Billionaire Jeff Yass gives $1M to PAC supporting Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s gubernatorial campaign

A political action committee set up to support Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s effort to become Tennessee’s next governor received a $1 million donation from TikTok investor Jeff Yass.

The donation revealed in Tennessee’s latest campaign finance disclosure shows Yass is now the largest single donor to the Team Tennessee PAC, which has raised $3.2 million in just over a year.

The PAC’s largest donors are Yass and payday lender Advance Financial, which has given the organization $400,000.

Yass is most notably an investor in the social media app TikTok. His support comes despite Blackburn’s criticism of the app. In 2024, Blackburn opposed the opening of a TikTok office in Nashville, citing its ties to the Chinese government and the same year called the app a “national security threat” in an Instagram post.

Yass is also a prominent donor to President Donald Trump’s political apparatus and Club for Growth, which has spent millions of dollars in Tennessee to back private school vouchers.

Club for Growth was behind the $3.3 million in spending by the School Freedom Fund during the 2024 state legislative elections. The group’s success in getting pro-voucher candidates elected led Tennessee lawmakers to pass a statewide private school voucher plan in 2025.

Advance Financial is also one of the state’s largest political spenders, relying on state lawmakers to keep in place a law that allows it to sidestep state interest rate caps and charge 279.5% annual interest on payday loans. An investigation by Lookout and ProPublica found that Advance has sued over 110,000 Tennesseans and enjoys a cozy relationship with high-profile Republican state lawmakers.

FEC filings reveal how Blackburn laid the groundwork for governor campaign without personal fortune

During the latest contribution window, spanning from mid-January to March, Team Tennessee also raised $100,000 from Jimmy John’s owner James Liautaud.

​​Other six-figure contributors to the Team Tennessee PAC include Tamara Stephens ($279,000), tobacco company Reynolds American ($100,000) and CoreCivic ($100,000 combined from the company and its former CEO Damon Hiniger). Hininger has endorsed Blackburn.

The PAC has also received money from a group of Williamson high-profile Republicans that include logistics entrepreneur Spencer Patton ($250,000), Dr. Ralph Korpman ($100,000), Copart founder Willis Johnson ($100,000) and Franklin Home Mortgage CEO Daniel Crockett ($100,000).

Team Tennessee has not specifically registered as a pro-Blackburn PAC, but the organization’s disclosure shows it is paying a staffer whose LinkedIn profile lists him as regional field director for Blackburn in her Senate capacity and another who states on his LinkedIn profile that he is a field representative for Team Tennessee “for the Tri-Cities region in Northeast TN supporting the Marsha Blackburn gubernatorial campaign.”

The Lookout reached out to the email listed on the PAC’s registration with the state but did not receive a response by the time of publication. The address listed for the PAC is a UPS store in Brentwood.