A private citizen donated $130 million to the Department of War to help the organization pay the roughly 1.3 million active-duty service members who are expecting their paycheck on Nov. 1, but it’s only a small percentage of what the military spends every payday.
Active-duty troops get paid every two weeks but not during a government shutdown, and Washington, D.C., is currently in the midst of what’s become the second-longest shutdown in modern history. The department had to get creative to pay service members on Oct. 15, their last pay day, and will need to do so again as Congress appears unlikely to reopen the government or pass a stand-alone bill this week.
Timothy Mellon, an heir to a renowned Gilded Age banking family, was identified as the private donor, according to the New York Times. President Donald Trump characterized the benefactor recently as a “great patriot” and a “friend of mine,” but did not name him.
“On October 23, 2025, the Department of War accepted an anonymous donation of $130 million under its general gift acceptance authority,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement last week. “The donation was made on the condition that it be used to offset the cost of Service members’ salaries and benefits. We are grateful for this donor’s assistance after Democrats opted to withhold pay from troops.”
The generous $130 million donation is far from the more than $6 billion it costs to pay all 1.3 active duty service members every payday, according to CNBC. Mellon’s donation, which may violate the Antideficiency Act, amounts to roughly $10 per active-duty service member. The law prohibits federal agencies from spending money in excess of congressional appropriations or from accepting voluntary services.
The Trump administration’s 2025 budget requested about $600 billion in total military compensation for the whole year, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
“Given the amount is really a small fraction of what is needed for military pay, I also thought the donation could maybe have gone to military service relief organizations instead to have more of a positive impact on those who really need help,” former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Elaine McCusker told the Washington Examiner.
McCusker estimated that the military spends between $6 and $7 billion to pay all active-duty service members each pay period, meaning Mellon’s donation accounts for roughly 2% of what the department needs to spend to pay all of them.
There are roughly 750,000 civilian Pentagon employees who are not getting paid during the shutdown. About 25% of them are funded through other means, while about 30% of them are deemed essential workers. Even the civilians who are working during the shutdown do not get paid.
“My first thought is that it further emphasizes how far-reaching the impacts of federal government dysfunction reach — financial, reputational, operational, readiness, modernization, personnel, and overall economic, and why? This is just no way for a global power like the United States to be,” McCusker added. “As far as the donation itself, DoD has authority to accept donations or gifts, though there are regulations involved in doing so.”
During previous government shutdowns, Congress often passed stand-alone legislation to ensure service members do not miss a paycheck, but that hasn’t happened this time around.
Trump directed the Pentagon to look for unspent funds earlier this month to help pay troops their mid-October paycheck, and the department ultimately identified approximately $8 billion of unobligated research, development, testing, and evaluation funds from the prior fiscal year.
It’s unclear how much exactly is left of that $8 billion, if any, and whether there is more unobligated available funding that hasn’t been uncovered. It’s unclear how the Pentagon will pay the difference between Mellon’s contribution and the remaining total balance due to service members.
ANONYMOUS DONOR GAVE $130 MILLION TO PAY TROOPS, BUT CONGRESS MAY NEED TO CUT THE CHECK TO SOLDIERS
The reallocation of the unspent $8 billion also raised questions about the legality of repurposing funds Congress authorized for a specific purpose. However, Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), dared Democrats to challenge the maneuver in court, fearing that they would be viewed as trying to stop service members from receiving their paychecks.
McCusker, the former Pentagon acting comptroller, who is now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said she expects the department to continue reviewing any unspent funds to see if they can be used to pay service members, even if it means delaying other projects, such as modernization.
