Harvard is relying on its billionaire alums as it faces down the White House

As Harvard squares up for a bruising legal fight with the White House over billions in frozen federal grants, the university’s fortunes could depend on its Rolodex of ultra-wealthy alumni. But some of the top donors who have given Harvard the most money in recent years have also cultivated close ties to the Trump administration, a CNN review of tax records found – potentially complicating Harvard’s job of convincing them to back the university in a battle with the president. Among the top-giving family foundations, according to IRS data, is that of John Paulson, a hedge fund titan who helped raise tens of millions of dollars for Trump’s presidential campaigns and was a candidate to be his treasury secretary. Other top Harvard donors include Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO and founder of Meta, which donated to Trump’s inauguration fund, and Ken Griffin, a hedge fund billionaire and major supporter of Republican campaigns who has previously said he would stop giving to the university over concerns about its handling of antisemitism. Behind the scenes, Harvard leaders have met frequently with the university’s megadonors, a person familiar with the matter told CNN. Several pro-Trump donors, including Paulson and hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, have pushed Harvard to make a deal with the administration and avoid a drawn-out fight, the New York Times reported this week. Mike Bloomberg, on the other hand, pushed Harvard to stand strong on a private call with large donors, the New York Times reported. So far, even those donors who have kept their distance from the president – including Bloomberg and Bill Gates – aren’t publicly rallying to the university’s defense. CNN asked more than 30 top Harvard donors over the last week how the university’s battle with Trump could affect their future donations, and none provided a comment. Some donors might be worried about retribution from Trump if they publicly back Harvard, experts in philanthropy said, although they could also decide to give anonymously. The public silence from the megadonors contrasts with exuberant support Harvard has received from many small donors since the university refused the White House’s demands to rewrite its academic and disciplinary policies. Harvard took in nearly 4,000 online donations in the first two days after it announced it would fight the Trump administration, totaling a windfall of about $1.1 million, according to university documents reported by the Harvard Crimson. Jonathan Simon, a 1978 graduate who works at a nonprofit news organization, gave Harvard $100 for the first time in his life, he said, because he wanted “to show support for my alma mater at a time when it’s taking a stand,” in contrast to other major American institutions. But even thousands of donors like Simon can’t make up for the hole in Harvard’s budget caused by the frozen federal funding. “If you’re going to make up two or three billion dollars, you have to have large donors,” said Ron Brown, a former director of gift planning at Princeton University. “You aren’t going to get there otherwise.” While Harvard’s more than $53 billion endowment – the largest of any university in the US – gives it breathing room, most of that funding is locked up in non-liquid assets or restricted funds that are donated for a specific purpose. Still, experts in university fundraising and tax law said Harvard has significant resources for a protracted battle with the White House – and Trump’s threat to strip Harvard of its tax-exempt status could have less impact than the drastic nature of the move might suggest. “The endowment may be smaller four years from now than it is today, but Harvard will survive Trump,” predicted Daniel Hemel, an NYU tax law professor. “If it could survive the Revolutionary War, it’s going to make it through Trump.” Pride in Harvard ‘leading the resistance’ Harvard’s defiant posture came as other Ivy League universities and powerful institutions like some major law firms capitulated to Trump in recent weeks. After the Trump administration froze federal funds to Columbia University in early March, the school largely acquiesced to demands to enforce disciplinary policies and appoint new leadership to oversee its Middle Eastern studies department. Various law firms targeted by Trump agreed to do pro bono legal work for causes supported by his administration, among other measures. Harvard had been negotiating with Trump officials to avoid being the next target, the Times reported. But after the university received a letter on April 11 outlining demands like shutting down diversity programs and reviewing admissions policies around international students, it went public on April 14 with a statement vowing to fight. The administration quickly responded by freezing $2.2 billion in federal funds that were set to go to the university, including for medical research projects. Earlier this week, Harvard filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the funding freeze. As Harvard plots out its clash with Trump – and a possible future without billions in federal funding – its leadership has turned to the megadonors whose names adorn the university’s schools and research institutes. But that effort could be more difficult because Harvard’s benefactors are a politically mixed bag of billionaires. Even before Trump took office, some of its biggest supporters, including Griffin and Trump donor Len Blavatnik, had vowed in late 2023 and early 2024 to stop giving to the university over concerns about its handling of antisemitism amid pro-Palestinian protests on campus. Blavatnik, a Ukrainian-born billionaire, relented on that threat and released a portion of his Harvard donations in recent months, including funds for Harvard Business School, the American Repertory Theater and various research projects, because he felt Harvard was making progress, according to a source familiar with the matter. A spokesperson for Blavatnik’s family foundation