Republican trading firm owner and TikTok investor Yass emerges as top donor in US election

By Alexandra Ulmer(Reuters) - The biggest donor in this U.S. election cycle is Jeffrey Yass, a libertarian trading firm owner who started off as a professional poker player and is now a major investor in TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance. Philadelphia-based Yass has donated more than $46 million to Republican causes so far in the 2024 election cycle, data from political donations tracker OpenSecrets shows. Trump made the comments days after he met Yass at a gathering of the conservative Club for Growth donor group in Florida. The U-turn on TikTok amid a major cash crunch led to speculation that Trump may be trying to court Yass. Yass, who leads Pennsylvania-based trading firm Susquehanna International Group and whose net worth Forbes puts at around $27 billion, has not donated to Trump.