He is sorry, he is not sorry.
Data-geek Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg claimed this week that he was unaware that the $400 million he spent on “encouraging people to vote” in the 2020 election favored one political party over the other.
But Republican sources suspect Facebook's chief executive was unaware that so-called “Zac Bucks” promised to help fund fair local elections were donated to two prominent left-wing groups and then disproportionately spent.
“My goal is to remain neutral and not play or appear to play any role, so I will not be making any similar contributions this term,” Zuckerberg said in a letter this week to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
“They are designed to be nonpartisan and span urban, rural and suburban communities,” Zuckerberg continued.
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, led by Zuckerberg's wife, Priscilla Chan, has donated more than $350 million to the Center for Technology and Civic Life and the Center for Election Innovation and Research in the name of encouraging everyone to vote.
But researchers including CTCL founder Tianna Epps Johnson, a former Obama Presidential Foundation fellow, told The Washington Post that the groups' administrators had deep ties to the left.
“Based on this letter, he is either being dishonest or he didn't do enough research on the people he was giving money to.” Reconstruction News He told the Post.
The people who founded CTCL came from a now-defunct group called the New Organizing Institute, Ludwig noted, and in 2014 CNN described the New Organizing Institute as “a group of people who are trying to get people to agree on who they are and what they think they are.”“The Left's New Death Star”
“Their whole job was figuring out how to get Democrats elected. Personally, I think he went home and quietly patted himself on the back for helping get Joe Biden elected. He found a big loophole and pumped $350 million into it,” Ludwig said.
The analysis found that Zuckerberg Bucks funds were disproportionately used to drive votes in Democratic counties in Georgia, where Biden won by just 12,000 votes.
The same thing happened in Arizona, where Biden won by 10,000 votes.
Georgia received more than $31 million in Zuckerberg Bucks in the general election alone, one of the highest amounts in the country, according to the Government Accountability Foundation.
That represents nearly 9% of Zuckerberg's total funding, even though Georgia has just over 3% of the US's population.
That represents nearly 9% of Zuckerberg's total funding, even though Georgia has just over 3% of the US's population.
Georgia County Analysis Government Accountability Foundation The survey revealed spending between $7 and $15 per voter in the state's six largest counties, all of which were won by Biden.
Meanwhile, the top six counties won by Trump saw spending between $1 and $3 per voter.
In Wisconsin, which previously voted for Trump, CTCL spent $47 per voter in Green Bay, while the Legislature typically spends $7 per voter in Green Bay and $4 in rural parts of the state.
“Most people think of political funds as money spent on election campaigns and television ads,” Ludwig says.
In these cases, Zuckerberg's funds were often used to personally call or visit voters to ensure they received their mail-in ballots.
“We looked at eight or nine battleground states, and we found the same pattern in every state: The checks that CTCL cut were significantly higher per capita in big, blue Democratic cities compared to rural, Republican counties,” he said.
“CTCL grants in Wisconsin averaged $3.75 per capita in Biden counties and 55 cents in Trump counties. In short, this Zuckerberg money boosted voter turnout everywhere, but it boosted turnout the most in these big cities that received huge Zuckerberg funds from CTCL.”
Zuckerberg's contributions are already well known in 2021, with William Doyle writing in The Washington Post that “the 2020 election wasn't stolen, but rather bought by one of the world's richest and most powerful men, who exploited a legal loophole to funnel money into it.”
What's puzzling to some is why Zuckerberg decided to write the letter now, in which he acknowledged that the Biden administration had pressured Facebook to censor coronavirus-related content and said it made a mistake by suppressing The Washington Post's reporting on Hunter Biden's laptop.
Scott Walter, president of the right-leaning Capital Research Center think tank, said he saw Zuckerberg's apology, however feeble, as a way to “avoid responsibility” if Trump is elected.
“The things he wrote in the letter about Zach Backus don't seem like the words of an innocent man,” Walter told The Post.
“Zuckerberg has some great data nerds. [huge amounts of] They're always looking at the data, and I think maybe they're looking at something about the upcoming election, or maybe they don't want to look bad in case of another Trump administration.
“His explanation is vague and there is no evidence of his innocence or non-partisanship. Furthermore, he talked about this at length on Joe Rogan's podcast a long time ago. He didn't need to write a letter.”
Indeed, Trump slammed Zuckerberg in his upcoming book, accusing the tech mogul of undermining him in the last election and warning that he could face jail time.
In his book, “Save America,” due to be published on September 3, Trump, 78, recounts his meeting with Zuckerberg, 40, and vents his frustration about the 2020 presidential election.
“We are watching him closely. If he acts illegally this time, he will spend the rest of his life in prison, as will anyone else who cheats in the 2024 presidential election,” Trump wrote in the book. According to a preview obtained by Politico.
Zach Backus: It wasn't just a matter of Democrats outspending Republicans. Private financing of election administration was virtually unknown in the American political system before the 2020 election.
“Funneling money through Democratic-run nonprofits, as Zuckerberg did, to boost voter turnout in key Democratic battleground states is inherently partisan,” Molly Hemingway, author of “Rigging a Vote: How the Media, Big Tech and Democrats Stole Our Election,” told The Washington Post.
“It's good to see that they regret their unjust interference in the 2020 election, but the damage has already been done.”
Hemingway also pointed out that because the template is already in place, if Zuckerberg were to stop funding other left-leaning billionaires could follow in his footsteps, a point Walters agreed with.
“The Zuckerbas are the real kraken,” he said. “There's no equivalent on the right. The idea that billionaires and philanthropic foundations shouldn't be able to influence elections isn't that hard to grasp.”
