As the 2026 midterm election year begins, MAGA Inc., a PAC aligned with President Donald Trump, boasts a war chest of almost $300 million built principally through deep-pocketed donors during the first year of Trump’s second term.
While public reporting on MAGA Inc.’s megadonors has focused on well-known tech and cryptocurrency figures, buried in the long list of the PAC’s 2025 contributors are two names that are lesser known in the usual Trump donor sphere — a New York-based oil heir and former executive who now sits on the board of directors of Chevron, the sole U.S. company currently operating in Venezuela, and his wife.
Federal campaign finance filings show that John Hess and his wife, Susan Hess, each contributed $1 million to MAGA Inc. on Dec. 12, 2025, just weeks before the U.S. took military action to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
On that same day, Trump raised eyebrows after a reporter asked if he intended to seize more oil assets from Venezuela after the U.S. seized an oil tanker off the Venezuelan coast earlier that week. “I mean, it wouldn’t be very smart for me to tell you that,” he started. But in continuing to talk about attacks on boats, he added, “[And] now we’re starting by land, and by land is a lot easier, and that’s going to start happening.”
By that point, the president for days had repeatedly said “we’re going to start doing those strikes on land too” as he spoke extensively about strikes on boats near the Venezuelan coast and in the Caribbean — a statement some interpreted to mean land strikes were imminent.
There is no indication that those comments factored into the sizable Hess donations on Dec. 12.
Although the couple have long been donors to various political causes and candidates, including occasionally to Democrats, their 2025 contributions to MAGA Inc. were rare seven-figure contributions from them. The Hesses’ $2 million contribution is dwarfed by other massive eight-figure dollar donations from tech giants and crypto companies to MAGA Inc. from the past year, but it’s nonetheless notable after their yearslong hiatus from contributions in support of Trump in the last few years.
John Hess’ last contribution to a Trump-affiliated fundraising vehicle was a $100,000 donation to the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee’s joint fundraising committee in late 2017. Earlier that year, he gave $1 million to Trump’s first inaugural committee — his only other seven-figure donation at the federal level. And during the 2016 election, Susan Hess gave $170,000 in support of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
Prior to his recent seven-figure donation to MAGA Inc., John Hess’ federal political contributions have mostly gone to congressional campaigns and groups, including $500,000 to a Senate GOP-aligned super PAC in 2020.
Hess is perhaps best known as an heir to and a longtime executive of the former Hess Corp., which was acquired by Chevron last year in a transaction worth an estimated $53 billion. As a result of the merger, Hess was also appointed to Chevron’s board of directors.
Since 2007, when then-Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez seized assets from three major North American oil companies — Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil — Chevron has been the only U.S. oil company involved in production within Venezuela through a joint venture with the country’s state-owned oil company. And MS NOW’s sister network CNBC has reported that Chevron exported approximately 140,000 barrels per day from Venezuela in the last quarter of last year.
Last week, in an interview with CNBC, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said he spoke with the CEOs of all three companies on Jan. 3, when the U.S. military struck Venezuela and removed Maduro from the country, to encourage their investment in Venezuela long-term.
But while he said Exxon and ConocoPhillips would need “normal, commercial business conditions, rule of law and some security to go back in” to Venezuela, he noted that Chevron is well-versed in this regime.
“Chevron has been there for over 100 years,” Wright told CNBC’s Brian Sullivan. “So with them, [the question for the administration is] how can we provide incremental tweaks or changes to allow their model to grow even more?”
In a response to questions from MS NOW about a possible connection between the Hesses’ MAGA Inc. contributions and Venezuela, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said after the U.S. took control there, “President Trump brokered a historic energy deal with Venezuela that will benefit both the American and Venezuelan people.”
“President Trump has called on all oil companies to make unprecedented investments and take advantage of this generational opportunity to restore Venezuela’s oil infrastructure,” Rogers said in a statement. “That’s why 20 different oil companies came to the White House last week to discuss this with President Trump.”
A spokesperson for MAGA Inc. declined to comment. Neither John Hess nor representatives for Chevron responded to MS NOW’s requests for comment.
Trump has long gotten support from the oil industry, including tens of millions of dollars in political contributions to his various fundraising vehicles from both smaller domestic energy producers as well as oil giants like Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Exxon. Soon after Trump won the 2024 presidential election, ConocoPhillips and Exxon donated $1 million each to his massive inaugural fundraising committee, and Chevron gave $2 million, according to a campaign finance report.
Last Friday, Trump hosted a slew of top oil executives, including from Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Exxon, at the White House as the administration takes control of Venezuelan oil. Last November, when Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman visited the White House, Chevron’s CEO was among the top business executives, officials and celebrities that joined a ritzy exclusive dinner with Trump at the White House.
Given its ongoing presence in Venezuela — and apparent support from the Trump administration — Chevron could be uniquely positioned to benefit from the U.S.’ military strikes on Venezuela and removal of Maduro from the country.
According to recent reports from leading analysts with JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley, Chevron is poised to increase its output, citing the company’s vast resources and established infrastructure in the country. But those same analysts note that until there is political stability in Venezuela, no U.S.-based producer, Chevron included, will see immediate benefits.
Prior to the merger with Chevron, John Hess served as CEO of the company bearing his name for two decades. With his family, Hess also owned more than 9% of the company’s stock, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing regarding the merger. Hess still owns or controls almost 8.8 million shares of Chevron stock that, based on recent market activity, is worth at least $1.3 billion. Additionally, company filings projected Hess would receive almost $60 million in cash and stock as compensation relating to the change of control.
In 2024, the Federal Trade Commission voted 3-2 to bar Hess from becoming a member of Chevron’s board of directors because of concerns about his communications with past and present leaders of OPEC and a Saudi Arabian official.
The commissioners who voted to bar Hess cited a conflict of interest: He might work with OPEC to keep oil prices higher. The two commissioners who dissented found the argument that Hess could move global markets “laughable” and accused the process of being politicized.
After Trump took office last year, he fired two of the commissioners and the FTC chair resigned, all of whom had blocked Hess’ appointment. The remaining members of the FTC, joined by a new Trump appointee, reversed the decision and Hess was formally appointed to the Chevron board later that month.
The Hesses’ donations come at a time when campaign finance and ethics experts have voiced concerns about a slew of major donors to Trump-affiliated fundraising entities, including MAGA Inc., that have received favorable action from the second Trump administration. MAGA Inc. is expected to back GOP candidates in the congressional midterm elections — and therefore help Trump maintain his influence among Republicans, despite his own potential lame-duck status.
“We don’t know what the motivations are, but I think all too often we have seen the Trump administration either reward a big donor or provide some kind of benefit that then elicited money,” Saurav Ghosh, director of campaign finance reform at Campaign Legal Center, told MS NOW. Donors “have been named to an ambassadorship, they’ve had an investigation dropped, and in some cases they’ve actually had a merger approved by either the FTC or the [Justice Department] antitrust division.
“And I think that as a broader trend is really, really corrosive to the public’s faith in government.”
Lisa Rubin is MS NOW's senior legal reporter and a former litigator.
Soorin Kim is a White House producer with MS NOW.