declined to comment. In the days since Harvard refused Trump’s demands, Harvard President Alan Garber has been in frequent touch with top donors through Zoom meetings and one-on-one phone calls, the source said. To understand Harvard’s donor base, CNN analyzed IRS data on thousands of private foundations that reported making donations to Harvard or associated schools and groups on their annual tax forms over roughly the last four years. Reporters sought comment from the top 20 foundations who have reported giving the most money, which collectively donated more than $1.2 billion over that period – including groups associated with Paulson, Zuckerberg, Gates, Bloomberg and Blavatnik. None answered questions about their perspective on the Trump-Harvard fight and their plans for future donations to the university. “John is not taking interviews at this time,” a spokesperson for Paulson said last week. Not all ultrawealthy donors give through personal foundations – others give money directly, or through donor-advised funds that make it more difficult to track the flow of money. CNN also requested comment from other donors who’ve been publicly reported as giving millions or more to Harvard, including Griffin and Ackman, none of whom provided a comment. That’s a stark contrast to small donors, many of whom have enthusiastically voiced their support for Harvard’s battle with Trump. Clara Bingham, who graduated from Harvard in 1985 and works as a journalist and an author, said she hasn’t given much over the years because “Harvard has such an enormous endowment that I’ve always felt like the little money I have to give away can go towards people who need it more.” But after Harvard denied Trump’s demands, Bingham said she was considering donating to the university. “Everyone I’ve talked to is rejoicing,” she said. “There’s this sort of newfound pride that Harvard is now leading the resistance for universities.” Another alum, a filmmaker who has degrees from Harvard College and Harvard Law School and whose three children all attended or are enrolled in the university, said that he made an extra donation to Harvard last week in addition to his annual gift to the school. The university’s decision to fight Trump’s demands “has confirmed my belief that giving to Harvard is an important source of where I want to extend my philanthropy,” said the alum, who asked not to be named because “we live in uncertain times.” Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a Harvard alum and Yale professor who runs a leadership institute for CEOs, said he thought that behind the scenes, Harvard’s megadonors would have its back as it went toe-to-toe with Trump. “Harvard’s biggest donors may not have the biggest mouths, but they have the biggest wallets, and they are wildly enthusiastic about Harvard setting boundaries for academic integrity and fighting against autocratic intrusion,” Sonnenfeld said. “The most important thing is for Harvard to not collapse now.” Harvard faces ‘the nuclear option’ One potential concern for donors large or small is whether their gifts to the university will continue to be tax deductible. The IRS is making plans to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status, CNN reported last week, an idea that Trump has floated on social media. Federal law prohibits presidents from directing an IRS audit or investigation. The IRS commissioner has authority under federal law to revoke an organization’s tax-exempt status if the agency finds it violated the rules that govern tax exemptions. If Harvard does lose its status, the university would have to start paying federal income tax, and donors would not be able to deduct the value of their donations from their own taxes. Nina Olson, who served as the independent national taxpayer advocate within the IRS for nearly two decades and now runs the nonpartisan Center for Taxpayer Rights, told CNN that typically the IRS would first conduct a full audit, then seek to work out a deal to address any issues before issuing a revocation notice. “Revocation is the nuclear option,” she said. Such a decision wouldn’t be unprecedented. In 1976, the IRS revoked the tax-exempt status of Bob Jones University, a private Christian school in South Carolina, which had violated federal laws against racial discrimination by prohibiting interracial dating and refusing to admit students in interracial marriages. The Supreme Court upheld that revocation in 1983, and the university didn’t regain tax-exempt status until 2017, long after it dropped its interracial dating ban. But Hemel, the NYU law professor, said the Harvard case is quite different: Even if Trump opposes some of Harvard’s actions, unlike Bob Jones University, the school isn’t in “open defiance of fundamental public policy.” If the IRS did act to remove its tax-exempt status, the university could petition a judge to declare that it qualifies for the status, Hemel said. Once a judge approved, it could continue to avoid paying taxes, and donors could continue to claim a deduction. “It’s cut and dried that Harvard is eligible” for tax-exempt status, Hemel said. “My guess is that Harvard would win 9-0 at the Supreme Court.” “Even conservative justices who have no love lost for Harvard don’t want to get into a world where Democratic administrations are revoking the tax-exempt status of organizations Republicans like, and Republican administrations are revoking the tax-exempt status of organizations Democrats like,” he added. “That’s a bad world for everybody.” University fundraising experts said they saw the Trump-Harvard fight as a defining moment for American academia. Brown, the former Princeton executive, argued that Harvard should make clear to its donors that their giving is more crucial now than ever before. “Appeasing Trump is not in any sense a winning strategy,” he said. “I would make that case to the donors: Leaders lead. Now is when we need your support, and ideally your public support.” CNN’s Samantha Delouya, Curt Devine, Nayeli Jaramillo-Plata and Kara Scannell contributed reporting to this story.