On Thursday, billionaire hedge fund investor and conservative donor Robert Mercer resigned from his position as co-CEO of Renaissance Technologies. He also announced that he had sold his shares in Breitbart, the Stephen Bannon-led media outlet, to his daughters for "personal reasons," a letter obtained by Bloomberg's Joshua Green reveals.
Mercer was the third biggest donor to conservative outside spending groups in the 2016 election cycle. In his resignation letter from Renaissance, he wrote: "I have great respect for Mr. Bannon, and from time to time I do discuss politics with him. However, I make my own decisions with respect to whom I support politically. Those decisions do not always align with Mr. Bannon's." As Green reported in his book The Devil's Bargain, the elder Mercer gave Breitbart $10 million of capital in 2012 and his daughter, Rebekah, was instrumental in bringing Bannon and Kellyanne Conway into President Trump's election campaign.
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