Tech moguls who made their fortunes from Facebook, Twitter and Netflix have donated at least $7.5 million to groups tied to BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors, who has in turn publicly backed their policy goals, according to a new report.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, and Patricia Ann Quillin, the wife of Netflix’s billionaire CEO, all gave generously to Cullors’ PAC and associated charities, according to the New York Post.
Cullors for her part has strongly advocated for ‘net neutrality’, a policy that financially benefits online content providers such as Netflix and social media sites.
And the cozy relationship has even seen Facebook and Twitter censor perceived criticism of Cullors, with Facebook going so far as to block users from sharing a DailyMail.com article detailing a controversy over her expensive real estate holdings.
Of the donors named by the Post, Moskovitz his wife Cari Tuna have given the most generously, donating more than $5.5 million from 2017 to 2020, according to public records cited by the Post.
Moskovitz, 36, was one of the co-founders of Facebook. He left the company in 2008, but retained a 2 percent stake that puts his net worth at nearly $20 billion.
His donations went to Dignity and Power Now, a non-profit started by Cullors, and Reform LA Jails, a California PAC she co-founded to lobby for civilian oversight of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.
Dorsey, who has an estimated net worth of $14 billion, chipped in $1.5 million last year through his #startsmall philanthropy initiative.
That money went to Black Lives Matter and The Movement for Black Lives, a coalition of activist groups founded by Cullors.
Quillin, the wife of Netflix billionaire Reed Hastings, donated $250,000 to Reform LA Jails in 2020.
Cullors’ own finances are entwined to a degree with Reform LA Jails, which in 2019 paid $110,000 in consulting fees to a company controlled by her and her wife, Janaya Khan, according to the Post.
There are no rules prohibiting officers of a California PAC from paying themselves or family members for consulting services.
Cullors in 2015 described herself as a ‘trained Marxist’, and last December elaborated on her views, saying ‘I do believe in Marxism.’
‘I’m working on making sure that people don’t suffer, I’m working to make sure people don’t go hungry,’ she explained in a YouTube video.
Over the years, Cullors has been vocal in her support of net neutrality, a policy that is strongly favored by content giants and decried by internet service providers.
Net neutrality prohibits service providers from charging companies such as Netflix for the vast amounts of data they send through the networks.
The policy does not put ‘neutrality’ requirements on content providers such as Twitter and Facebook, who are given broad immunity in deciding what posts are allowed on their platforms.
In 2014, Cullors penned an op-ed for The Hill, writing that ‘Black online voices are threatened’ by proposals to repeal net neutrality.
‘It is because of net neutrality rules that the Internet is the only communication channel left where Black voices can speak and be heard, produce and consume, on our own terms,’ she wrote.
Cullors’ finances have come under scrutiny in recent weeks, after fellow activists questioned her purchases of homes worth a total of $3 million, including a $1.4 million mansion in LA’s exclusive Topanga Canyon.
Facebook respond to the controversy by blocking articles about Cullors’ real estate holdings from DailyMail.com and the New York Post.
A Facebook spokesperson told DailyMail.com at the time: ‘This content was removed for violating our privacy and personal information policy.’
However, articles covering the controversy from other outlets, such as Black Enterprise, a media company that covers black-owned businesses, were still allowed to be shared by Facebook users.
Twitter also got in on the act, suspending Jason Whitlock, an outspoken conservative sports commentator, after he criticized Cullors.
Whitlock, who is black, was barred from the platform after tweeting: ‘Black Lives Matter founder buys $1.4 million home in Topanga, which has a black population of 1.4%. She’s with her people!’
‘BLM is one of Big Tech’s sacred cows,’ Whitlock told DailyMail.com at the time. ‘I’ve been harping on the fraudulence and the financial grift of BLM for years.’
Last month AP reported that Black Live Matter Global Network brought in $90 million in donations last year, but the group says that it had paid Cullors only $120,000 since the organization’s inception in 2013, and that she did not receive any compensation after 2019.
Cullors, who married Janaya Khan, a gender non-conforming leader of BLM in Toronto, in 2016, has been in high demand since her 2018 memoir became a best-seller. In October she published her follow-up, Abolition.
She also works as a professor of Social and Environmental Arts at Arizona’s Prescott College, and in October 2020 signed a sweeping deal with Warner Bros.
The arrangement is described as a multi-year and wide-ranging agreement to develop and produce original programming across all platforms, including broadcast, cable and streaming.
“Cullors in 2015 described herself as a ‘trained Marxist’, and last December elaborated on her views, saying ‘I do believe in Marxism.’
‘I’m working on making sure that people don’t suffer, I’m working to make sure people don’t go hungry,’ she explained in a YouTube video.”
Wow! That’s like saying, “I believe in dictatorships because I think everyone should have free speech.”
WTF?!!!!! Is she on Communist crack?
Oh boy, “follow the money” has never meant more. Corporate America!!! – leading the way, right from Silicon Valley.
Anybody spy on the Oscars last night? I did. Instead of calling it The Oscars, they should have called it “DISAPPEARING AMERICA.”
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