First on Fox: Trump Cabinet nominee Loeffler pledges to donate salary to charity if confirmed
Former Senator Kelly Loeffler, who was nominated by President Donald Trump to serve as the Small Business Administration (SBA) administrator, has made an exclusive commitment to donate her entire federal salary to charity, according to sources at Fox News Digital.
Loeffler, a well-known business executive and philanthropist who represented Georgia in the Senate for two years, is scheduled to appear before the Senate’s Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee on Wednesday for her confirmation hearing.
If confirmed, Loeffler intends to donate her annual federal salary of around $207,500 to charitable organizations.
This decision by Loeffler, whose net worth is estimated at approximately $1 billion, follows her previous actions while in Congress from 2019 to 2021, when she donated her Senate salary of $174,000 per year to over 40 charities and nonprofits in Georgia.
Among the recipients of her donations were food banks, faith-based organizations, anti-abortion groups, foster care and adoption agencies, as well as organizations focused on healthcare, agriculture, education, law enforcement, and disaster relief efforts.
During the height of the pandemic, Loeffler also contributed $1 million to Phoebe Putney Hospital in Albany, Georgia, a city in Southwest Georgia that was severely impacted by the virus.
Raised in a family of small business owners and entrepreneurs, Loeffler gained valuable experience working on her family’s farm in Illinois. She became the first person in her family to graduate from college and spent nearly thirty years climbing the corporate ladder in the private sector.
Together with her husband Jeff, Loeffler transformed a small financial services and technology company with 100 employees into a Fortune 500 company with 15,000 employees. She later founded another company, Bakkt, serving as its CEO and first employee. Additionally, she was a part owner of the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream.
Loeffler and her husband have been active donors to Republican causes and candidates, including President Trump, for whom Loeffler served as co-chair of the inaugural committee.
In a statement to Fox News, Loeffler’s spokesperson Caitlin O’Dea emphasized that Loeffler, like President Trump, has chosen to forego her federal salary in order to focus on advancing the America First agenda and supporting entrepreneurs through the Small Business Administration.
Although Loeffler excelled in the business world, she was relatively unknown until entering politics.
After Senator Johnny Isakson’s resignation from the Senate in late 2019, Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia appointed Loeffler to fill Isakson’s remaining term until the next regular election. Loeffler narrowly lost to Democrat Raphael Warnock in a runoff election in January 2021, following a competitive race in the November 2020 Senate election.
Paul Steinhauser, a politics reporter based in New Hampshire, contributed to this article.
