Stephen Schwartzman, CEO of alternative financial investment company Blackstone Inc. and one of the biggest donors to Donald Trump’s election campaigns announced on Wednesday that he would not support the former Republican president in the 2024 presidential election, Reuters reported.

Stephen Schwartzman (right) with Donald TrumpPhoto: Editorial Shutterstock / Profimedia Images

Trump announced on Tuesday that he will run again for the highest office in the United States, launching an early campaign to become the Republican nominee and trying to eliminate his potential rivals.

The former US president made the nomination official in a document sent to the Federal Election Commission, minutes before the announcement to supporters at his residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.

But Schwartzman says it’s time for a new Republican leader and that he will support another candidate in the party’s upcoming primary.

“It is time for the Republican Party to turn to a new generation of leaders, and I intend to support one of them in the presidential primary,” he said in a press release.

Schwartzman, 75, is one of the Republican Party’s biggest donors, spending $35.5 million in last week’s midterm elections alone.

Republican donors abandon Trump after Senate fiasco

Republicans are just one term away from winning control of the House, which is likely to be announced in the coming days, but the party suffered a crushing defeat in the Senate, Washington’s upper house of the legislature, with Democrats retaining their majority.

Most of the candidates supported by the former Republican president lost their Senate races.

“America is better off when its leaders are rooted in today and tomorrow, not yesterday or the day after tomorrow,” Schwartzman said.

In doing so, he became the latest prominent Republican to announce that he would support a candidate other than Donald Trump.

Billionaire Ken Griffin, the founder of Citadel Securities, has already expressed his support for Ron DeSantis, the governor of the state of Florida, who easily won a new term in the elections organized on November 8.

DeSantis is considered the new rising star of the Republican Party, leading one of the most important states in the United States.

Donald Trump also appears to have lost the support of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, as his publications and television stations — the main conservative outlets in the US — rallied behind DeSantis after last week’s midterm elections.

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