Book review
Owned came out one year ago. Some reflections.
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OWNED was published one year ago.
A year of book promotion is exhausting, but invigorating. I went around the country to do readings, some of which were aired on CSPAN, and I appeared on podcasts, streaming shows, and cable news to offer my take on the state of the country (bad! getting worse!).
Then I got sued. Stay tuned on that; more below.
The book landed right as the consequences of Silicon Valley’s right turn were seen on the world stage—Elon Musk dominated the White House, tech billionaires had wormed their way into the regulatory state, and President Donald Trump’s first few weeks were shoveling cash at the industry.
Today, a year later, Musk is out. But David Sacks, a member of the so-called PayPal Mafia, is still in the White House as crypto czar. Allies of the Silicon Valley conservative movement like Robert F Kennedy, Jr. and Dr. Mehmet Oz are in charge of the country’s health and are pushing contracts toward their friends in the industry.
I’ve continued to cover the story of this unholy alliance—here are a few examples you may have missed after I went on break over the summer and fall.
Elon Musk and the Democrats
In the future, once Democrats have regained the levers of power, they will need to clean up the disaster Trump and Musk have created. As I wrote earlier, Democrats should investigate Musk and his business dealings with the federal government, conduct hearings, subpoena the billionaire, and generally hold him accountable for his actions to the fullest extent possible. And they should take the same attitude toward Trump, whether he is still in office or not.
TikTok and Trump’s Silicon Valley allies
This is the latest example of the outcome of a yearslong project on the part of right-wing billionaires to disrupt the media and ultimately take it over to redirect reporting and online scrutiny of them and their allies like the president. As I detail in my recent book “Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left,” for many years, Silicon Valley received mostly complimentary coverage from the press.
But over the last decade or so, it has faced more critical newsrooms and the investigative spotlight that comes with being at the top of one of the world’s largest industries. Social media companies have come under fire for their policies, like Facebook (by its own admission) letting its platform be used to “foment division and incite offline violence” in Myanmar and Twitter’s role in shaping public opinion before U.S. elections. Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, outed in a post by Gawker affiliate Valleywag in 2007, compared members of the media to “terrorists” in 2009.
Bari hits it big
Putting Weiss in charge of CBS News is like “dropping a grenade” in the newsroom, as one former staffer put it. That grenade is sure to impact how the network covers Trump, Israel, and the U.S. in general — and his short run as CBS’s owner shows that’s just what David Ellison wants.
Thanks so much for sticking with me—there’s more to come.
I’ve been asked about how people can support me at this moment as I face a lawsuit from Matt Taibbi over my book’s reporting on his career. I stand by the work.
If you want to help and have the wherewithal to do so, there are two easy ways to help me fight this legal challenge:
buy the book (50% off on Amazon right now)
consider a paid subscription 👇