Jeffrey Soros told donors at a closed California fundraiser that a family fellowship helped pay Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed’s graduate tuition, undercutting the Democrat’s anti-billionaire message.
Footage from the Monday-night gathering at Jeffrey Soros’s California home captured the Hollywood producer and nephew of George Soros standing beside El-Sayed and recounting their long personal tie. Organizers asked guests not to record. Breitbart reported the video after it surfaced.
Soros told the room he first met the Michigan Democrat in 2012, when he interviewed him as a finalist for the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, the program founded by Jeffrey’s parents. El-Sayed won that fellowship. In the 2012 cycle the awards were advertised at up to $90,000 over two years, and the fellowship still lists him among its fellows.
The same candidate has made “getting money out of politics” a central theme of his Senate run. In a 2025 interview he called the system one of “fundamental corruption” that lets “corporations and would-be oligarchs and billionaires” buy influence. The closed-door event put him in a billionaire-linked living room asking for large checks.
Jeffrey Soros, CEO of the Los Angeles Media Fund, opened the evening with a personal welcome. His wife Catharine Soros co-hosted. So did Pod Save America hosts Jon Favreau, Tommy Vietor, and Ben Rhodes.
A flyer for the event told guests they could give up to $57,800 to the Abdul for Michigan Victory Fund. That is the hard-money vehicle tied to the Senate bid. El-Sayed, the son of Egyptian immigrants and a former Wayne County health director, stood with his host while the fellowship story was told.
Soros made the connection explicit:
Jeffrey Soros told the donors:
"I just wanted to welcome you here and express my appreciation for coming. And it’s been a privilege," "Speaking of privilege, I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Abdul since 2012. I got to interview him as a finalist for my parents. Fellowship, the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans."
That history is not a minor resume line. It is the same family network now hosting a high-dollar fundraiser for the Michigan nominee who campaigns against billionaire power.
Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers’s team seized on the footage at once. Communications director Alyssa Brouillet did not hold back about the gap between El-Sayed’s rhetoric and his donor list.
Alyssa Brouillet said:
"Abdul El-Sayed raising dark Soros money in California after begging Chuck Schumer for money in DC is the least surprising thing he’s done all cycle," "That’s what a conman does, says one thing and does another."
The El-Sayed campaign did not address the fellowship remarks. It answered by accusing “corporate special interests” of “spending millions of dollars in dark money to try to buy Rogers a Senate seat.” The counter-punch left the Soros living-room event and the 2012 fellowship unexamined.
A poll released this month showed Rogers ahead 44.4 percent to 43.1 percent. In a race that tight, every donor network and every past financial tie draws scrutiny. El-Sayed’s record already includes other contested associations, including a Dearborn fundraiser alongside activists who drew sharp criticism for their rhetoric.
Voters in Michigan are being asked to believe a candidate who rails against oligarchs while accepting the hospitality and history of one of the most famous Democratic donor families in America. The fellowship that helped fund his education was not a public scholarship from a neutral board. It was a Soros family program, and the nephew who interviewed him is now raising money for him.
El-Sayed’s public profile has grown through a series of earlier episodes that his opponents keep returning to. Campaign ads billed as “Jews for Abdul” spots featured activists tied to groups that used contested language about Hamas. Those choices sit alongside the California fundraiser as part of the same pattern of selective alliances.
Separate reporting has examined the imam at a mosque connected to the nominee. That cleric eulogized Hamas leader Haniyeh in language that called him a martyr and a symbol of jihad. None of that material appeared inside the Soros home event, yet it shapes how many voters already view the candidate’s judgment.
Years earlier, El-Sayed co-signed a letter that urged Egypt’s then-President Mohamed Morsi to take hard steps against media and police institutions. The Morsi letter remains part of the public record his critics cite when they question his instincts on power and accountability.
The California fundraiser ties those earlier controversies to a simpler money question. A candidate who denounces billionaire influence accepted a fellowship from the Soros family, remains listed as a fellow, and then headlined a high-dollar event in Jeffrey Soros’s home while guests were invited to pen five-figure checks. The footage makes the timeline plain.
Jeffrey Soros did not hide the relationship. He celebrated it. El-Sayed did not walk away from the microphone. He stood there and took the introduction. For a politician who built part of his brand on cleaning up “fundamental corruption,” the scene is the record, not the spin.
Michigan voters can decide whether anti-oligarch talk and Soros-family money belong in the same campaign. The fellowship check and the California reception already put both on the same résumé.
