass hundreds of millions of dollars between them, and one allied super PAC.
Only the super PAC is required to disclose its donors. But the nonprofit groups’ yearly tax returns do disclose the grants they give out, and the operation can be roughly pieced together that way.
The nonprofit groups are technically social-welfare groups, organized under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code, and they can spend only a fraction of their money on clear political advocacy. But years ago, the Kochs pioneered a new model of political influence, in which they set up a labyrinth of nonprofit groups that passed millions among one another to maximize the operation’s political flexibility while also abiding by the law.
A relatively new daisy chain emerged in the 2024 cycle, the filings show.
First, between 2020 and 2022, the more than $5 billion in Koch Industries stock was directed to two relatively new nonprofit groups, Key Change Inc. and Believe in People Inc. They are run by Charles Koch’s son, Chase Koch, who largely oversees the family giving but also focuses on venture capital and his passion for live music.
During the 2024 cycle, those groups funneled at least $630 million total to a separate, new nonprofit group, Stand Together C4 Fund. It functions largely as a bank account: It says it has no employees and appears to exist largely to spread money to other Koch organizations.
In turn, the fund sent just under $350 million total in turn to Americans for Prosperity and the Kochs’ core organization, called the Stand Together Chamber of Commerce, according to the filings. The chamber financed Americans for Prosperity and its super PAC with just under $330 million in cash and services total during the cycle, the filings say. Charles Koch’s company also gave the super PAC an additional $40 million.
In January, Americans for Prosperity said it would spend $20 million to push for a renewal of Mr. Trump’s first-term tax cuts. But relations remain tense: A few days before his inauguration, Mr. Trump posted online that he did not want any recommendations for new administration staff members who were supported by the Kochs, or what the president-elect called “Americans for No Prosperity.”
st
Theodore Schleifer is a Times reporter covering billionaires and their impact on the world.
The post Koch Political Operation Spent Nearly $550 Million During 2024 Cycle appeared first on New York Times.
