Who is Jeff Yass, the TikTok billionaire pumping millions into the Texas voucher fight?

WASHINGTON — Jeff Yass, a Pennsylvania billionaire who’s become a major player in Texas politics, has donated more than $209 million in the last decade to federal and state candidates and groups to promote school choice.

He gave $6.25 million to Gov. Greg Abbott ahead of the March 5 primary to help Abbott try to unseat Republicans who blocked his voucher-like plan in the Texas House.

Many of the same incumbents were under attack by two PACs Yass supports. He’s donated $4 million since last fall to one PAC affiliated with the American Federation for Children, and $15 million since 2021 to another called the School Freedom Fund, linked to the anti-tax group Club for Growth.

Nationally, Yass has given $46 million in the 2024 elections — more than anyone else so far, according to campaign watchdog Open Secrets.

Who is Jeff Yass?

The cofounder of Susquehanna International Group in suburban Philadelphia, one of Wall Street’s biggest trading firms, grew up in Queens, N.Y.

A paper he wrote for a course at SUNY Binghamton, “An Econometric Analysis of Horse Racing,” was published in a gambling magazine. He used the insights to collect huge jackpots at the track after a stint playing poker professionally.

He became a billionaire thanks to an early investment in ByteDance, the Chinese company behind the video-sharing app TikTok.

Why focus on school choice?

Yass has said little to explain why so much of his political largesse centers on school choice. In rare public comments, he’s bashed public school teachers as overpaid and accused their unions, a core Democratic constituency, of stymying education reforms in order to protect jobs.

In his home state of Pennsylvania, Yass has put $62 million into a group he co-founded called Students First PAC, which backs candidates in both parties that seek alternatives to public schools.

Among his beneficiaries is state Sen. Anthony Williams, a Democrat who promoted tax credits for company donations to private and charter schools — a provision used extensively by Yass’ trading firm.

Presidential politics

Yass has spent millions on potential presidential candidates over the years. That’s included:

• Vivek Ramaswamy: Yass put $4.9 million into American Exceptionalism PAC, which supported the Trump-allied Ramaswamy’s bid for the GOP nomination.
• Ron DeSantis: Yass gave $2.6 million to Empower Parents PAC, which backed the Florida governor’s presidential bid. DeSantis had signed a voucher-type law.
• Virginia: $2 million to Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s Spirit of Virginia PAC a month before the November 2023 elections to help with General Assembly races. Democrats took back the lower chamber and hung onto the Senate, though, killing Youngkin’s presidential ambitions.
• Kentucky: Yass pumped an estimated $6 million into an unsuccessful effort to topple Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, according to news reports and the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance. The GOP challenger, then-Attorney General Daniel Cameron, fell short by a 5-point margin. The funds were channeled through School Freedom Fund, the same PAC Yass is using in the Texas primaries, and Protect Freedom PAC, which is tied to Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul.
• Libertarian causes: Yass is the largest donor to the Paul-affiliated Protect Freedom PAC: at least $18 million, including $2.5 million days after the 2020 election. Yass supported Paul in the 2016 GOP presidential primaries. He also backed the Libertarian nominee for president that year, Gary Johnson.

Yass donations go overwhelmingly to Republicans. But there are exceptions.

In 2021, Yass gave $500,000 to Comeback PAC, which promoted Andrew Yang for New York mayor. Yang, who’d run for president as a Democrat the year before, proposed turning federal COVID-19 stimulus funds into debit cards families could use to pay for private school.

The same year Yass also gave $15,000 to help Tali Farhadian Weinstein in a bid for Manhattan district attorney, putting him on the same side as Hillary Clinton. Weinstein was runner-up in the Democratic primary.