By Derek Seidman
This article was originally published by Truthout
The giant influx from American Israel Public Affairs Committee PACs is a case study in money distorting politics.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, has been spending tens of millions of dollars on political races during the current election cycle, aiming to defeat progressive candidates who are critical of Israel and who express support for Palestinians. Many voters might not even be aware of this, because AIPAC-funded ads and mailers often omit any mention of Israel, even though fostering U.S. support for Israel and electing pro-Israel candidates are among the group’s driving aims.
AIPAC’s lobbying and electoral network has so far spent $67.2 million during the current election cycle, up from $29.3 million during the 2021-2022 cycle. These huge amounts of spending have been dedicated to trying to defeat candidates like Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, Aisha Wahab in California, Melat Kiros in Colorado, and many others.
AIPAC has a range of affiliated and aligned Super PACs and other entities. Some of the most significant ones are AIPAC PAC, the group’s political action committee, which raises money to contribute directly to candidates; United Democracy Project, AIPAC’s super PAC, which raises and spends much more money on elections independently; and Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) PAC, which is aligned with AIPAC and specifically focuses on Democratic races.
While there are many donors to AIPAC’s electoral influence operation, a small handful of billionaire megadonors — Wall Street tycoons, entertainment moguls, oil and gas barons, sports franchise owners, and others — provide a hugely disproportionate amount of the donations to the key AIPAC and AIPAC-aligned super PACs to intervene in primary and general elections.
AIPAC’s massive electoral spending comes at a time when support for Israel is plummeting in the U.S., especially among Democrats, amid the genocide in Gaza, intensifying settler attacks in the West Bank, and decades of illegal occupation.
Wall Street Billionaires
One of the top donors to AIPAC’s efforts is Paul Singer, a hedge fund tycoon currently worth around $7 billion. From 2022 to 2026, Singer has given a whopping $5.6 million to the United Democracy Project super PAC, including $2.6 million during the current election cycle.
Singer is the founder and co-CEO of Elliott Management, an infamous “vulture investor” that targets distressed companies and indebted nations to aggressively extract profits. Elliott Management’s portfolio includes stakes in major companies such as Phillips 66, Suncor Energy, Southwest Airlines, and Etsy.
Singer is also a longtime big donor to the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, an influential conservative think tank, where he is currently chairman emeritus after serving many years as chairman. (Right-wing billionaire donor and former Trump education secretary Betsy DeVos is now the Manhattan Institute’s chairman.)
Singer is a huge GOP donor, having splurged tens of millions of dollars backing Republicans in federal elections, including millions to President Donald Trump. All told, Singer has spent at least $52.5 million so far on the current midterm elections.
Through his philanthropic arm, Singer also donates enormous sums to police groups like the New York City Police Foundation, a nonprofit that subsidizes the New York City Police Department, and organizations like the Birthright Israel Foundation, which funds visits to Israel that have been widely criticized as propaganda trips.
Another enormous donor to the United Democracy Project super PAC is Marc Rowan, the billionaire co-founder and CEO of Apollo Global Management, one of the world’s top private equity firms. Rowan has given $3 million to the United Democracy Project since 2022, including $1.5 million during the current election cycle.
Rowan, who is worth over $8 billion, has emerged as a key Trump ally. The New York Times reports that Rowan is a central figure behind the administration’s attacks on higher education, and Rowan played a critical role in targeting the Palestine solidarity movement at the University of Pennsylvania and forcing the resignation of former Penn president Liz Magill. Rowan sits on Trump’s “Board of Peace” executive board and on his “Gaza Executive Board.”
Apollo and Rowan have faced significant scrutiny over their relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. As Truthout has reported, Rowan’s Apollo owns Stream Data Centers, a major developer of data centers, with one of their projects facing intense resistance in Western New York. Rowan has been a staunch opponent of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Another huge AIPAC donor is Daniel Loeb, the billionaire head of Third Point, a hedge fund.
Loeb has given $950,000 to the United Democracy Project super PAC from 2024 to 2026, as well as $125,000 to DMFI PAC in 2021. On top of that, he and his wife have given tens of thousands of dollars more to AIPAC PAC over the past few years through dozens of donations ranging between $3,300 and $5,000.
Loeb, who has a checkered history of making offensive comments, was also a major spender in the unsuccessful billionaire effort to defeat Zohran Mamdani’s 2025 mayoral candidacy.
Tech and Entertainment Moguls
Another huge AIPAC donor is entertainment mogul Haim Saban, who has given $5 million to the United Democracy Project super PAC from 2022 to 2026, as well $25,000 to DMFI PAC in 2021. Saban is worth over $3 billion.
Saban has donated tens of millions of dollars to the Friends of the IDF, a U.S. nonprofit that effectively subsidizes the Israeli military. He has also condemned some of the most minimal actions by U.S. leaders to criticize Israeli settlement expansion. For example, he said he was “deeply disturbed” by the Obama administration’s abstention over a United Nations Security Council resolution on the illegality of Israeli settlements and lambasted federal legislators who spoke out about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza in 2018.
Overall, Saban is a prolific campaign donor who has splurged millions on Democratic Party Super PACs.
