Billionaire Ex-Trump Ally Ronald Lauder Met With Ron DeSantis As He Courts Wealthy Execs On Trump’s Turf, Report Says

Topline

Billionaire GOP megadonor and one-time ally to former President Donald Trump, Ronald Lauder, met with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis recently as the likely 2024 GOP presidential candidate pitches himself as the adult in the room to wealthy donors amid increasingly incendiary rhetoric from Trump.

Ronald Lauder (Photo by Michael Kappeler/picture alliance via Getty Images)

dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images

Key Facts

Lauder met with DeSantis, who is widely expected to announce a run for president in early summer, at his Long Island estate several months ago, Politico reported, citing two unnamed sources familiar with the meeting.

The reported meeting comes after Lauder—heir to Estée Lauder who has known Trump for decades and helped fund his 2020 re-election bid—said through a spokesperson in November that he will not donate to Trump’s 2024 campaign, though he did not say who he would support in 2024 and did not comment to Politico on the recent DeSantis meeting.

DeSantis is reportedly targeting wealthy New Yorkers in the real estate industry who own property in Florida, while billing himself as the “no chaos” candidate as a counter to Trump’s many legal woes and near-constant stream of controversial commentary, according to Politico.

Lauder is among several one-time wealthy Trump backers who have defected from the former president, including Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, Citadel hedge fund founder Ken Griffin and News Corp magnate Rupert Murdoch.

Forbes Valuation

We estimate Lauder’s net worth is valued at $4.6 billion, making him the 584th richest person in the world as of Thursday.

Key Background

While Trump had a relatively slow start to his third campaign for the White House, he returned to the stage of a raucous rally over the weekend in Waco, Texas, where he declared his innocence in the various investigations against him, showed clips of January 6 footage and reprised his false claims that he won the 2020 presidential election in a 95-minute speech before thousands of supporters. DeSantis, who has also ramped up his political activity in recent months and has been touring the country promoting his new book, has avoided direct counter-attacks on Trump, who refers to his one-time protégé as “Ron DeSanctimonious.” Underscoring his strategy to avoid a war of words with Trump, DeSantis, in a recent interview with Fox Nation’s Piers Morgan said Trump “did a lot of damage” during his time in the Oval Office and boasted that there is “no daily drama” in his own leadership style. DeSantis has instead opted to focus on his record as Florida governor, telling Morgan in response to a question about Trump’s nickname for him, “call me whatever you want, just as long as you call me a winner.” Privately, he is considering a strategy to appeal to Republican voters concerned about crime by highlighting a 2018 law passed during Trump’s tenure that reduced sentences for some prisoners, The New York Times reported.

Big Number

50%. That’s the percentage of Republicans who said they planned to vote for Trump in the 2024 GOP primary, results that show his support is growing despite multiple law enforcement investigations against him and a string of particularly incendiary rhetoric in recent weeks. The Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll poll, taken after news broke that Manhattan prosecutors were nearing an indictment against Trump in their probe of hush-money payments made to Stormy Daniels, found DeSantis’ support is stagnant from its February poll at around 24%. Trump has picked up four points since then. Another recent poll by PBS/Marist revealed that 80% of Republican voters believe the various investigations against Trump are political “witch hunts.”

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Key Facts

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