After taking an activist stake in BuzzFeed, former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswami is calling for sweeping reforms at the company, from adding board members to downsizing and bringing in more right-wing talent.
In a letter to BuzzFeed’s board of directors on Monday, Ramaswamy argued that the company has “lost its way” and “needs a major shift in strategy.”
According to the letter, the conservative entrepreneur currently owns 8.37% of BuzzFeed’s stock, making him the company’s second-largest Class A shareholder.
In his letter on Monday, the former Republican candidate urged BuzzFeed to invest in talent “across the political and cultural spectrum,” including conservative commentators Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson, as well as NFL player Aaron Rodgers, who is known for dabbling in conspiracy theories.
Ramaswamy also called on BuzzFeed to admit that it “has repeatedly lied about matters of national importance, just as other media outlets have done”, and called for three new directors to be added to its board to increase “intellectual diversity” among its management.
“While your competitors focus on racial and gender diversity on their boards, you can be the first media company to explicitly select people with diverse perspectives in-house,” he wrote.
“The three new directors who have expressed interest in joining your board of directors is a step in the right direction,” Ramaswamy added.
He also argued that BuzzFeed needs to “get back to startup scale,” which would likely require “major job cuts” – the company already cut 16% of its workforce earlier this year.
BuzzFeed co-founder and CEO Jonah Peretti responded to Ramaswami’s letter, suggesting that he had a “fundamental misunderstanding of what drives our business, the values of our readers, and our mission.”
“I am extremely skeptical that turning BuzzFeed into a platform for incendiary political commentators makes good business sense,” Peretti said in an email, “and we certainly won’t apologize for our Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism.”
“That said, I welcome an outside perspective from shareholders and am open to hearing more from you all,” he added.
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