Big Tech-funded Super PAC spent over $100m to oust Trump
Democratic Super PAC Future Forward received major financial backing from some of Silicon Valley’s biggest players, spending more than $100 million on advertisements in the final month before the 2020 US election which sought to oust Donald Trump, further indicating through which party Big Tech seeks to further expand its power.
An estimated $24 million of that amount came from Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz who was one of the biggest Democratic donors of the Trump era. Moskovitz’s chief adviser, Otis Reid, openly mentioned the power of ads late on in campaigns in late September 2020.
The following month, Future Forward declared to the Federal Election Commission that it had raised $66 million between September 1 and October 15 in a campaign powered by Silicon Valley billionaires which included Moskovitz as well as Twilio founder Jeff Lawson ($7 million), former Google CEO Eric Schmidt ($6 million).
Moskovitz also provided millions to the Voter Participation Center, a organization which sought to boost voter turnout and received swaths of cash from significant tech players, as well as Vote Tripling, a tool used to encourage friends to vote.
Recode reported that, between September 29 and Election Day, “Future Forward aired or booked about $106 million worth of TV ads, according to Advertising Analytics, a media-tracking firm — almost four times as much as the next closest pro-Biden outside group, Independence USA, during that period.”
The super PAC also led “a separate, previously unreported $28 million proposed campaign to elect a Democrat to the US Senate from Texas,” according to Recode.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, between funds to campaigns and outside groups, employees from internet companies committed 98% of their contributions to Democrats.
