Name: Meet Robert Mercer, the conservative billionaire who was a megadonor for Trump during the 2016 campaign but is notably absent in 2020
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Meet Robert Mercer, the conservative billionaire who was a megadonor for Trump during the 2016 campaign but is notably absent in 2020

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Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. It indicates a way to close an interaction, or dismiss a notification.An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders. It often indicates a user profile.A billionaire donor who bankrolled President Trump's 2016 campaign has been notably absent during his reelection efforts.Robert Mercer, a hedge fund manager, donated upwards of $25 million dollars in the previous election cycle across multiple conservative efforts. So far, Mercer and his daughter, Rebekah, have made a single $355,200 donation to Trump's reelection effort.&nbsp;Business Insider's that one of Rebekah's associates said "they're 100, 100, 100% out" which means they likely won't extend their support to the president in the few months left before November at a time when their monetary support could be key in swing states like Michigan and Florida.In 2017, called Mercer "a brilliant computer scientist [who] helped transform the financial industry through the innovative use of trading algorithms."Take a look inside his life and career.said that Mercer, the son of a Canadian immigrant, took an early interest in coding and computers, courtesy of his father. He worked at an Air Force base as a programmer while attending the University of New Mexico.&nbsp;Robert and his wife, Diana, have three daughters — Rebekah, Heather, and Jennifer. In , an associate of the family said the girls "were in the honor society, and stayed out of trouble."The couple raised their children in Westchester, New York, where they all attended public school.&nbsp;that Mercer worked as a language recognition specialist at IBM, where his team found ways to have computers using .The Association of Computational Linguistics gave Mercer in 2014 for his work with IBM.In 1993, Mercer started working at Renaissance, a hedge fund, and became co-CEO in 2009. He stepped down from his role , when it was valued at $50 billion. , his active role in politics ruffled quite a few feathers at the fund.&nbsp;Mercer's interest and involvement in politics .Jane Mayer quoted an associate of Mercer as saying that the billionaire who is a libertarian who isn't fond of "the Republican establishment."In August 2016, Nicholas Confessore wrote for The New York Times that Mercer had financed conservative and libertarian groups for over a decade. This includes the Cato Institute and endeavors overseen by Charles and David Koch.He stressed his libertarian values in November 2017. He wrote that people should "assume responsibility for their own actions, and spend the fruits of their own labor as they see fit."Before switching his support to Trump, Mercer donated $13 million to .&nbsp;&nbsp;Mercer was ranked seventh on which also included Charles and David Koch, George Soros, and Tom Steyer.&nbsp;Amber Phillips at The Washington Post called him a "tea-party conservative" and said he was a "climate change denier."His views aligned with Cruz's at the time, according to Phillips, who wrote that he has spent big against candidates who want to raise taxes on investors and that Mercer is skeptical of the IRS, which Cruz wanted to abolish.During the campaign, Mercer allies Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon worked with Trump as, respectively, campaign manager and campaign CEO, .Mercer was also said to have favored John Bolton, who served as national security adviser between 2018 and 2019.&nbsp;Steve Bannon for less than a year, departing in August 2017. Conway continues to hold a White House position.Trump recently called Bolton "a dope" in response to the latter's book "," which described Trump's conduct leading up to his impeachment by the House of Representatives. Bolton declined House Democrats' request to testify during Trump's impeachment inquiry and was not called by Senate Republicans to testify at the trial, having said he would only testify pursuant to a subpoena.Mercer invested at least $15 million in Cambridge Analytica, .&nbsp;The firm&nbsp;attracted notoriety, and , when it was discovered to have to gather data.&nbsp;Trump's campaign hired Cambridge Analytica in June 2016 to help target ads using voter data gathered from millions of adults in the US, and a whistleblower eventually revealed that Cambridge Analytica improperly obtained personal data from over 87 million Facebook users.The data-analytics firm harvested personal information on where users lived and what pages they liked, which that analyzed personality traits. Political campaigns later deployed online ads using that kind of information.Mercer met Andrew Breitbart . to investors at Renaissance, he said that he had "great respect" for Steve Bannon, a former Breitbart executive.&nbsp;"However, I make my own decisions with respect to whom I support politically. Those decisions do not always align with Mr. Bannon's."Mercer went on to share the news in the same letter that he was selling his stake in the far-right website that was also at one time home to the controversial figure Milo Yannopoulos.Various profiles of Mercer describe him as "" and ""In 2010, he , "I'm happy going through my life without saying anything to anyone."A family friend told The New Yorker's : "he was very quiet — he didn't talk to anybody."He's described as "an icy cold poker player" and "an automaton" at various points in the 2010 book &nbsp;According to , he's currently a resident of Mount Sinai in Long Island.&nbsp;Mercer has a $2.7 model train set in his basement, . In 2009, lawsuit against&nbsp;the contractor for overcharging him for it. The case was later settled.In addition to model trains, he also takes an active interest in firearms and has accrued a number of pistols and machine guns, as reported in multiple outlets .Bloomberg was first to report that Mercer kept a home in a New Mexico town, Lake Arthur, where he had volunteered with the local sheriff's department. This enabled Mercer to carry a concealed weapon in any US state — a perk reserved under US law for law enforcement officers only. Mercer had given up his badge months before the Bloomberg report, and the mayor of Lake Arthur shuttered the volunteer program weeks after it was published.Mercer owns a superyacht called "Sea Owl" that was valued at .&nbsp;Dave Levinthal spoke to multiple Mercer associates who told Business Insider that &nbsp;"They're 100, 100, 100% out," said one anonymous source.This appears to, in part, stem from legal troubles that Cambridge Analytica and Make America Number 1, a pro-Trump super PAC, have faced in the past couple of years."The Mercers seem to have realized that Trumpism isn't the path they want to pursue in the future, that it's a bad investment now," Mark Groombridge, a Bolton aide, told Levinthal.&nbsp;An icon in the shape of a lightning bolt.Keep readingNewsletterSign up for our newsletter to receive our top stories based on your reading preferences — delivered daily to your inbox.Something is loading.It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options.Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. 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Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. It indicates a way to close an interaction, or dismiss a notification.An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders. It often indicates a user profile.A billionaire donor who bankrolled President Trump's 2016 campaign has been notably absent during his reelection efforts.Robert Mercer, a hedge fund manager, donated upwards of $25 million dollars in the previous election cycle across multiple conservative efforts. So far, Mercer and his daughter, Rebekah, have made a single $355,200 donation to Trump's reelection effort.&nbsp;Business Insider's...

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Meet Robert Mercer, the conservative billionaire who was a megadonor for Trump during the 2016 campaign but is notably absent in 2020

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