Another major donor to the AIPAC network is Jan Koum, the co-founder and former CEO of WhatsApp. Koum, who is worth nearly $17 billion, is also a former board director of Facebook (now Meta).
Koum gave $6 million to the United Democracy Project super PAC from 2022 to 2023. He is a huge donor to hardline pro-Israel organizations, giving millions of dollars to organizations including the Birthright Israel Foundation and Israel on Campus Coalition, which, according to The Nation, spies on campus Palestine solidarity activists. As Truthout has previously reported, Koum is also a big donor to the Friends of the IDF.
Koum’s foundation has also donated millions of dollars to the Friends of Ir David, which has helped fund the right-wing Israeli settler group Elad, and to the Macabee Task Force Foundation, earlier funded by the late far right megabillionaire Sheldon Adelson to oppose the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) movement on campuses.
Another huge AIPAC donor is Robert Kraft, the megabillionaire founder and CEO of the Kraft Group, a diversified holding company of real estate, manufacturing, and other businesses. Kraft is well known as the owner of the NFL’s New England Patriots.
Both Robert Kraft and most of his children are major donors to the United Democracy Project, DMFI, and AIPAC, having donated several million dollars combined to the three PACs across dozens of denominations over the past half-decade.
Robert Kraft is a major supporter of and donor to organizations like the Friends of the IDF and other groups and programs that, in the Kraft Group’s words, “create a connection to Israel.” Kraft and his family have personally led trips to Israel with NFL players and several former Massachusetts governors.
Kraft has also funded the misleadingly named Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, now called the Blue Square Alliance Against Hate, which one sports writer criticized as aiming “to create a propaganda campaign to counter the reports and images from Gaza that young people are consuming on social media.”
Kraft recently barred the pro-Palestine rapper Macklemore from opening for singer Ed Sheeran at Gillette Stadium, which Kraft owns.
Billionaire Corporate Heirs
Several huge donors to the AIPAC network are wealthy heirs, some who inherited billions of dollars and lucrative corporations.
The biggest donor to DMFI PAC is Stacy Schusterman. Since 2019, Stacy Schusterman and her mother, Lynn Schusterman, have given $4.675 million to DMFI PAC, with $3.915 million of that coming from Stacy Schusterman.
Stacy Schusterman is the former CEO of Samson Investment, her family’s oil and gas company that they sold to private equity giant KKR in 2011. That same year, the Schusterman family created Samson Energy to remain in the fossil fuel business, focused on fracking in Wyoming. Stacy Shusterman is the CEO of Samson Energy, and the Shusterman family is worth $4.4 billion.
The Schustermans are influential in elite philanthropic circles — Time Magazine listed Lynn and Stacy Shusterman on its philanthropy top 100 list in 2026. In addition to donating to nonprofits that focus on defending Israel, including the Israel on Campus Coalition, the Schustermans also give to other causes, such as charter schools. Stacy Schusterman has joined other billionaires in intervening in local school board races to try to elect pro-charter school candidates.
Another wealthy corporate heir who is a big AIPAC network donor is Deborah Simon, the daughter of the late shopping mall baron Melvin Simon. The Simon family is worth a whopping $17.3 billion, and also owns the Indiana Pacers, a National Basketball Association franchise.
Simon has given $3.5 million to DMFI PAC from 2024 to 2026. She is also a prolific donor to Democratic candidates and pro-Democratic and liberal PACs, as well as a trustee of the prestigious Juilliard School.
Another corporate heir is Jonathan Tisch, who co-inherited an ownership stake in his billionaire family’s holding company, Loews Corporation, founded by Jonathan’s late father and uncle. Loews Corporation’s current subsidiaries include hotel, packaging, and gas pipelines companies, and Jonathan and other Tisch family members have held a range of executive and director roles over the years in the family’s business empire.
Jonathan Tisch and his wife Elizabeth have donated $490,000 to DMFI PAC from 2023 to 2026, and other members of Tisch extended family have given to the United Democracy Project super PAC and other AIPAC-aligned groups.
Jonathan Tisch is also the treasurer of the board of directors of the NFL’s New York Giants, which he and his family co-own. The Tisch family is extremely influential, with its name emblazoned across New York City’s universities and art galleries. Jonathan’s cousin Jessica Tisch currently serves as the New York City police commissioner under Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who members of the Tisch family spent big trying to defeat in 2025 and who one Tisch family member — Jessica Tisch’s brother Benjamin Tisch — called “an enemy of the Jewish people.”
AIPAC’s Power Waning?
There are numerous other super wealthy donors to AIPAC’s influence machine along with the top donors mentioned here. As with other super PAC operations bankrolled primarily by billionaires and multimillionaires, AIPAC’s aligned PACs represent stark examples of money distorting politics, especially now that Israel’s actions and its government have become widely unpopular in the U.S.
But AIPAC’s power may be waning. Even the Israeli paper Ha’aretz notes AIPAC’s growing “toxicity” in U.S. politics. Despite spending huge dollars on races from Colorado and Michigan to New York, pro-Palestine candidates who criticize Israel’s illegal actions are not just winning city, state, and federal elections despite AIPAC’s interventions, but perhaps because of them.
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