Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty
News broke on Monday that Barre Seid, a 90-year-old manufacturing billionaire based in Chicago, had quietly offloaded his company to a conservative nonprofit—generating a mammoth $1.6 billion payday for the group and allowing all parties to avoid taxes on the sale.
The transfer, which took place in 2020 but only just came to light, could be transformative, both because of the amount of money involved and how it may change the way ultra-rich political donors structure their gifts.
“This is a big deal. This is a kind of transformation in the way that conservative-issue advocacy organizations are going to raise money,” said E.J. Fagan, assistant professor of political science at the University of Illinois Chicago.
Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here