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MCFN Investigation: How $132,150 in Donations Led to a $20 Million No-Bid Grant ([link removed])

Did Sharif Hussein’s $107,150 to Gretchen Whitmer’s campaign and $25,000 to Jason Wentworth’s PAC Buy Bipartisan Support for a $20 Million No-Bid Government Grant?


By NEIL THANEDAR

MICHIGAN CAMPAIGN FINANCE NETWORK

LANSING, MI (September 29, 2025) — What do you call someone who donates the maximum $7,150 to Gretchen Whitmer from 2019 to 2020, then donates $100,000 to Whitmer using a recall loophole in 2021, then donates the maximum $7,150 to Whitmer’s opponent Tudor Dixon on December 31, 2021? Opportunist is a nice way to put it.

Add $348,500 to the Republican National Committee in 2019 and $90,000 to the Michigan Republican Party from 2016-2019 and you’ve got a character like Rob McElhenney’s Mac in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Mac’s frequently memed line “I’m playing both sides, so that I always come out on top” matches the political contribution strategy of Sharif Hussein, an Okemos businessman who has donated over $1,000,000 to political candidates, parties, and PACs in the last ten years.

An MCFN analysis of Sharif Hussein’s 134 donations recorded by OpenSecrets and 66 donations recorded by the Michigan Transparency Network (MiTN) found that 82% of Hussein’s federal and state donations went to Republicans. But Hussein’s $100,000 in donations to Whitmer in 2021 also made him a top-10 donor to the Michigan Democrat on a list that includes prominent Democratic donors Jay Pritzker, Mark Bernstein, and Gretchen’s father Richard Whitmer.

There is no rule that requires 100% of anyone’s donations to go to any one party. But when individual and corporate donors consistently blanket the leadership of both parties with maximum donations over many years, and then attempt to extract personal benefits from those leaders, that’s not charity, that’s corruption.

These donations appeared to pay off for Sharif Hussein in a major way in 2022. In a $76B state budget, a then-record $1B in pork projects were quietly added, many in the middle of the night on July 1, 2022, just hours before the Republican-led State House passed the appropriations bill after negotiations with Whitmer and Democratic leadership. Lawmakers and journalists did not have enough time to review or question the value of these grants before they were signed into law.

On page 146 of this hastily passed 368 page bill is a carefully worded grant:

“$20,000,000.00 shall be awarded to an international business accelerator located in a city with a population of between 83,500 and 84,000 and in a county with a population of between 1,250,000 and 1,300,000 according to the most recent federal decennial census that supports the growth of the Michigan economy by attracting top international entrepreneurs to establish their companies in Michigan with a focus on next-generation medical services and equipment; agriculture; engineering, design, and development; and other technology-focused industries. Funds shall be used for the establishment of the accelerator and operating support.”

The city in the grant could only be Farmington Hills, and the only international business accelerator there, Global Link International, would actually be founded ten days later by Sharif Hussein and his then business partner Fay Beydoun. Over two years of investigations led by Beth LeBlanc and Craig Mauger of The Detroit News have largely focused on how Fay Beydoun personally benefitted from this accelerator’s public funding, including her $550,000 annual salary and the purchase of a $4,500 coffee maker. But while the financial benefits largely flowed to Beydoun, she didn’t get this grant alone.

Fay Beydoun did host a September 2021 fundraiser for Gretchen Whitmer where they raised $13,500, and Beydoun personally donated over $16,000 to Whitmer’s two campaigns. But these contributions were spread out in thirteen small donations over a five year period, which barely register compared to Hussein’s two $50,000 checks to Whitmer in the year before this grant was approved. This could be why Beydoun’s initial pitches for this international business accelerator failed in 2020 before Hussein’s involvement and large donations in 2021.

An MCFN analysis of Fay Beydoun’s 135 donations tracked on OpenSecrets going back fifteen years found that only $250 of the $121,243 that Beydoun donated to political candidates and parties went to Republicans, $150 to Suzanne Sareini in 2010 and $100 to Johnnie Salemassi in 2014. Beydoun’s largest political contributions ever were $10,000 to the Michigan Democratic State Central Committee in 2022 and $10,000 to the Michigan Democratic Party in 2018. Fay Beydoun could not have gotten such strong bipartisan support for a $20 million no-bid state government grant without Sharif Hussein’s help.

Beydoun’s 2021 meeting with Wentworth came with the support of Hussein’s $25,000 in contributions to the Wentworth Majority Fund PAC between 2019 and 2021. Again, this fits Hussein’s campaign finance strategy to blanket state political leadership with consistent large donations. Hussein also donated over $15,000 to current Republican House Speaker Matt Hall’s Majority Fund from 2021 to 2022, and donated $85,000 in three contributions to former Republican House Speaker Lee Chatfield’s two Majority Funds from 2019 to 2020 during Chatfield’s one term as speaker.

Startup accelerators usually have a strict operating model, called Two and Twenty, where a management fee should not exceed 2% of assets under management per year and performance incentives should not exceed 20% of net profits. In Global Link’s case, not only were there zero profits ever, there were seemingly zero investments made and zero startups helped. Still, Beydoun spent nearly $850,000 in the last eight months in 2023, more than double what should have been spent in a full year to operate a complete accelerator program, including recruiting businesses to Michigan and providing them with other services once they get here. None of this important venture capital work was seemingly done by Beydoun or Global Link despite their extravagant spending.

Beydoun might have gotten away with her massive salary and excessively expensive coffee maker if she had kept Hussein as an advisor. But after Hussein helped Beydoun get a key meeting with Republican House Speaker Jason Wentworth, who ultimately sponsored this grant, Fay argued that Sharif didn’t have the “background” required for a paid position and rejected an advisory role for him. Hussein eventually went public with his side of the story to The Detroit News, which further focused the spotlight on Beydoun.

We should not have to rely on such partnerships falling apart to trigger special investigations into public spending. Another state budget is expected to be passed by late tomorrow, Tuesday, September 30, just hours before the October 1st deadline to prevent a state government shutdown. MCFN will be closely following the major appropriations in this bill, especially pork-barrel spending that appears to be targeted for local or private purposes.

Part two of this investigation, which will be released next Monday, focuses on three concrete ways politicians and activists can work to increase transparency and accountability in the state’s annual budget approval process. Lawmakers, journalists, and the public must have time to fully review all earmarks before future state budgets are voted on and signed.

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