The Big Money Behind Chris Rufo’s Right-Wing Agitating

This piece was produced in partnership with Important Context.

Chris Rufo has been racking up wins lately. Fresh off of tanking the tenure of Harvard’s first Black—and first Black woman—president, Claudine Gay, with a scandal over alleged plagiarism, the far-right activist has set his sights on National Public Radio. 

Last month, Rufo dug up tweets from NPR CEO Katherine Maher that she posted before she was a journalist. The tweets revealed that Maher is a liberal Democrat who supported Biden’s campaign and called Donald Trump a racist. The revelations came on the heels of an op-ed by Uri Berliner published by The Free Press, the media company of conservative columnist Bari Weiss, in which the veteran NPR editor claimed that his outlet had “lost America’s trust” through a left-wing slant and an absence of viewpoint diversity. Berliner subsequently resigned from his position.

Rufo has an undeniable knack for stoking right-wing outrage. Depending on who you ask, he is either a conservative wunderkind—a culture warrior taking big swings at the liberal establishment—or a troll working to tear down decades of social progress, including in public education and higher learning. Extremist and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon even called him “an American hero.” Rufo is credited as the architect of the right’s demonization of “critical race theory” and a major contributor to its moral panic over LGBTQ+ inclusivity in public schools. But it’s not just right-wing audiences he plays to. 

The professional culture warrior is equally gifted at seeding stories to legacy media outlets like The New York Times, which published a guest essay in July 2023 arguing for the abolition of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” programs at public universities. The paper ran five front-page pieces on a single day on Gay’s plagiarism scandal. It wasn’t long before The Gray Lady had picked up Rufo’s scoop about Maher as well.

A one-time documentary filmmaker who pivoted right around 2015, Rufo has benefited both financially and professionally from the support of right-wing billionaires and dark money. The media coverage of Rufo and his activities often notes his ties to various right-wing think tanks. However, few outlets have explored the funding behind those organizations to see just who is pulling the strings behind Rufo’s career. But now, an investigation by Important Context and The Center for Media and Democracy offers some answers. 

Through federal tax filings, we were able to identify a handful of right-wing billionaire donors and major right-wing foundations funding Rufo-affiliated groups. However, the original sources of the money behind the organizations are difficult to trace, as much of the cash came through donor-advised funds—third parties that manage money for client donors, distributing it with their input and often anonymously.

In recent years, these operations have become increasingly popular vehicles in American philanthropy, in large part because clients can transfer appreciable assets into their charitable funds without having to pay capital gains taxes that would ordinarily accompany stock sales and similar transactions. Donors have flocked to donor-advised funds to facilitate their funding of far-right and controversial causes such as hate and anti-vaccine groups, likely because donations routed through these funds are attributable only to the funds themselves. In other words, they allow wealthy financiers of unsavory causes to mask their political influence. 

In response to our press inquiry asking why big money might support his work, Rufo would only say, “I ❤️ billionaires.”

American Studio

Rufo is the founder of a nonprofit called American Studio, which he began after dissolving his previous filmmaking venture, the Documentary Foundation, to produce videos for his followers. The foundation had been heavily funded by dark money, as The Intercept reported, and American Studio is no different. 

The nonprofit has received significant, untraceable money through donor-advised funds, including mainstream charities associated with major financial institutions. Between July 2021 and June 2023, American Studio received more than $400,000 through Schwab Charitable Fund, a donor-advised fund affiliated with financial services titan Charles Schwab. Meanwhile, from July 2021 and June 2022, the group got $122,000 through Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund, the nation’s largest grant-making organization, which is affiliated with Fidelity Investments, $18,500 through the Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program, affiliated with investment giant The Vanguard Group, and $5,000 through the Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust, a donor-advised fund tied to Morgan Stanley. 

American Studio pulled in cash from right-wing donor-advised funds as well. Between 2021 and 2022, American Studio received $370,000 through DonorsTrust, which is a preferred funding conduit for right-wing billionaire families like Koch, Mercer, and DeVos and a major source of funding for Southern Poverty Law Center-identified hate groups. It got an additional $26,000 in 2022 from the National Christian Charitable Foundation, which similarly funds hate.

Not all of the money was anonymous. Private foundations of wealthy individuals also bankrolled American Studio. The Edelman Family Foundation, the private foundation of billionaire hedge fund manager Joseph Edelman, which funds groups like Dennis Prager’s Prager University and the far-right parents’ rights group Parents Defending Education, gave $150,000. Meanwhile, the private foundation of Thomas W. Smith, founder of the hedge fund Prescott Investors and a major financial backer of anti-critical race theory propaganda and climate denial, gave $50,000.

Rufo’s salary from American Studio was over $240,000 in 2022, according to the organization’s latest IRS Form 990.

Manhattan Institute for Policy Research

Rufo is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a New York-based right-wing think tank founded in 1978 by prolific libertarian activist Antony Fisher and future CIA Director William Casey. Originally known as the International Center for Economic Policy Studies, the institute has long been aligned with and bankrolled by wealthy right-wingers and corporate interests. As journalist Matthew Cunningham-Cook noted, it “has played a critical role in dismantling the social safety net and criminalizing the poor under the guise of promoting ‘welfare reform’ and ‘broken windows’ policing.”

The institute’s leadership includes Wall Street executives like hedge fund billionaire Paul E. Singer, who profiteered off of the 2008 financial crisis and serves as the institute’s chairman. Since 2020, its donors have included right-wing billionaire power brokers Charles Koch and Richard Uihlein, who are known for funding climate denial and attacks on organized labor. Others include Singer, conservative legal activist and Trump “judge whisperer” Leonard Leo, Prescott Investors’ Smith, and billionaire GOP mega donor Bill Oberndorf, who bankrolled the successful recall against progressive San Francisco District Attorney Chesapeake Boudin in 2022.

