The brothers inherited their fortune from their father, a man who collaborated with Nazis and the Soviet Union to build oil refineries in Russia and Germany. Mayer goes into the most detail in her discussion of the impact of Charles and David Koch, known more commonly as the Koch brothers.

Olin, Richard Mellon Scaife, and members of the DeVos and Coors families. These men are Charles and David Koch, John M. More than $1 billion of that figure was contributed by just a handful of powerful men, who, Mayer argues, use think tanks, lobbies, and non-profit organizations as a front for massive donations to conservative politicians. Mayer begins her book with a discussion of the 2016 election, in which the total candidate spending was $6.8 billion, nearly twice as much as the candidates in the 2012 election spent on their campaigns. The book tells the history of these families and their political actions, making the argument that contemporary American politics is more of a plutocracy than a democracy. It is a non-fiction book which explores the history of a number of rich men, most notably the Koch brothers, and how their financial backing of conservative institutions leads to the growth of radical right-wing politics in America. Investigative journalist Jane Mayer wrote Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right in 2016 following the rise and subsequent election of President Donald Trump.

Dark money jane