Billionaire industrialist used his fortune to change conservative politics in the US

Life Story

David Koch, who has died aged 79, was a billionaire industrialist and philanthropist whose fortune and hardedge libertarianism had a profound effect on American politics while making him an uncommonly polarising figure.

He and an older brother, Charles, transformed the Wichita-based family company, which they had taken over from their father, Fred, in the 1960s, into a global conglomerate with interests in businesses from oil to ranching to a wide variety of consumer products, such as Dixie Cups and Stainmaster carpeting. Koch Industries became the second-largest privately held company in the

United States, and by 2018,

Charles and

David were estimated to be worth about

US$60 billion each.

As a patron of charities, David Koch ranked among the most generous of his era, disbursing more than $1b to cultural and medical nonprofit organisations. But it was through a network of well-financed advocacy groups that the brothers achieved their greatest distinction, spreading an uncompromising anti-government gospel that moved the Republican Party steadily to the Right.

They inherited a deep mistrust of big government from their father, a founding member of the arch-conservative John Birch Society. David Koch said he fervently believed that minimal government led to more prosperity and freedom for all people.

‘‘It’s something I grew up with,’’ he told journalist Brian Doherty, editor of the libertarian magazine Reason, ‘‘a fundamental point of view that big government was bad, and imposition of government controls on our lives and economic fortunes was not good.’’

In 1980, he was the Libertarian Party’s nominee for vice-president on a ticket with corporate lawyer Ed Clark. He aligned himself with a platform that called for the abolition of all corporate and personal income taxes, Medicare, and child labour laws. When the ticket flopped at the ballot box, garnering

1 per cent of the popular vote, the brothers pinned their political ambitions on the ascendant Reagan-era Republican Party.

The Kochs’ chief instruments were Americans for Prosperity, a nonprofit group founded in 2004 and technically dedicated to ‘‘social welfare’’, and semi-annual conclaves that attracted some of the wealthiest conservative donors in the country. In the 2016 election cycle, the Koch network spent nearly $900 million, not much less than the total laid out by the Republicans.

‘‘It’s hard to think of another set of individuals who have had such an impact on our political system who haven’t been elected officials,’’ said Alexander Hertel-fernandez, a Columbia University political scientist.

Over time, evidence of the Kochs’ influence could be found in almost every corner of the

‘‘I felt that the good lord spared my life for a purpose. And since then, I’ve been busy doing all the good works I can think of.’’ David Koch on surviving a deadly plane crash in 1991

political landscape. One of their most effective strategies was the bankrolling of Rightwing primary candidates for House and Senate seats.

After Barack Obama’s election as president in 2008, the Koch network helped nurture the grassroots conservative faction known as the Tea Party movement.

When it came to Donald Trump, who derided candidates who sought Koch money as ‘‘puppets’’, the brothers made little secret of their distaste and refrained from supporting his presidential campaign in 2016. Subsequently, the Koch network gained little traction in its push for free trade and immigration reform.

David Hamilton Koch was born in Wichita, and studied chemical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology At 6ft 5in, he was a standout on the MIT basketball team, setting a single-game scoring record.

After graduation, he worked for a series of consulting firms before joining the family

company in 1970. He inherited $300m in 1967, after his father’s death.

He lived for many years in New York as a freewheeling bachelor until what he called a life-altering event in 1991: his escape from a crash at Los Angeles International Airport.

He was on a commercial plane that collided with a commuter aircraft on the runway. With smoke filling the cabin, he forced open a door and got out. Thirty-three people died, and Koch suffered serious burns to his lungs.

‘‘This may sound odd, but I felt this experience was very spiritual,’’ he told New York magazine. ‘‘That I was saved when all those others died, I felt that the good lord spared my life for a purpose. And since then, I’ve been busy doing all the good works I can think of.’’

Responses to his political activities contrasted sharply with those for his philanthropy. At the 2011 dedication of a new cancer research facility at MIT, to which he had contributed $100m, he joked: ‘‘I read stuff about me and I say, ‘God, I’m a terrible guy.’ And then I come here and everybody treats me like I’m a wonderful fellow, and I say, ‘Well, maybe I’m not so bad after all.’ ’’

He is survived by wife Julia, three children and three brothers. –