And that has a lot to do with who Jeffrey Yass is. A former professional gambler, Yass made a fortune through his quantitative trading firm: SIG is one of the largest investment enterprises in the country, controlling assets with an estimated market value of half a trillion dollars-including its roughly $22 million share in Trump’s social media venture. Over his lifetime, Yass has poured at least $150 million into political causes at the federal level, according to The Daily Beast’s analysis of publicly available campaign finance data.

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When The New York Times revealed the name of one of the biggest investors behind Donald Trump’s social media venture last weekend, his name leapt off the page: Republican megadonor-and Never Trump billionaire-Jeffrey Yass. The story caught fire among Trump critics, particularly because of the conspicuous timing. The revelation that a GOP donor like Yass, the wealthiest person in Pennsylvania, had money in a Trump business was particularly newsworthy, given the context of this particular investment-a merger that could extend a financial lifeline to the cash-strapped former president, to the tune of potentially billions of dollars, at a critical time for him both personally and politically.

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But Yass did not give to DeSantis again, instead donating almost $5 million to a super PAC supporting biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, along with hundreds of thousands to groups backing South Carolina Senator Tim Scott and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Yass also cut a $10 million check to the Club for Growth in June, which helped fund a parade of anti-Trump ads ahead of the primaries. Three sources close to the Trump campaign told The Daily Beast that, implausible as it may seem, before the recent stories about TikTok and Truth Social, officials had been largely unaware of Yass’ chummy relations with Club For Growth and his seven-figure support for DeSantis.

That number is almost certainly higher, however, because Yass has also injected tens of millions of dollars into state and local elections and issues across the country. The former poker player and racetrack bettor doesn’t hedge his political bets like many corporate donors, with only a handful of contributions over the last three decades flowing to Democratic candidates. According to OpenSecrets, Yass and his wife, Janine, are this election cycle’s top donors to outside groups, for either party, contributing nearly $50 million since last year-all of it to conservative candidates and organizations. Additionally, like many sophisticated megadonors, Yass has also funneled influence through outside “dark money” groups that make it difficult to trace the true source of the funds.