Social media website Parler said Saturday that its previously unknown investor is billionaire Rebekah Mercer, after speculation from some activists that the site was linked to Russia...
Rebekah Mercer is an American heiress, foundation director, and major Republican[2][3] donor who oversees the day-to-day operations of philanthropic and political projects for the Mercer family. She began managing the family foundation when the Mercers started getting involved in conservative causes.[2][4][5][6][7][8] Her father, billionaire Robert Mercer, said in November 2017 that he had sold his stake in Breitbart to his daughters.
Rebekah is the second of the Mercers' three daughters.[10] She was raised in Yorktown Heights, a suburb of New York.[6] Mercer studied biology and mathematics at Stanford University and earned a master's degree in 1999 from Stanford in management science and engineering.[6][11] She worked as a Wall Street trader at Renaissance Technologies, the hedge fund her father has helped lead, and, with her sisters,[12] owned a gourmet cookie company, Ruby et Violette, which sells cookies online.[4][8]
A September 2016 Politico headline called her "the most powerful woman in GOP politics."[13] She has been more aligned with the anti-establishment part of the GOP than most other big Republican donors,[6] and The Washington Post reported she has been referred to as the "First Lady of the Alt-Right".[2]
Mercer, along with her father, contributed $25 million to the 2016 presidential election.[5
In 2010, Mercer bought six adjoining apartment units in Donald Trump's 41-story Heritage at Trump Place.[22]
In the Trump transition, Mercer helped in successfully lobbying against Mitt Romney as secretary of state and for Sen. Jeff Sessions as attorney general.[12] People close to the transition said she had not favored Corey Lewandowski as possible Republican National Committee chair and that Lewandowski had reportedly resisted paying for services from data firm Cambridge Analytica–a company funded by the Mercers–early in the campaign, though a close associate of Mercer's denied the stories.[24] Paul Manafort, Kellyanne Conway's predecessor as campaign director, was also said to be critical of Cambridge Analytica, which had worked for Ted Cruz and was financially backed by the Mercers.[13] Conway reportedly said that after the inauguration, the expectation was that Mercer was likely to lead an outside group, funded by her father, aimed at bolstering Trump's agenda. It was assumed that Cambridge Analytica would also assist the group's efforts.[12]
The Mercers are the ones who first introduced Steve Bannon to Trump.[9] Mercer helped create the film Clinton Cash with Bannon, a top political adviser to Trump at the time.[8] She has been one of Bannon's main financial contributors.
In late 2017, Bannon told several conservative donors that Mercer had pledged her financial support if he decided to run for president in 2020 against Trump. However, Mercer was frustrated by his comments to the media and disagreed with his public comments in support for Roy Moore, who was under fire for sexual misconduct allegations involving young girls. In January 2018 a person familiar with conversations between Mercer and Bannon said Mercer would no longer back Bannon financially.[26] Mercer herself said that she had not spoken to Bannon, the former White House chief strategist, in many months and that she continued to support President Trump.
Mercer and her father, Robert Mercer have been described as key financial benefactors for Breitbart News. Larry Solov, the CEO of Breitbart, said in February 2017 that they are part-owners,[5] but Robert Mercer announced in November 2017 that he had sold his stake in the website to his daughters.[9]
On May 1, 2018, Cambridge Analytica and its parent company filed for insolvency proceedings and closed operations.[27][28] Alexander Tayler, a former director for Cambridge Analytica, was appointed director of Emerdata on March 28, 2018.[29] Rebekah Mercer, Jennifer Mercer, Alexander Nix and Johnson Chun Shun Ko [zh] who has links to Erik Prince are in leadership positions at Emerdata.[
Mercer studied at Stanford University where she met Sylvain Mirochnikoff. The couple married in 2003.[22] In 2010, it was reported that she had bought six adjoining apartment units in Donald Trump's 41-story Heritage at Trump Place.[22] Mercer left her trading job to home-school her four children.[12][8] In 2016, Mirochnikoff, a native of France, was a managing director at Morgan Stanley.[6] In 2017, it was reported that the couple were divorcing.[19]