Over the course of this year, a Swiss billionaire named Hansjörg Wyss has landed himself in the crosshairs of Republicans aiming to close what they say are foreign influence “loopholes” in U.S. elections.
Wyss, 89, lives in Wyoming and is the founder of the medical device manufacturer Synthes, which was bought by the pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson in 2012 for $20 billion. His fortune, routed through a pair of Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit groups funding environmental causes and other left-leaning organizations, is increasingly under the spotlight amid GOP-led investigations and demands from conservative organizations for laws to prevent alleged foreign interference.
BILLIONAIRE HANSJÖRG WYSS UPS GIVING TO DEMOCRATIC DARK MONEY-TIED NEWS NETWORK
To Republicans, there is a lack of restrictions on the books for foreign nationals such as Wyss to influence elections by propping up state ballot initiatives and get-out-the-vote efforts. On the federal level, much of the scrutiny has bubbled up in the House Administration Committee, which oversees federal elections. There, lawmakers have held a drip of hearings, including one on Wednesday, dubbed “American Confidence in Elections: Prohibiting Foreign Interference,” that featured testimony from conservatives eager to hamper funding efforts boosting Democrats.
Foreign nationals are not allowed to donate to political candidates or super PACs — committees that are a product of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United v. FEC case that opened up the floodgates for election spending. However, foreign nationals can support nonprofit organizations registered under 501(c)(4), a section of the IRS code for “social welfare” groups that may act more politically than charities or private foundations. One of Wyss’s groups, the Berger Action Fund, is a 501(c)(4) that insists it is above legal board as it disburses hundreds of millions of dollars to left-leaning activist hubs.
“A year ago, I asked the Federal Election Commission about a loophole in current U.S. law that allows foreign nationals to donate to a 501(c)(4) organization, which can then transfer the money to a super PAC,” Rep. Bryan Steil (R-WI), the chairman of the House Administration Committee, told the Washington Examiner. “This loophole still exists.”
“We can all agree foreign funds have no place in American elections, and I will continue to work in the 119th Congress to close this loophole and ensure our elections are free from foreign interference,” Steil said, adding that the lawmaker’s panel previously approved his bill that seeks to address the alleged loophole. The measure has not passed either chamber of Congress, though a version of it could have a better chance of doing so now that Republicans will control the House and Senate, as well as the White House, under President-elect Donald Trump.
The Wyss Foundation, the Swiss billionaire’s other grantmaker, doled out $150 million last year and, for instance, upped its giving to a Democratic dark money-linked umbrella organization for state-focused news outlets. It granted $12.5 million to a project aiming to support “permanent protected areas in northern South America” and sprinkled $7.4 million “for the purchase of a 43,546-acre San Miguel property along the Patagonia Azul Coast in Argentina,” according to the private foundation. Wyss’s group shipped out $24 million in 2023 to a Geneva-based neurotechnology research foundation that he launched in 2014.
Until a few years ago, Wyss and his foundation were members of the Democracy Alliance, a secretive club of ultra-wealthy Democrats that has funded resistance campaigns against President-elect Donald Trump and is explicitly political, according to a source familiar with the matter. It is unclear why he left the club, and a spokesperson for Wyss did not say.
Wyss has, in the telling of conservatives, embraced this alleged foreign influence loophole by way of the Berger Action Fund granting money to a group called the Sixteen Thirty Fund that engages in progressive issue advocacy. The Sixteen Thirty Fund spent over $37 million in 2024 targeting ballot issues in Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Missouri, and other states, according to Wednesday congressional testimony from the conservative Americans for Public Trust nonprofit group.
As a 501(c)(4) itself, the Sixteen Thirty Fund is part of a constellation of groups managed by Arabella Advisors, a consulting firm in Washington overseeing a massive Democratic-aligned dark money network. Arabella Advisors has gained attention in recent years as a dark money vehicle because the nonprofit groups it manages embrace an arrangement known as fiscal sponsorship that allows grassroots projects to avoid filing financial disclosures with the IRS.
“The Wyss Foundation and Berger Action Fund support organizations and policies that lower the cost of healthcare, promote economic opportunity, and conserve and expand access to our public lands,” said Marneé Banks, a spokeswoman for the Wyss-backed nonprofit groups. “Both organizations comply with laws and rules governing their activities and prohibit grants from being used to support or oppose political candidates or parties.”
Over the years, Wyss has supported the likes of Planned Parenthood, Indivisible, the League of Conservation Voters, the National Redistricting Action Fund, projects under the Arabella Advisors-managed New Venture Fund, and other left-leaning groups that engage politically, tax records show.
And unlike “most wealthy political donors on the Right and Left,” Wyss and his team “know how to create measurable, sustainable impact,” in the telling of Democracy Alliance co-founder Rob Stein, a political strategist who died in 2022 and had recruited Wyss to join the club. The Democracy Alliance did not respond to a request for comment.
