- Bernie Marcus, the billionaire co-founder of Home Depot, said Thursday “no one works anymore.”
- Marcus said he believes if he starts Home Depot today, it won’t be as successful.
- Marcus donated millions to Trump in 2016 and 2020, and even more to other Republicans over the years.
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A billionaire Home Depot co-founder who said “no one works” has donated nearly $64 million to political causes over the years, including the campaigns of former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and Senator John McCain, according to data from the Federal Elections Commission.
In an interview with the Financial Times published Thursday, 93-year-old Bernie Marcus said, “Nobody works, nobody cares,” blaming “socialism” for the change.
“‘Just give it to me. send me money I don’t want to work — I’m too lazy, I’m too fat, I’m too dumb,'” he said, adding that he’s considering starting Home Depot might not have been as successful today.
Home Depot is now worth $321 billion and has approximately 2,300 stores in North America. The current unemployment rate in the US is 3.7%, the lowest in decades, despite the hiring difficulties some companies are still facing.
Marcus, who co-founded Home Depot in 1978, became a mega-donor to the GOP over the years, supporting Trump’s presidential campaigns in both 2016 and 2020. His public support for Trump sparked calls to boycott Home Depot and prompted the company to walk away from it to distance him.
In a statement to Insider, a Home Depot spokesperson said, “Our co-founder, Bernie Marcus, left The Home Depot more than 20 years ago, and his views do not represent the company.”
But since at least 1978, Marcus has donated a total of $63,801,322 to political campaigns and PACs, according to FEC data obtained by Insider.
Many of the donations went directly to supporting Republican candidates, including the presidential campaigns of Trump, McCain, Senator Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, and Senator Mitt Romney, among others.
Some of Marcus’ largest individual donations have gone to conservative super-PACS that directly supported Trump.
In 2020, he made two separate donations of $5 million each to the Preserve America PAC, a single-candidate PAC supporting Trump.
In 2016, Marcus made two donations, one for $3 million and one for $2 million, to Rebuilding America Now, a super PAC formed to support Trump’s first campaign. He also gave another $2 million to Making America Number 1, a pro-Trump PAC.
Between 2015 and 2022, Marcus donated more than $15 million to the Senate Leadership Fund, a PAC designed to help Republicans win a Senate majority, and more than $5 million to the Congressional Leadership Fund.
Marcus has also donated extensively to House and Senate races and contributed to a long list of Republican lawmakers that includes Sens. Tom Cotton, Mike Lee, Chuck Grassley, Mitch McConnell and Tim Scott, and Reps. Kevin McCarthy and Liz Cheney.
Marcus also donated in 2022 to Herschel Walker, the failed Georgia Senate candidate, and Senator Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat who has been accused of obstructing his own party’s agenda.
Marcus and his wife Billi have also pledged to give away most of their estimated $8.9 billion fortune. In 2010, they signed The Giving Pledge, a commitment to donate most of their wealth to charity.