Gordon Getty’s Private Criticism of Donald Trump Revealed in Epstein Documents
In a surprising revelation from the 20,000 pages of Jeffrey Epstein-related documents recently released by the House Oversight Committee, Gordon Getty—who was once named the richest man in America in 1983—apparently harbored strong negative opinions about President Donald Trump. Though Getty never publicly denounced Trump, private emails show he questioned the president’s psychological fitness for office, suggesting he might be “a psychopath or sociopath or malignant narcissist.” This insight into Getty’s private thoughts emerged from an email chain that included Epstein, where Getty occasionally shared personal musings with friends and family. In an undated email from approximately March 2018, Getty expressed serious concerns about having someone he considered potentially without empathy in the White House, writing: “The President is the world’s number one fiduciary… Persons without empathy or remorse are not prudent choices.” He urged others on his email list—dubbed the “Gruterites”—to “get the word out” about these concerns, even suggesting that someone write a book to persuade the public about Trump’s potential to harm the economy.
How Getty came to share an email chain with Epstein remains somewhat unclear. Evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers apparently added Epstein to Getty’s distribution list, introducing him as “a brilliant fund and investment manager with broad scientific interests” and describing the group as “Gordon Getty’s echo chamber” and an opportunity “to get the brightest minds in a room and have them tell each other what they think is most important.” While Getty may have taken his own suggestion about writing a book, publishing “Logic and Economics: Free Growth and Other Surprises” about seven months after this email, the 226-page work focused on his economic theories rather than Trump specifically. In it, Getty advocated for his concept of “free growth theory,” arguing that economic growth stems from productivity gains rather than restraining citizen or government consumption—essentially making a case for the benefits of government spending. Despite its potentially timely political relevance, the book received little attention, garnering no ratings or reviews on major platforms.
The Getty family has long been one of America’s most notorious wealthy dynasties, known for scandals that rocked California’s high society in the late 20th century. Gordon’s father, J. Paul Getty Sr., founded Getty Oil in 1942 and was named the world’s wealthiest private citizen by the Guinness Book of Records in 1966. However, J. Paul became equally infamous for his extreme frugality, most shockingly demonstrated when he refused to pay ransom after his 16-year-old grandson was kidnapped in 1973—a decision that led to the kidnappers cutting off the boy’s ear. The traumatized grandson later struggled with substance abuse, suffering an overdose that left him disabled until his death from illness in 2011. Gordon himself caused a scandal in 1999 when he revealed he had fathered three children during an affair and kept them secret for 14 years.
When J. Paul died in 1976, he left most of his estate to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, but Gordon and his siblings still inherited substantial fortunes from their grandmother’s trust, which contained 40.2% of Getty Oil shares. Gordon benefited the most as its sole trustee for a period and remains the income beneficiary of several successor trusts that will be distributed among J. Paul’s descendants only after Gordon’s death. This arrangement helped propel Gordon to the top of Forbes’ second-ever “Forbes 400” list in 1983. Today, at age 91, he’s worth an estimated $5.5 billion, ranking 276th on the list, with much of his wealth stemming from the sale of Getty Oil for $10.1 billion in 1984. Rather than focusing on business, Getty has devoted most of his adult life to artistic pursuits—especially music composition—and philanthropy, donating at least $463 million over his lifetime and selling off much of his extensive art collection in recent years to fund charitable giving, particularly to arts and educational institutions in the California Bay Area.
While Getty was primarily a Republican donor in the 1980s, FEC filings show he shifted to exclusively supporting Democrats beginning in mid-1996. Since Trump announced his presidential campaign in 2015, Getty has contributed $4.5 million to Democratic or anti-Trump causes, including the “Need to Impeach” PAC in 2018—the same year he privately described the president as a possible psychopath. Despite these substantial political donations, Getty has remained publicly reticent about his opinions on Trump. The only other recorded negative comment appears in a “lightning round” interview with the San Francisco magazine Nob Hill Gazette last year, where Getty was asked what he would do if he had a magic wand. His response—”I wish that Donald Trump would get a long lasting case of laryngitis. That’s the worst I’ll do”—offers a glimpse of his feelings, but falls far short of the explicit rebuke he privately encouraged his “Gruterites” to spread in 2018.
Like many wealthy elites with liberal leanings, Getty appears to have preferred keeping his sharpest criticisms of Trump private, focusing instead on using his financial resources to support opposition causes rather than becoming a vocal public critic. This revelation from the Epstein documents provides a rare window into how some of America’s wealthiest individuals may have viewed the Trump presidency behind closed doors—harboring grave concerns about the president’s character and psychological fitness while maintaining public discretion. For Getty, a billionaire who has spent decades dedicated to cultural and intellectual pursuits rather than building his public profile, this approach aligns with his generally private nature, even as his financial contributions spoke volumes about his political convictions during one of America’s most divisive presidencies.
