Media Mogul John Malone Donated More Than $2 Million To Republican Candidates In 2024, None To Dems

While he isn't as well known outside the media business as moguls like Robert Murdoch or Shari Redstone, billionaire John Malone is arguably responsible for much of what we think of as the cable TV bundle.

For twenty-four years, from 1973 to 1996, Malone served as president and CEO of Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI). From the beginning, Malone believed that scale mattered and that the larger you were, the more leverage you had when negotiating carriage deals with media companies. Between 1973 and 1989, the company closed 482 acquisitions, an average of one every other week. Most of them were small, often marginally profitable rural cable systems he could roll into TCI's cable system holdings.

During this period, he also used TCI's size to aggressively move into the the ownership of newer cable TV networks. He invested in new ventures by Ted Turner, John Sie, John Hendricks, and Bob Johnson, and as a result owned large minority stakes in a number of cable networks. Malone led a consortium of cable companies in the bailout of Ted Turner's Turner Broadcasting System (whose channels included CNN and The Cartoon Network) when it flirted with bankruptcy in 1987, By the end of the 1980s, TCI owned a piece of not only the Turner Channels, but a portfolio of other networks ranging from Discovery and QVC to BET and Encore.

When digital cable boxes began to be rolled out across the cable TV business, TCI  negotiated a deal with General Instruments for 10 million set-top boxes at $300 each. In exchange, he extracted a minority 16 percent stake in that business.

Malone pioneered the use of focusing on cash flow as the metric to measure the worth of a media business and was a proponent of stock re-purchases, with TCI repurchasing nearly 40 percent of its stock by the time the company was sold to AT&T in 1999.

In the ensuing years, Malone has used his personal holdings and joint ventures to build a massive media business. Malone is now chairman and largest voting shareholder of Liberty Media, Liberty Global, and Qurate Retail Group (formerly known as Liberty Interactive). He is also the second largest landowner in the United States, owning more than 2.2 million acres. He is also a board member and big investor in Warner Bros. Discovery, where he has offered up advice ranging from the need for CNN to be "less partisan" to the importance of pursuing further mergers and acquisitions.

Malone is infamous in the media business for making deals which minimize tax obligations to as close to zero as possible. While it's not clear what his personal politics might be, I think it's fair to say that if he is making political donations, they are more likely made with the thought of encouraging politicians and political parties he believes will provide the best business environment for his complex (and very legal) tax machinations.

Because of that, I decided to look at Malone's 2024 campaign donations, based on data compiled from the election data source Open Secrets.

Malone made donations both directly under his own name as Chairman of Liberty Media, as well as some donations listing his employer as "retired."

During 2024, Malone donated no money to either Democratic candidates or political action committees. But he donated a combined total of $2,057,500 to Republican political action committees as well as individual races.

Total Donations To Republican Political Action Committees In 2024: $1,169,800.

John Bolton PAC (R)
(Founded to "raise the importance of American national security in federal elections")
$95,000 (06/11/2024)
$5,000 (06/11/2024)

Congressional Leadership Fund (R)
(A Super PAC which "supports Republican candidates by raising the resources needed to counter the onslaught of advertising from deep-pocketed liberal activists determined to let the radical left take charge of our country")
$1,000,000 (04/22/2024)
$5,000 (04/22/2024)

National Republican Congressional Committee (R) 
(The Republican Hill committee which works to elect Republicans to the United States House of Representatives)
$41,300 (04/22/2024)
$3,300 (04/22/2024)

Grow The Majority Fund
(House Speaker Mike Johnson's principal fundraising apparatus to support Republicans running for House seats)

Grow the Majority Nominee Fund: MI-08 (
$3,300 (04/22/2024)

Grow the Majority Nominee Fund: NH-01 (
$3,300 (04/22/2024)

Grow the Majority Nominee Fund: NV-03 (
$3,300 (04/22/2024)

Grow the Majority Nominee Fund: WA-03 (
$3,300 (04/22/2024)

American Revival PAC (R)
(A PAC run by House Speaker Mike Johnson)
$1,700 (04/22/2024)
$3,300 (04/22/2024)

Republican National Committee
$2,000 (05/31/2024)

Total Donations To Republican Candidates In 2024: $887,700

Prasanth Reddy (R)
(He ran for election to the US House to represent Kansas' 3rd Congressional District. He lost in the general election)
$3,300 (06/30/2024)

Yvette Herrell (R)
(She was elected as representative from New Mexico's 2nd congressional district in 2020. She lost the 2022 race to Democratic nominee Gabe Vasquez. She ran against Vasquez a second time in 2024 and also lost that election)
$3,300 (06/04/2024)
$3,300 (06/28/2024)

