How Silicon Valley’s billionaire Democrats are ‘spending big and secretly plotting to help Biden beat Trump’
SILICON Valley's billionaire Democrats are "spending big and secretly plotting to help Joe Biden beat Donald Trump" in the presidential election.
Four of the Valley's tech buffs are hoping to help the party obtain more data by creating start ups and tech to rival the , according to .
Behind the secret plan are LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, Steve Jobs' widower Laurene Powell Jobs and former CEO Eric Schmidt.
In a private 12-page memo written by Hoffman’s top political adviser, Dmitri Mehlhorn, and obtained by Vox, it was documented that the key to "beating brand machine" was in part "building trusted media channels with peer-to-peer-elements" and "content that has a journalistic flavor."
One idea, which has been backed by Hoffman and Powell Jobs, is Acronym.
The nonprofit aims to raise $25million to set up seven of its own media properties in swing states.
Hoffman has already invested around $10million into the company,
The "local news sites" would paint the candidates in a positive light, while appearing to be objective.
"For far too long right-wing media has dominated our discourse and Facebook news feeds," said Tara McGowan, the founder of Acronym.
"We can’t sit by another cycle and watch a one-sided battle play out online."
Another new business venture, which Hoffman has invested about $18million into, is backing a startup called Alloy - which is attempting to build a warehouse to store data that progressive groups collect on voters.
The data would reportedly be used to try to get voters to the polls.
The company has bought voters' cellphone numbers - which Hoffman's team sees as key data for digital campaigning.
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"We’re already putting data into the hands of Democrats and progressives on the front lines of this critical cycle," said Luis Miranda, an Alloy spokesperson.
"We’re proud of our work, and we’re just getting started."
Moskovitz and Powell Jobs are also hoping to help the Democrats by giving millions to some of the country's most ambitious voter-registration programs behind the scenes, according to Vox.
