Billionaire and longtime Democratic Party megadonor Bill Gates has reportedly cut major financial ties with Democratic-led groups that depend on his money to stay afloat.
According to a shocking report first published by The New York Times, Gates’ foundation, The Gates Foundation, quietly halted supporting a major left-wing dark money network with ties to the Democratic Party earlier this summer.
According to a Gates Foundation internal announcement obtained by The New York Times, a June 24 announcement noted that the group chose to stop making grants to nonprofit funds administered by Arabella Advisors.
It should be noted that the foundation’s June announcement did not directly bring up politics, according to the report.
Instead, Gates Foundation officials mentioned wanting to build “deeper” relationships with the foundation’s partners in the announcement, said the NYT report.
“Teams are increasingly working directly with programmatic partners — organizations that are deeply embedded in the communities we serve and closely aligned with our mission,” the internal announcement stated.
“As we look ahead, this is a chance to build deeper, more durable relationships with those partners — and to reinforce the kind of legacy we want to leave behind.”
While there was no mention of politics per say, Arabella manages a variety of dark money funds that funnel hundreds of millions of difficult-to-trace dollars into left-of-center political organizations and advocacy groups.
According to a 2023 report from the Daily Caller News Foundation, in 2022, Arabella raised over $1 billion and poured millions into liberal causes nationwide.
Arabella was founded in 2005 by Eric Kessler, a veteran of the Clinton administration and a longtime staffer at the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the League of Conservation Voters (LCV).
The LCV is an American environmental advocacy group which has staunchly opposed the Trump administration and whose related super PAC frequently supports Democratic Party candidates for office.
According to The Daily Caller, nonprofit groups managed by Arabella spent over $4 million into voter engagement and registration groups across several battleground states in 2022.
The Gates Foundation said in a statement provided to the NYT that its decision to sever ties with Arabella was “a business decision that reflects our regular strategic assessments of partnerships and operating models.”
The foundation said in the aforementioned internal announcement that it would not create new investments with “Arabella-related entities,” such as the Redstone Strategy Group, a consulting firm acquired by Arabella in 2023, the NYT reported.
The foundation also said of its decision that it would not extend the duration of current grants and would also attempt to “pursue early exits” from certain long-term investments, according to the NYT report..
In addition to The Gates Foundation, the NYT report noted that five anonymous sources said that some Arabella clients who are concerned that President Donald Trump could potentially investigate their operations have weighed potential ways to become less reliant on Arabella’s services this year.