Billionaires take many tacks when it comes to talking about their giving. Mike Bloomberg’s operation, for instance, produces voluminous press releases and publications, befitting a media mogul, while Elon Musk’s foundation website is more like a minimalist art statement.
Amid such noise and silence, the 990-PF form offers an unvarnished look at any given uber-rich donor’s foundation and its priorities. Filed annually with the IRS, the form offers a rundown of key facts, including those that many choose not to advertise: how much money is going in, how much is going out and who is benefiting.
Yet such disclosure may not last. Among the many potential impacts of the Republican budget bill’s proposed foundation excise tax hike would be giving living billionaires a compelling financial incentive to shift from foundations to donor-advised funds — which would not face any tax bump — and other forms of less-transparent philanthropy.
With that in mind, here’s a look at recent filings from the foundations of four billionaires: Trump cabinet member Kelly Loeffler, investor Jeremy Grantham, healthcare leader Thomas Frist and former hedge fund director Eric Wepsic.
While there are ways to avoid even some of the basic transparency requirements of 990-PFs, such as routing money from a foundation to a DAF, these four filings provide examples of how the form can shed valuable light, especially for low-profile operations, on what donors have been doing and how we should evaluate their philanthropy.
Before her appointment, Kelly Loeffler’s foundation made a mega-donation to Trump fundraiser
In the final weeks of the 2024 presidential election, the Trump campaign’s national finance director launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for victims of Hurricane Helene, which had just devastated parts of the southeastern United States.
One of its earliest and biggest donations was a $500,000 contribution by former Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler of Georgia. Just over two months later, Trump nominated Loeffler to lead the Small Business Administration, which she now heads.
The most recent 990-PF form from the Jeff Sprecher and Kelly Loeffler Foundation, released in March, revealed it sent that amount, $500,000, to Samaritan’s Purse, one of five organizations the Trump campaign benefitted. GoFundMe indicates Loeffler’s contribution was made “offline,” i.e., off the platform.
The former senator’s donation to the fundraiser, apparently via her foundation, is one of a long list of big checks from Loeffler and her husband, New York Stock Exchange owner Jeff Sprecher, that have benefitted Trump.
Forbes ranked the couple — whose combined wealth tops $1 billion — as ninth among Trump’s two-dozen-plus “top billionaire donors,” based on political contributions to his reelection totaling more than $4.9 million. They also gave $1 million for the Republican National Convention. The New Republic has called Trump’s appointment of Loeffler his “most corrupt yet.” Trump’s company was also reportedly in “advanced talks” in November to acquire the crypto exchange Bakkt, which Loeffler led as CEO earlier in her career, but the plan fell through.
More on the Trump cabinet: These Trump Appointees Are Ultra Rich. What Do We Know About Their Philanthropy?
British investor Jeremy Grantham and wife keep the dollars flowing
As I pointed out in a January roundup of climate donor filings, Jeremy Grantham, 86, is in the older echelon of donors, and you won’t find him and his wife, Hannelore, on Forbes’ or Bloomberg’s lists of the world’s wealthiest people. “But unlike some other living billionaires, they keep pumping money into their foundation’s coffers,” as I wrote early this year.
It feels worth repeating. The couple — sources put their wealth around $1 billion — continue to steadily grow both their foundation, the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment, and a separate trust, the Jeremy And Hannelore Grantham Environmental Trust.
The former’s assets now top $860 million, while the latter ended 2023 with about $460 million in assets, according to its 990, which came out in March. Top grantees that year included the Madison, Wisconsin-based Savanna Institute ($12 million), Rare ($9.5 million), Client Earth and Spark Climate Solutions (both $6 million).
Related: Eight Things to Know About a Legendary British Investor’s Climate-Focused Philanthropy
Related Inside Philanthropy Resources:
For Subscribers Only
- Explainer: What is a Donor-Advised Fund?
- Explainer: What is a Private Foundation?
- Donor Report: Why Donors use Donor-Advised Funds
Billionaire healthcare mogul Thomas Frist still not putting money into his foundation
Thomas F. Frist Jr., 86, owns a quarter of HCA Healthcare with his family, and you can find the Frist family’s name all over the family’s hometown of Nashville: on museums, a clinic, on the records for the priciest home ever sold in the city or state.
But the Dorothy Cate and Thomas F. Frist, Jr. Foundation still holds very little money next to its namesake’s $30-billion-plus fortune. The foundation’s most recent IRS filing shows the foundation has an endowment of $61 million — and its March release marks nearly two decades since anyone put a dollar into the foundation. The last contribution was in 2005.
Frist is, in some ways, an example of the limits of 990 disclosures. There are at least eight Frist family foundations in Tennessee. They do not, however, add up to much against the family’s wealth. Taken together, five of them recently reported total assets of just over $90,000. The three other foundations have not received a donation in the last couple years — and for two of them, more than a decade has passed. In short, Frist and his family still make awards via these foundations, but if they’ve made any major new philanthropic awards, it is via other means.
Frist also highlights challenges around tracking charitable contributions in general. The family’s business, HCA, also makes corporate gifts, and those donations have a lot of crossover with other organizations in the Frist orbit. For instance, HCA recently gave $5 million for the Thomas F. Frist, Jr. College of Medicine at Belmont University. Some of the cases show how money is passed from the family to business charities. Last November, the Frist Foundation gave $1 million to the HCA Healthcare Hope Fund, which was set up to support HCA staff affected by hurricanes Helene and Milton.
Even with the uncertainties, it feels notable that Frist, by my informal measure, was the most publicly charitable of all healthcare billionaires.
Related: How Generous Are Healthcare’s Richest? A Look at Five Sector Billionaires
A really rich Wall Street guy slows his giving, but still hits $1 billion
Eric Wepsic does not have his name on any buildings, as far as I can tell. The longtime managing director of hedge fund D.E. Shaw, whose retirement was announced in January 2024, is also not currently on the Forbes or Bloomberg lists. But he was once reported to have a $9 billion fortune. And now, he has a foundation to match.
According to a 990-PF released last month, the Tansy Charitable Foundation’s endowment had almost hit $1.2 billion by the end of 2024. Wepsic helped along the growth with a $50 million donation, but that was actually his smallest contribution in years. So while his foundation is already dramatically larger than those of wealthier givers like Frist, the early signs do not indicate retirement will be a boon for his philanthropy, as I speculated last year. Perhaps his giving was all tax-related? We’ll see.
