Kanye West may have his sights set on becoming president in 2024, but his campaign has reportedly yet to receive a single donation.
According to The Daily Beast, a filing submitted on Monday (January 30) showed the campaign’s expenses over the final three months of 2022.
While handsome sums were shelled out to high-profile political figures who worked on the campaign, the documents reveal Ye’s presidential bid brought in precisely zero dollars from political donors.
As previously reported, the filings show Kanye paid Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes over $9,000 for “travel reimbursement” in November — the same day he met with Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida alongside alt-right figure Milo Yiannopoulos.
Fuentes said the travel expenses were “incurred by myself and the team when I relocated to L.A. in November to do work for Kanye 2024,” referencing the name of the rap mogul’s still-unofficial presidential campaign
Yiannopoulos also received $40,000 for “campaign wrap up services” when he was fired by Kanye in December, along with $10,000 for a “domain transfer” on the same date as the Mar-a-Lago meeting.
In total, Kanye’s campaign has racked up $142,000 in expenses with nothing in return.
While Kanye West hasn’t officially declared his candidacy by filing paperwork with the FEC (Federal Election Commission), he did post a campaign video in November. The clip has since been deleted, but he’s posted a number of others featuring a “Ye 24” logo.
The G.O.O.D. Music founder previously ran for president in 2020 under The Birthday Party, although he conceded in November that year after earning roughly 70,000 votes across 12 states.
Speaking to Forbes in 2020, Kanye opened up about the moment he decided to run for president in the first place.
“It’s when I was being offered the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Awards at MTV,” he said. “I remember being at my mom’s house, my mother-in-law, because my house was being worked on, she calls me ‘son’ and I call her ‘mom,’ I was in the shower, thinking, I write raps in the shower.
“It hit me to say, ‘You’re going to run for president,’ and I started laughing hysterically, I was, like, this is the best, I’m going to go out there and they’re going to think I’m going to do these songs and do this for entertainment, how rigged awards shows are, and then say I’m going to run for president.
He added: “And I just laughed in the shower, I don’t know for how long, but that’s the moment it hit me.”
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