Swiss Billionaire’s Mega-Influence On U.S. Politics

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Real Clear Politics

It was an enduring mystery. At least, in America.

While Hansjörg Wyss draws comparisons in the press to liberal megadonors like George Soros and Tom Steyer, relatively little is known about the Swiss billionaire, other than that he regularly ranks as one of the richest men in the world and also as one of its most philanthropic.

 

Wyss made headlines recently by leading a consortium of investors attempting to buy the Chelsea Football Club from sanctioned Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich. He also tried unsuccessfully before that to purchase a national newspaper chain owned by Tribune Publishing. One area where the wealthy Swiss businessman has met with unquestionable success after retiring from the pharmaceutical industry: U.S. politics. He has deep pockets and deep ties in Washington as a result – connections that he tells reporters overseas extend all the way to the White House.

And yet, despite the hundreds of millions Wyss has spent bankrolling progressive advocacy groups and despite the undeniable heft Wyss throws around in the Democratic Party and its causes, one question has remained unanswered in the American press. Despite being a power player in U.S. politics for decades, it was unclear whether or not Wyss is a permanent resident in the United States or an American citizen.

The New York Times reported that they did not know the answer. Neither did beltway periodicals like Politico or the Hill.  According to a biography of Wyss, written by his sister Hedi Wyss and reported first by RealClearPolitics, the answer is no.

 

“In the newspapers he is called one of their important citizens, although he never applied for citizenship, and in the United States there is no such status as honorary citizen,” she wrote. “What was important for him was to find out that he could exert influence through his foundations.”

The book, titled “Hansjörg Wyss: My Brother,” was published in 2014. That same year, the then-Swiss Ambassador Martin Dahinden called the manuscript “a rare opportunity” for “a closer look” at an extraordinary life. The ambassador told a crowd at his diplomatic residence in D.C. that the Wyss story bore “a striking resemblance with what we all know as ‘The American Dream.’” Both siblings were sitting in the audience that night according to the Swiss embassy: Wyss, the author, and Wyss, the billionaire.

As the New York Times noted in a story about Wyss a year ago, foreign nationals without permanent residency are forbidden from donating directly to federal political candidates or political action committees. They have not, however, been barred from giving to groups that seek to influence public policy. A watchdog group, meanwhile, has filed suit over that distinction.

“Americans for Public Trust is suing the FEC for failing to investigate foreign money in our elections,” Caitlin Sutherland, executive director of Americans for Public Trust, told the Hill in April. “Mr. Wyss, who is barred from directly or indirectly influencing our elections, has done just that by potentially funneling hundreds of millions of dollars through the Arabella Advisors network to benefit liberal and left-wing causes. Until the FEC takes action, we won’t know the full extent of his foreign interference in our electoral process.”

 

A spokesperson for the Wyss Foundation and Berger Action Fund, two Washington-based groups founded by Wyss, declined to speak to the question of his citizenship or the nature of his political spending other than to say that both organizations “expressly prohibit their grant recipients from using grant funds to support or oppose political candidates or parties.”

The spokesperson added that the Wyss Foundation “invests in conservation, economic opportunity, medical advancements, and the arts” while the Berger Action Fund “centers its work around advocating for policy solutions to solve some of our world’s biggest problems: the biodiversity and climate crises, income inequality, and health disparities.” 

According to the New York Times, Wyss has channeled his donations through “a daisy chain of opaque organizations that mask the ultimate recipients of his money.” The two aforementioned groups, the Times reported, have provided $162 million in recent years to the New Venture Fund and the Sixteen Thirty Fund.

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Liberal Dark Money Group Bankrolled by Foreign Billionaire Gave Millions to Stacey Abrams’s Voting Nonprofit

A liberal dark money group bankrolled by a foreign billionaire gave millions of dollars to failed gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams's effort to overhaul America's voting laws.

Sacramento-based dark money group Fund for a Better Future in 2020 gave more than $3 million to Abrams's Fair Fight Action, its tax forms show. Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss is by far Fund for a Better Future's top donor—his advocacy group, Berger Action Fund, gave the dark money group more than $45 million from 2016 to 2020.

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District of Columbia Group steers Swiss billionaire’s money to liberal causes

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Berger Action Fund is a nondescript name for a group with a rather specific purpose: steering the wealth of Hansjörg Wyss, a Swiss billionaire, into the world of American politics and policy.

As a foreign national, Wyss is prohibited from donating to candidates or political committees. But his influence is still broadly felt through millions of dollars routed through a network of nonprofit groups that invest heavily in the Democratic ecosystem. Such groups don’t have to disclose the source of their funding — or many details about how they spend it.

Newly available tax documents show that his giving through the Berger Action Fund, which describes itself as advocating for “solutions to some of our world’s biggest problems,” swelled in 2021 to $72 million, cementing Wyss’ status as a Democratic-aligned megadonor.

Representatives for Wyss insist they comply with laws governing the giving of foreign nationals and have put in place strict policies limiting the use of donations to “issue advocacy” — not partisan electoral activities. But the fact that the money cannot be publicly traced highlights the difficulty of putting such assertions to the test.