George S Logan (R)
(Ran in Connecticut's 5th congressional district against Democratic candidate Jahana Hayes in both the 2022 and 2024 races, losing both times. On the upside, he also fronts the Jimi Hendrix tribute band Electric Lady Band USA)
$3,300 (05/20/2024)

Scott Baugh (R)
(He unsuccessfully ran twice for California's 47th congressional district in 2022 (losing to Katie Porter) and 2024 (losing to Dave Min))
$3,300 (04/22/2024)

Rob Bresnahan (R)
(He ran in Pennsylvania's 8th congressional district, where he defeated incumbent Matt Cartwright in the 2024 election)
$3,300 (04/22/2024)

Mike Johnson (R)
(Current Speaker of the House)
$3,300 (04/22/2024)

Robert W Mercuri (R)
(A two-time congressman from Pennsylvania's 17th congressional District, he was defeated by Chris Deluzio in the 2024 general election)
$3,300 (04/22/2024)

Tom Barrett (R)
(He ran in the 2022 election for Michigan's 7th congressional district, which he lost to incumbent Democrat Elissa Slotkin. He ran for the same seat again in 2024, defeating Democratic nominee Curtis Hertel Jr.)
$3,300 (04/22/2024)

Randell C. Niemeyer (R)
(He ran in 2024 to represent Indiana's 1st congressional District. He lost in the general election.)
$3,300 (04/22/2024)

Maria Salazar (R)
(She ran in Florida's 27th congressional district in 2018, losing to Donna Shalala. She defeated Shalala in a 2020 rematch and was re-elected in 2022 and 2024. She is currently a Republican assistant whip.)
$3,300 (04/22/2024)

Nancy Dahlstrom (R)
(The lieutenant governor of Alaska, she ran for the lone congressional seat in Alaska in 2024, but dropped out after finishing third in the Republican primary)
$3,300 (04/22/2024)

Nick LaLota (R)
(He ran for the first congressional district of New York in 2022, winning that race and the one in 2024)
$3,300 (04/22/2024)

Austin Leo Theriault (R)
(A professional stock car racing driver, he ran in Maine's 2nd congressional district in 2024, and was defeated by incumbent Democrat Jared Golden.)
$3,300 (04/22/2024)

Alison Esposito (R)
(Ran for election to the U.S. House to represent New York's 18th Congressional District. She lost in the general election.)
$3,300 (04/22/2024)

Mayra Flores (R)
(In June 2022, she won aa special election in Texas's 34th congressional district. She lost that November to Democrat Vicente Gonzalez. She ran and lost again to Gonzalez in 2024.)
$3,300 (04/22/2024)

Joe McGraw (R)
(He ran for election to the U.S. House to represent Illinois' 17th Congressional District. He lost in the general election.)
$3,300 (04/22/2024)

Laurie Buckhout (R)
(She ran for election to the U.S. House to represent North Carolina's 1st Congressional District. She lost in the general election.)
$3,300 (04/22/2024)

Ryan MacKenzie (R)
(He ran for Congress in Pennsylvania's 7th congressional district in 2024, defeating incumbent Susan Wild.)
$3,300 (04/22/2024)

Young Kim (R)
(The one-term congresswoman ran for re-election in 2024 in California’s 40th congressional district and won the race.)
$3,300 (04/22/2024)

Derrick Anderson (R)
(He ran for election to the U.S. House to represent Virginia's 7th Congressional District. He lost in the general election.)
$3,300 (04/22/2024)

Joe Teirab (R)
(He ran for election to the U.S. House to represent Minnesota's 2nd Congressional District. He lost in the general election.)
$3,300 (04/22/2024)

Gabe Evans (R)
(He defeated Democratic incumbent Yadira Caraveo in the 2024 election for Colorado's 8th congressional district.)
$3,300 (04/22/2024)

Derek Merrin (R)
(He ran in Ohio's 9th congressional district in 2024, where he was defeated by incumbent Marcy Kaptur.)
$3,300 (04/22/2024)


The total amount of donations to Republican candidates might be larger. The Open Secrets database listed multiple donations to several candidates, but given that the individual donations matched the maximum listed under current election laws, the listings might be a mistake. I've reached out to Open Secrets for clarification and will update this once I have more information.

As I wrote earlier, it's not clear why Malone made these specific donations, especially given that many of the individual donations were made to campaigns the Republican Party had identified as being vital to them retaining control of the House.