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Billionaires David and Julia Koch were best known as dark-money mega-donors to conservative causes and candidates, but they also gave tens of millions of dollars to charity each year. Since David’s death in 2019, however, his widow appears to have sharply slowed her public giving—donating less than $4 million between 2018 and 2021, the last year for which records are available.
The David H. Koch Foundation—founded by the manufacturing titan and now helmed by his wife, the richest woman in America—appears to have gotten rid of its staff and has not received any new funding since Koch’s death. The foundation is slowly working through its dwindling funds, which experts say could signal a planned wind-down.
It does not appear the spending slowdown is the result of a cash crunch. In the last two years, Julia Koch has purchased three new homes worth more than $170 million and embarked on a renovation of her existing $40 million townhouse.