Billionaire DeVos family looks to DeSantis, not Trump, in 2024

The billionaire DeVos family, whose matriarch, Betsy DeVos, served in Donald Trump’s Cabinet, appears to be backing a Trump rival within the 2024 Republican presidential contest: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

In late June, the pro-DeSantis super PAC Never Back Down recorded a $50,000 donation from NBA franchise the Orlando Magic, in keeping with a recent campaign filing.

A spokesman for the Magic wouldn’t say who authorized the donation and initially declined to comment.

And though the Federal Election Commission filing doesn’t name any member of the DeVos family, the Michigan billionaires own the team.

The DeVos family has a longstanding alliance with DeSantis, one which dates back to his first run for governor in 2018, in keeping with records reviewed by CNBC. Underpinning this alliance is a shared vision for deeply conservative education policy.

As DeSantis campaigns for president partly on his work to remake Florida’s public education system to eliminate what he calls “wokeness,” the DeVos-DeSantis alliance offers a window into how the governor has nurtured allies on a few of his most controversial positions.

The Magic’s spokesman, Joel Glass, later told CNBC the donation was in support of DeSantis as governor.

“To make clear, the gift was given before Governor DeSantis entered the presidential race. It was given as a Florida business in support of a Florida governor for the continued prosperity of Central Florida,” he said as CNBC inquired Wednesday concerning the contribution.

The check was dated and delivered May 19, Glass added, greater than a month before the listed June deposit date. DeSantis officially launched his campaign for president May 24.

Senior members of the DeVos family who’ve current or recent stakes within the Orlando Magic include the previous secretary of education; her husband, Dick DeVos; and her brother-in-law Dan DeVos.

Following publication of this story, Betsy DeVos’ chief of staff, Nate Bailey, said she was “undecided and uncommitted on the race for president, as is your entire DeVos family.”

Bailey added that DeVos has “worked with DeSantis on education issues, as she has almost every other governor within the country.”

A spokesman for the DeVos family investment firm, RDV, didn’t reply to requests for comment.

However the donation made a splash in Trump’s world, where Jason Miller, a Trump senior advisor, took aim on the Orlando Magic for his or her contribution to the DeSantis super PAC.

“I’m wondering what Magic players may have to say about their team giving $50K to Ron DeSanctimonious’ PAC given his recent Florida history curriculum,” Miller said Tuesday in a social media post.

But that curriculum is strictly what draws members of the DeVos family to DeSantis.

For a long time, Betsy and Dick DeVos have been involved with financing candidates or groups that push for more funding to non-public school education and school alternative. This includes hundreds of thousands spent to spice up the failed former Michigan Republican gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon in her 2022 campaign.

As Trump’s Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos backed major cuts in federal spending on education and got regular pushback from lawmakers.

However the donation to DeSantis from the DeVos-owned Orlando Magic suggests that the family may not intend to support Trump in 2024, not less than not yet.

As of Wednesday, no members of the DeVos family appear to have contributed to Trump’s primary campaign in the primary half of this 12 months. That features gifts to Trump’s super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., in keeping with FEC records.

Trump was criminally charged Tuesday with illegally conspiring to overturn his election loss to President Joe Biden in 2020.

Nonetheless, he still holds a commanding lead over the first field, where he leads DeSantis by double digits in a slew of polls.

To know how closely DeVos and DeSantis align on education policy, consider this recording, obtained by CNBC, of a virtual town hall from April 2022 that features Betsy DeVos and the governor.

On the time, DeVos and her allies were aiming to amass signatures for petitions that reportedly would allow the usage of taxpayer funds to cover private school tuition and other related expenses. Chalkbeat Detroit reported earlier this 12 months that those petitions failed to realize steam within the Michigan state legislature.

On the recording, DeVos could be heard raving about how DeSantis, in her view, has “greatly expanded and improved Florida’s student and parent first approach to education.” DeSantis was asked on the decision by a participant, “How are you working to empower families much more within the face of liberal indoctrination policies?”

DeSantis responded, partly, that students, in his view, shouldn’t be “subjected to indoctrination” and pointed to laws he signed which is “principally ensuring that these young kids are usually not having sexuality injected into the classroom curriculum” and “whether it’s we prohibit really harmful ideologies similar to CRT [critical race theory],” he said.

A day after DeSantis spoke on the DeVos-led virtual town hall, the governor signed laws that said schools and workplaces “subjecting an worker or student to a required activity that promotes, advances, or compels individuals to imagine discriminatory concepts, constitutes illegal discrimination,” in keeping with the press release on the time.

Bailey, DeVos’ chief of staff, said the April call was “for a Michigan education effort. [Former Vice President Mike] Pence got here in and did two events for that effort.”

Almost a 12 months later, and months before DeSantis officially launched his campaign for president, Betsy DeVos cheered on one other education initiative signed by the governor that was meant to expand school alternative in Florida.

“EVERY SINGLE CHILD in Florida will profit from #EducationFreedom Major kudos to @GovRonDeSantis and each Florida leader who made this possible,” Betsy DeVos tweeted in March.

The DeVos family bought the Orlando Magic in 1991. Dan DeVos is the chairman of the team and chairman of RDV Sports, which owns the Orlando Magic and other sports teams, in keeping with the Magic’s website.

Betsy DeVos, who’s married to Dan DeVos’ brother, Dick DeVos, also appears to have financial ties to the Orlando Magic.

Her last financial disclosure report as she resigned from the Trump administration in 2021 shows that either she or her husband, or the 2 combined, had an investment valued at over $50 million in Orlando Magic Ltd.

That company owns the Magic and an NBA G League franchise, in keeping with the disclosure. The filing says in that 12 months alone, the couple remodeled $4 million from that investment. Orlando Magic Ltd. is identical name listed on the filing of the $50,000 contribution to the DeSantis super PAC.

The incontrovertible fact that the DeVos family appears to have chosen a substitute for Trump just isn’t entirely surprising.

Signs that the DeVos family could have began distancing themselves from Trump were evident in Betsy DeVos’ resignation letter after the riot on Jan. 6, 2021, on Capitol Hill.

DeVos blamed Trump for the riot in her resignation letter. “There isn’t any mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the situation, and it’s the inflection point for me,” she wrote in a letter dated Jan. 7, 2021.

Beyond the virtual town hall and tweets, the DeVoses have been regular donors to DeSantis’ past gubernatorial campaigns, in keeping with state campaign finance records.

The members of the family have combined to present greater than $350,000 toward either a state-based PAC that backed DeSantis’ two successful runs for governor or on to his gubernatorial campaigns, the records show.