One founding backer of the Democracy Alliance is left-wing megadonor George Soros, a chief foe of Republicans who conservatives have sought to link to Wyss. Between 2013 and 2021, the club’s president was Gara LeMarche, a longtime former official at Soros’s Open Society Foundations grantmaking network.
“I’ve never met him, sorry,” LeMarche, reached by the Washington Examiner on Wyss’s prior involvement with the DA, claimed in an email. “You may know that the DA has always had a policy of not confirming or denying members.”
Wyss’s prior involvement with the DA, coupled with his political donations from 1990 to 2006 that the Federal Election Commission deemed were unlawful, tells the story of a foreign national who has appeared to exhibit a significant interest in influencing U.S. politics.
The FEC did not take action against Wyss in 2022 over his donations because the regulator determined the statute of limitations had passed.
That year, the campaign finance regulator separately found that Wyss’s groups failed to provide evidence of certain grant agreements upon conservatives accusing him of violating laws on foreign nationals making donations.
‘Never felt the need to become an American’
According to a biography of Wyss written by his sister, Hedi, his goal is to “(re)interpret the American Constitution in the light of progressive politics.”
It is a unique ambition for a man who once told a newspaper he “never felt the need to become an American,” observed Scott Walter, the president of the Capital Research Center, a conservative think tank that has likened Wyss’s giving to that of Soros.
“Wyss deserves the Soros title comparison for his intense left-wing politics, his sheer scale of giving, and his rare, Soros-like use of a political nonprofit on top of a private foundation,” Walter said.
Wyss’s team rejects the Soros comparison, holding that the Swiss billionaire is largely focused on conservation efforts while Soros has a broader portfolio. Soros, 94, recently passed the torch of his grantmaking network to his 39-year-old son, Alex Soros, a frequent Biden White House visitor and confidante of Democratic lawmakers.
Jonathan Kaplan, a spokesman for the Open Society Foundations, did not respond to a request for comment.
“Mr. Wyss has been a U.S. resident and taxpayer for more than four decades, living in Wyoming for nearly half a century, supporting conservation efforts across the American West, where he first fell in love with our public lands,” Banks, the spokeswoman for the Wyss-funded groups and a former aide to outgoing Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), said in a statement.
Still, Wyss’s political ties run deeper.
In 2015, Wyss notably helped launch a Democratic-aligned group called the Hub Project that has worked to shape the media landscape and attack Republicans, the New York Times reported.
The Hub Project, for instance, developed a podcast in 2020 called Made to Fail that was hosted by a former Obama administration official. It was the brainchild of the Wyss Foundation, which has counted senior Biden administration official John Podesta as an adviser. The Wyss Foundation’s president, Molly McUsic, worked in the Clinton administration.
Controversy stirred earlier this year upon the Washington Free Beacon unearthing White House visitor logs that said Podesta held a meeting with McUsic. The Wyss Foundation, which paid Podesta for consulting services in the past, denied that it took place. Podesta had disclosed as late as 2022, on his government financial disclosure, that he was an adviser to the HJW Foundation — which merged into the Wyss Foundation and funded the likes of Planned Parenthood and the Center for American Progress think tank.
The Wyss Foundation also funds Demos, the left-wing think tank that helped shape the Biden administration and, according to GOP lawmakers, crafted a memo that was identical to a 2021 executive order on voter registration that prompted congressional investigations into alleged illegality.
In a statement shared with the Washington Examiner, the Wyss Foundation said the Demos funding “supported democracy initiatives and efforts to expand opportunity for underserved communities.”
The Ohio playbook
The back-and-forth surrounding Wyss’s giving and foreign influence concerns took center stage this year in Ohio, where lawmakers approved a law banning foreign nationals from funding ballot measures.
Democrats opposed the bill, waging an unsuccessful legal campaign with the help of Democratic attorney Marc Elias — known for his bare-knuckle tactics and work for the likes of Vice President Kamala Harris, President Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton in 2016.
After the passage of the bill, the Sixteen Thirty Fund ceased its giving in Ohio to a redistricting ballot initiative that failed in November.
Republicans, who pushed for the ban law, portrayed Wyss as a key illustration of foreign interference to gin up support. The effort, which proved successful, brought further awareness to Wyss’s giving.
It also may lead to other states following in Ohio’s footsteps, conservative public policy advocates say.
“What Ohio did was a good idea, particularly because the state was trying to address how Wyss is channeling his money to a U.S. organization involved in politics,” said Hans von Spakovsky, the election law reform initiative manager at the Heritage Foundation. “The regulations provide a kind of guidepost for how other states can approach this issue.”
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Foundation for Government Accountability spokesman Adam Gibbs said lawmakers in Ohio deserve credit for helping to shine a light on how wealthy foreigners such as Wyss indirectly influence U.S. politics.
“Other states should quickly follow suit,” said Gibbs, a former GOP aide in the Wisconsin state senate. “Soon, there will be fewer and fewer rocks for Wyss and his ilk to hide behind.”