From December 2019 to November 2022, Singer’s private foundation gave $3.8 million. The Ed Uihlein Family Foundation gave $175,000 between 2020 and 2021, and in 2022, Leo’s The 85 Fund gave $450,000. 

Other private right-wing foundations gave big money to the institute. The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, for example, donated to the tune of $1.6 million between 2020 and 2022. Between 2021 and 2022, the Edelman Family Foundation gave $675,000. The Adolph Coors Foundation, the private foundation of the Coors brewing family, gave $30,000 in 2021.

Like American Studio, the Manhattan Institute took in a substantial amount of money in anonymous donations from donor-advised funds. For example, it received more than $630,000 through Schwab Charitable between July 2019 and June 2023, representing Schwab’s 2020 to 2023 fiscal years. It got more than $1 million through Vanguard Charitable, $1.9 million through Fidelity Charitable, $100,000 through Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust, and $77,000 through the Goldman Sachs Charitable Gift Fund from July 2019 to June 2022. The American Endowment Foundation funneled $22,000 to the institute between 2020 and 2021.

The institute received funding through right-wing donor-advised funds as well. It raked in nearly $600,000 from DonorsTrust between 2020 and 2022. Another $30,600 came through the National Christian Charitable Foundation and $70,000 from the Bradley Impact Fund, a donor-advised fund affiliated with the Bradley Foundation which Mother Jones recently reported represents mostly money from just four large donors. 

While the institute did not respond to a request for comment on Rufo’s salary, and the activist was not forthcoming, top senior fellows can earn over $400,000 according to the group’s latest IRS Form 990. 

Hillsdale College 

Rufo is also a distinguished fellow at the right-wing Hillsdale College. Hillsdale is a small, Christian liberal arts school in Michigan with a separate campus in Washington, D.C. that has become a central player in the world of right-wing politics. Hillsdale is known as an incubator for conservative operatives and for its ties to Donald Trump. For example, following Trump’s criticisms of the The New York Times’ “1619 Project,” Hillsdale released a “1776 Curriculum.”

In the aftermath of Trump’s defeat, for example, The New York Times reported that Hillsdale’s top brass promoted the Big Lie, and got involved in the scheme to keep him in power. The school has also given fellowships to right-wing contrarian doctors like Stanford professor Jay Bhattacharya.

Hillsdale has gotten big money from a number of foundations of wealthy right-wingers. For example, from December 2019 to November 2022, the Adolph Coors Foundation gave $662,000. The Charles Koch Foundation gave $116,000 and the Ed Uihlein Family Foundation gave $80,000 from 2020 to 2022. $157,000 from Thomas Smith’s foundation.

The school has also received millions in untraceable funding through mainstream donor-advised funds. Hillsdale got nearly $12.2 million through Schwab Charitable Fund between the fund’s 2020 and 2023 fiscal years, running July 2019 to June 2023. It got $4.4 million through Vanguard Charitable, $9.8 million through Fidelity Charitable, nearly $2 million through Morgan Stanley Charitable Fund, and $10,000 through the Goldman Sachs Charitable Gift Fund between those donor-advised funds’ 2020 and 2022 fiscal years. 

DonorsTrust funneled more than $2.6 million and the National Christian Charitable Foundation gave $2.2 million to Hillsdale from 2020 to 2022. The Bradley Impact Fund dished out $44,000 between 2021 and 2022.

Neither Rufo nor Hillsdale responded to our question about payment for the fellowship.

The Heritage Foundation

In 2020, Rufo was a visiting fellow for domestic policy studies at the Heritage Foundation, one of the most influential right-wing think tanks in the country. It has worked to undermine climate science, public health amid the COVID-19 pandemic, organized labor, and voting rights.

The foundation’s donors represent some of the largest corporate and wealthy interests in the country, including names like Koch, Uihlein, Thomas Smith, and the Coors family. They include Leonard Leo’s The 85 Fund and the Bradley Foundation. 

Over the years, Heritage has taken millions in untraceable money from donor-advised funds—Fidelity Charitable, Schwab Charitable, Vanguard Charitable, Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust, the Goldman Sachs Charitable Gift Fund, DonorsTrust, the Bradley Impact Fund, and the National Christian Charitable Foundation.

The Claremont Institute

After his stint at Heritage, Rufo was a Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute, another major right-wing think tank which the New York Times has called a “nerve center of the American Right.” Claremont’s vice chairman is Hillsdale College’s president, Larry P. Arnn, who promoted 2020 election denial and worked to pressure former Vice President Mike Pence to block the certification of the results. Meanwhile, Claremont scholar John Eastman, who served as part of Donald Trump’s legal team, was a legal architect of the so-called fake elector scheme.

Like Heritage, the institute has been supported by big right-wing donors including Smith. It also receives big money through donor-advised funds. 

The Discovery Institute 

Rufo similarly had a research fellowship at the Discovery Institute, a Christian right think tank that opposes the theory of evolution. The institute supported Rufo’s work even after his departure, giving his now-defunct Documentary Foundation $225,000 in 2021. 

The institute has received money from billionaire Charles Koch’s foundation. However, most of what it took in came through donor-advised funds. Nearly $5.8 million came from DonorsTrust and about $2.5 million from the National Christian Charitable Foundation. Between July 2019 and June 2022, Fidelity Charitable funneled over $760,000 to the institute. From July 2019 to June 2023 Schwab Charitable passed along more than $1 million.