Bernie Sanders returned $470 from the only billionaire who donated to his campaign

(Image credit: Steven Senne/AP)

last updated 12 November 2019

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has made it clear his 2020 campaign isn't funded by billionaires.

Except for a little while, it was. Marta Thoma Hall, the wife of a billionaire inventor, gave $470 to Sanders' campaign this summer — and when Sanders' team realized, they promptly returned it, Forbes reports.

Hall's husband David Hall, who "doesn't have as much of an interest in politics," holds a patent on a self-driving car sensor, and his stake in the Velodyne company has recently been valued at over $1 billion, Forbes writes. That essentially makes Hall a billionaire too — and the only one Forbes could find who donated to Sanders' campaign. She's also given around $500 to some other Democratic contenders, including Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), and says she wasn't even aware of the $2,800 individual limit on single campaign donations.

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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.

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