Wyss has come under congressional scrutiny for meddling in American politics as a foreign national
Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss’s eponymous charity funneled tens of millions of dollars last year to left-wing nonprofits working to shut down American oil and gas production and turn out climate-concerned voters, according to the group’s tax filings first obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
In total, the Wyss Foundation wired grants worth more than $40 million to two dozen organizations that buy large swaths of American land to prevent resource development, advocate for “climate justice,” and increase voter turnout among those who see global warming as the most consequential issue facing the country.
It represents a large slice of the Wyss Foundation’s total giving, which reached a staggering $222.6 million in 2024, the most it has ever reported and $70 million more than it gave in 2023, according to a review of its tax forms dating back two decades. In addition to climate and environmental initiatives, last year, the charity funded far-left social causes, Swiss scientific projects, and academic programs at universities like Harvard and Yale.
The uptick in the group’s funding activity signals Wyss and his charity are unbothered by the criticism they have received from congressional leaders and government watchdog groups. Critics have repeatedly questioned the legality of a foreign billionaire funding groups and projects that have a direct impact on American politics and elections.
Wyss acknowledged in 2021 he is a foreign national, but denied violating federal restrictions governing the use of foreign money in American politics. That came in response to a complaint filed by watchdog Americans for Public Trust (APT), which had argued in a Federal Election Commission complaint that the Swiss billionaire had funneled money to election-related initiatives through his foundation.
Foreign nationals like Wyss are barred from directly contributing to campaigns but are generally able to give to politically involved nonprofits.
“Year after year, Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss uses his private foundation to pump tens of millions of dollars into American politics to push his radical and progressive agenda,” APT executive director Caitlin Sutherland told the Free Beacon.
“His foreign money continues to bankroll activist groups like New Venture Fund, Sierra Club, and League of Conservation Voters that work to support a dangerous climate agenda that undermines our energy independence, all while turning out extremist climate cult voters,” she continued. “It is imperative Congress and state lawmakers close the loopholes being exploited by Wyss and other hostile foreign actors to advance their radical agendas virtually unchecked.”
Chief among Wyss’s 2024 environmental grants was one worth $16.1 million for the Virginia-based Nature Conservancy, a group Wyss has long supported and which aims to lock up 1.6 billion acres of land worldwide by 2030. “We must act now to halt catastrophic climate change,” the group states on its website.
The Nature Conservancy, meanwhile, spent nearly $2.5 million lobbying for federal policies blocking oil development and boosting green energy in 2024—it has already spent $3.7 million on lobbying expenditures in 2025.
At the state level, the group helped create a green bank in Alaska last year to reduce the oil-rich state’s dependence on oil and gas. In January 2025, the Nature Conservancy facilitated a settlement forcing family-owned ranches to vacate their leases on federal property in California over environmental concerns.
The Wyss Foundation sent another $8.5 million to the Virginia-based Conservation Fund, which it earmarked for projects to buy and “permanently preserve” 14,673 acres of land in California, and to preserve additional land in Colorado. The Wyss Foundation gave $5 million to the group to lock up land near a proposed massive copper mine.
A map published on the Conservation Fund’s website charts hundreds of projects it has spearheaded to lock up millions of acres of land. “We acquire threatened parcels quickly, using secure funding and conservation loans, before at-risk lands are lost forever,” the group says on its website.
The Wyss Foundation gave millions of dollars more to other groups with similar missions like Re:wild, the Conservation Lands Foundation, and the Wilderness Society, whose president, Tracy Stone-Manning, was once accused of spiking trees in Montana and led the Biden-era Bureau of Land Management.
In addition, the charity wrote a $470,000 check for the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, a left-wing group that seeks to boost voter participation and educate Americans about the dangers of “environmental injustice.” The group boasts that more than 75 percent of the voters it has registered through its “Democracy For All” program are black.
A spokesman for the Wyss Foundation did not respond to a request for comment.
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