Leftist billionaire and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar is bankrolling a sketchy “dark-money group” that is pushing a corporate boycott campaign against Twitter owner Elon Musk.
The Omidyar Network gave the anti-Musk Accountable Tech $509,500 between 2021 and 2022, according to Omidyar Network records. The Washington Free Beacon, who also reported on the funding, said Omidyar also gave $2 million more to other groups attacking and writing pieces slamming Musk for his takeover of Twitter.
One leftist Omidyar-funded group, Free Press, claimed in a statement Musk’s pro-free speech Twitter plans would make it a “free-for-all of hate and harassment.”
Accountable Tech and other Omidyar-funded groups have issued demands for investigations into Musk and campaigns aiming to pressure corporations into boycotting Twitter. An Omidyar Network spokeswoman reportedly verified the funding to Free Beacon but claimed the network did not direct the boycott campaign.
The Free Beacon explained, “After the Free Beacon reached out for comment on Monday, the Omidyar Network edited its database to show just one $209,500 grant to ‘North Fund 2022 Accountable Tech P&P Project Funding’ on Oct. 24, 2022. It also removed the grants to two other organizations that criticized Musk.”
MRC Free Speech America and Business confirmed via the Wayback Machine that Omidyar Network listed the $509,500 grant on its website.
Accountable Tech reportedly claims to be a “‘small nonprofit taking on Big Tech companies’—[but] has no physical footprint and is a registered trade name of the North Fund, a $66 million nonprofit group that uses aliases to push an array of left-wing causes from a shell office in Washington, D.C,” according to Free Beacon’s analysis.
Omidyar-funded groups Accountable Tech and UltraViolet wrote a joint letter with Media Matters for America in 2022 to Twitter advertisers claiming Musk’s purchase would “toxify our information ecosystem” and urged advertisers to “pull your advertising spending from Twitter.”
Two groups funded by the billionaire reportedly urged the Disney, Apple, Amazon and Coca-Cola CEOs to ditch Twitter advertising. In addition, Omidyar-funded Open Markets Institute urged the Justice Department to investigate Musk’s Twitter purchase.
But Omidyar is no stranger to trying to control the narrative. As MRC Business reported recently, Omidyar also launched an “ambitious” journalism project, Reporters in Residence, in January. The program’s focus is “Reimagining Capitalism” through economic and journalistic reporting, aiming to uproot the current capitalist system. Omidyar also helped fund pro-censorship Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen in 2021.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact ABC News (818) 460-7477, CBS News (212) 975-3247 and NBC News (212) 664-6192 and demand they report on Omidyar’s scheme to undermine free speech on Twitter and to spread his leftist influence on journalism to reimagine capitalism.