The same billionaire donors who fund campaigns in favor of congestion pricing were major backers of Robert Kennedy Jr.’s campaign and funders of a shadowy campaign that spreads anti-vaccine conspiracy theories.
Mark Gorton, 57, a wealthy hedge fund investor who lives in Manhattan, recently told The Washington Post that he is probably the largest donor to transportation causes in New York City focused on getting cars off the roads. He is also a leading supporter of the recently suspended congestion pricing program, which would have imposed a $15 toll on drivers who entered Manhattan below 60th Street.
“I had a vision of a liveable city where people get around by public transport and by bike and where private car use is very limited,” Gorton said after taking part in a rally in support of congestion pricing on Saturday.
Gorton, founder of LimeWire, a former file-sharing service that now specializes in AI-generated music, said: Supporters and Founders It’s from OpenPlans, the parent company of StreetsBlog.
Gorton, who currently serves as CEO of hedge fund Tower Research Capital, has also contributed to Riders Alliance and Reinvent Albany.
The groups have rallied in recent weeks against Gov. Kathy Hockal’s “indefinite suspension” of congestion pricing and are part of a larger coalition working with New York City Comptroller Brad Lander to threaten legal action to force the state to move forward with the plan.
“When I first started, hardly anyone would say that. If I went to a local committee and said, ‘I think there should be fewer cars in my neighborhood,’ I was treated like a total weirdo,” Gorton said, touting his 25 years of work on transportation issues. “People looked at me like I was a communist or something. Like I shouldn’t be doing that.”
He said recently that he hangs out more with bike activists than with Wall Street snobs.
Gorton has also allocated his fortune to causes far outside the mainstream, such as pouring millions into RFK Jr.’s presidential campaign. Anti-vaccine advocacy groups.
Gorton holds firm to conspiracy beliefs, including that vaccines cause autism, that the motive for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy was covered up, and that the response to the COVID-19 pandemic was a psychological operation to expand digital censorship.
“There was such a large public response over the course of the pandemic that I saw an opportunity to take on the pharma-medical side of the deep state and the forces of corporate control,” Gorton said.
He said it was RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine rhetoric that attracted him to him. took the same position.
Gorton considers the exiled Kennedy and the independent presidential candidate to be friends and “comrades” who share questions about JFK’s assassination.
The wealthy donor serves as co-chair. Multi-million dollar super PACs – American Values 2024 — A key group supporting RFK Jr.’s campaign, he served as Kennedy’s interim campaign manager at one point.
John Caney, executive director of Reinvent Albany, a group that advocates for good government, calls Gorton a “mad scientist” but stresses there is no animosity between the work of Limewire founders Gorton and RFK Jr. and Reinvent’s focus, particularly congestion pricing.
“We don’t agree with everything Mark Gorton does, but we do agree with congestion pricing,” Kaney told the Post. “His emotions, feelings or support as any other president has not been part of our conversations at all. It’s just something he does.”
Carney noted that Gorton, unlike other billionaire types who hide behind donor-advised funds or other shadowy vehicles, doesn’t hide his identity when giving to charities.
