David Koch, industrialist who funded conservatives, dies at 79

David Koch, the industrialist and libertarian who used his fortune to transform American politics while also donating more than $1 billion to philanthropic causes, has died. He was 79.

Koch died after years of fighting various illnesses, according to a statement from Koch Industries on Friday. He’d been diagnosed with prostate cancer 27 years ago and initially doctors said he had just a few years to live.

“It is with a heavy heart that I announce the passing of my brother David,” Charles Koch said in a statement. “Anyone who worked with David surely experienced his giant personality and passion for life.”

Koch, whose net worth of about $59 billion in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index tied him with his brother as the world’s seventh-richest person, derived most of his wealth from a 42 percent stake in Wichita, Kan.-based Koch Industries, which has annual revenue of about $110 billion. It is one of the nation’s largest closely held companies, and its spectacular growth included the 2005 acquisition of Georgia Pacific for $21 billion.

A resident of New York’s Upper East Side and the city’s richest person, Koch once joked that Koch Industries was “the biggest company you’ve never heard of.” The conglomerate has interests ranging from oil and ranching to farming and the manufacturing of electrical components.

But he and Charles Koch, 83, became better known for pushing their views than their business acumen, pumping millions into conservative causes and candidates. The operation they built includes more than 700 donors who give $100,000 or more a year and a group called Americans for Prosperity that has chapters in 35 states. It’s rivaled only by the Republican Party in its influence on the conservative agenda in the U.S.

The Koch brothers and other wealthy donors were able to expand their influence on elections following the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision that paved the way for unbridled spending, both directly and indirectly, by outside groups.

“David Koch’s imprint on the American political scene will endure long into the future,” said Daniel Schulman, who wrote “Sons of Wichita: How the Koch Brothers Became America’s Most Powerful and Private Dynasty,” published in 2014. “The Kochs helped to give rise to the age of the megadonor, an era of unprecedented political spending in which wealthy individuals, as well as corporations, can influence politics as never before. His political legacy is huge.”

Koch money incubated a generation of political figures, including Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

Yet all those men but Walker worked for President Donald Trump, who has upended the free market views the Kochs have tried to foster within the Republican Party. That has prompted clashes with Trump, especially on trade and immigration policy.

The brothers didn’t support Trump in his 2016 campaign, although they praised his efforts to cut taxes and regulations.

Getty Images/tns David H. Koch gives a thumbs-up to Herman Cain during the Defending the American Dream Summit at the Washington Convention Center in 2011. Koch, who along with his brother Charles ran Koch Industries for decades and became a household name in American politics, has died. Koch was 79.