Status: 🔴 Billionaire whose Anschutz Family Foundation has donated $110,000 to Alliance Defending Freedom and funded at least nine other organizations involved in anti-LGBTQ+ activism, including Family Research Council, the Council for National Policy, and Movieguide. His fortune derives from oil and gas.
Philip Frederick Anschutz (born December 28, 1939) is an American billionaire businessman worth an estimated $16.9 billion as of 2025.[1] He built his fortune in oil and gas — discovering one of the largest oil fields in the United States since Prudhoe Bay at the Anschutz Ranch in the early 1980s[2] — before expanding into railroads, telecommunications (Qwest), and entertainment (AEG, Coachella, Los Angeles Kings).
Through his Anschutz Family Foundation, he has been a consistent funder of the Christian right’s anti-LGBTQ+ infrastructure for decades. The Foundation’s grant database does not disclose the full scope of its giving, but investigative reporting has identified over $190,000 in documented donations to groups actively working against trans and LGBTQ+ rights.[3]
The Anschutz Family Foundation donated $110,000 to Alliance Defending Freedom between 2011 and 2013.[3:1][4] ADF is designated as an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and is the primary legal engine behind anti-trans litigation in the United States. ADF lawyers authored model “bathroom bills” and serve as Project 2025 advisers.[5]
Anschutz’s foundation gave $30,000 to Family Research Council between 2010 and 2013.[3:2] FRC is also designated as an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group by the SPLC and actively lobbies against trans rights.
Between 2011 and 2013, Anschutz donated $50,000 to National Christian Foundation, which has itself contributed tens of millions of dollars to ADF, FRC, and other anti-LGBTQ+ organizations.[3:3][6] This functions as a pass-through mechanism, obscuring the ultimate destination of Anschutz’s money.
A 2025 investigation by Atmos and HEATED identified Anschutz as being directly tied to at least nine conservative transphobic entities.[5:1] Those named in reporting include:
Additionally, Anschutz has funded organizations that act as conduits for anti-trans activism, such as the National Christian Foundation ($50,000), which in turn distributes money to groups like ADF and FRC, creating opaque funding chains that obscure the ultimate source of anti-trans money.
Anschutz’s anti-LGBTQ+ activity predates the current wave of anti-trans legislation. In 1992, he supported Colorado’s Amendment 2, a ballot initiative designed to overturn laws offering protections to LGBTQ+ people across the state.[7] The law was ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in Romer v. Evans (1996), but anti-LGBTQ+ legal infrastructure — including ADF — has continued to pursue the same goals through new avenues.
Anschutz has also been identified by Greenpeace as a funder of climate science denial groups,[8] creating a direct link between fossil fuel wealth, climate obstruction, and anti-trans activism — a unified strategy to divide the public and maintain the fossil fuel status quo.
Through the Anschutz Corporation, he owns or has owned significant conservative media outlets including the Washington Examiner (an influential conservative editorial newspaper) and formerly The Weekly Standard, giving him both direct political funding and media amplification of conservative social positions.[9]
Anschutz has denied that he is anti-LGBTQ+[10] despite the documented trail of donations to organizations designated as anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups, his support for Amendment 2, and his funding of organizations whose doctrinal statements explicitly target trans people.
Business Insider — Coachella owner Phil Anschutz donates to anti-LGBT groups (2017) ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Atmos/HEATED — Fossil Fuel Billionaires Are Bankrolling the Anti-Trans Movement (June 2025) ↩︎
Atmos/HEATED (2025) — Same article, detailed Anschutz network findings ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
SPLC Hatewatch — Council for National Policy: Behind the Curtain ↩︎