Bloomberg shows hand on election with $50m donation ‘after pressure from Bill Gates’

Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has reportedly donated $50 million to back Kamala Harris under pressure from a fellow billionaire.

The news of Bloomberg’s financial support comes just one week before election day, with the polling between Harris and Donald Trump neck and neck. High-profile billionaires have been picking sides in the hotly contested presidential race – with Bloomberg joining George Soros in backing Kamala Harris while Elon Musk is very firmly in Donald Trump’s camp.

Bloomberg, known for donations late in the campaign season, is said to have reached into his very deep pockets after months of arm-twisting by uber-wealthy associates.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates is among those who pressured Bloomberg to support the Democrat’s campaign financially, the New York Times reports, along with venture capitalist Ron Conway and co-founder of LinkedIn Reid Hoffman.

Gates is also said to have donated $50m to the Harris campaign amid concerns over a second Trump presidency, the Times previously reported, though he has stopped short of giving a public endorsement. Conway donated at least $600,000 while Hoffman has given more than $9m to the super PAC.

A person familiar with the situation told the Times that Bloomberg met with Harris’s economic team to give feedback on her economic plan. The vice president then called Bloomberg to offer her appreciation for his expertise.

Bloomberg, 82, has endorsed and supported Democratic presidential candidates since 2012 and earlier this year donated nearly $20m to a super PAC – though that was supporting President Joe Biden’s re-election bid at the time.

The latest donation went to the Future Forward USA Action super PAC that backs Harris. Bloomberg has not commented on the multi-million dollar support.

So far this election cycle, he has individually donated more than $42m to Democrat candidates, according to federal disclosures. But even combined with the recent $50m donation, that is still considerably less than the more than $151m he gave during the 2020 election cycle.

The former mayor, who switched his party affiliation from Independent to Democrat in 2018, has a net worth of more than $104 billion.

In an attempt to defeat Trump in 2020, Bloomberg threw his name into the ring of potential Democratic candidates alongside Harris. He spent more than one billion dollars on the ultimately unsuccessful campaign.

News of the donation comes after billionaire Warren Buffett issued a statement saying he was not endorsing either candidate despite having previously backed Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.