Metro

Swiss billionaire 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.

Cory Gardner was defeated by John Hickenlooper in Colorado’s senate race. AP

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.

Martha McSally lost to Democrat Mark Kelly in the race for Arizona senator. United States Senate

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 gave $2 million to the Wildlife Conservation Society, which runs the Bronx Zoo in 2018 and 2019. Helayne Seidman

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.

Price Floyd, a Wyss spokesman, declined to comment on his donations.

Additional reporting by Jon Levine and Isabel Vincent