News Brief: Despite 9-Figure Infusion from Silicon Valley, Abundance Still Seeks Popular Support

**Nima Shirazi** (0:04)
Welcome to a Citations Needed news brief. I'm Nima Shirazi.

**Adam Johnson** (0:07)
I'm Adam Johnson.

**Nima Shirazi** (0:08)
You can follow the show on Twitter and Blue Sky at CitationsPod. Facebook, Citations Needed, and become a supporter of the show through patreon.com/citationsneededpodcast.
All your support through Patreon is so incredibly appreciated as we are 100 percent listener funded. We don't run ads, we have no commercials, we have no corporate sponsors, we have no billionaire abundance funders backing this show. We are able to do this because of the generosity and ongoing support of listeners like you.

**Adam Johnson** (0:37)
Yes, as always, if you listen to the show and you like it, please do support us on Patreon. It helps keep the episodes themselves free and the show sustainable.

**Nima Shirazi** (0:44)
We do these news briefs in between our regularly scheduled full-length episodes of Citations Needed, still in its ninth season.
Today, Adam, we want to revisit something that we've talked about a bit on the show, the Abundance Movement in general and also how it connects with the current funding structure and, dare I say, ideological trajectory of the Democratic Party. And to do this, we are going to be joined by Dylan Gyauch-Lewis, Senior Researcher at the Revolving Door Project, where she also leads the Economic Media Project. Dylan is the author of a new piece recently out in the American Prospect. It was published on June 12th, and it is entitled, New Documents Detail Nine Figure, Silicon Valley Funded Abundance Movement. And the article is incredibly instructed, and we're really excited to have Dylan here.

**Adam Johnson** (1:39)
Yeah, and nine figure is a bit of an understatement, which we'll get into, which I'm excited to get into, is it's repeating nine figures. So I'm excited to talk to her and get into this.

**Nima Shirazi** (1:46)
So without further ado, we are now joined by Dylan Gyauch-Lewis. As I said, Senior Researcher at the Revolving Door Project. Dylan, welcome back to Citations Needed.

**Dylan Gyauch-Lewis** (1:55)
Thank you. Happy to be here.

**Adam Johnson** (1:57)
So I want to begin by talking about the revelations, if you will, or the new information that you're reporting have brought the light. You and the American Prospect and the Phoenix Project got your hands on this 31-page document from Zach Rosen, who's the founder of California EMB in the Abundance Network, which is one of the major, if not the major so-called abundance groups. And they show a staggering $260 million a year war chest.

**Nima Shirazi** (2:19)
A year, mind you.

**Adam Johnson** (2:20)
Yeah, a year, which is, I think that's more than the budget of Hezbollah, but we can get into that later, but not quite as much as the New York Mets. It's funded by former Enron trader and MEDEF board member John Arnold, who's a big funder of these things. We've talked about him before.
Dustin Muscovitz, who's a Facebook co-founder, and $100 million from Steve Ballmer, former Microsoft executive and LA Clippers owner, and noted arborist along with Kawhi Leonard. What do these findings reveal? The people listening to this may not be acquainted with the subject matter. What does this staggering amount of money mean for how policy and ideas are shaped within the liberal democratic policy world? Kind of establish the stakes, if you will, because I think some people, these numbers get a little abstract.

**Dylan Gyauch-Lewis** (3:01)
Yeah, I think there's a few different things that are revealed here. One is there was no previous knowledge that Steve Ballmer was funding any abundance project. According to this document, he is funding $100 million a year.
Really, the big picture thing that these documents reveal is just how much Silicon Valley is investing in trying to maintain prominence within the Democratic Party. Because that is really what a lot of the fundraising pitch to billionaires centers on.
In particular, Zach Rosen talks about flipping the San Francisco Democratic Party, flipping the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, flipping the Santa Monica City Council. And these are like achievements. There is a line in the fundraising document that says, I think this is a direct quote. It is at least very close to a direct quote, but it's, we helped organize the moderate faction that has taken power in the city. So like they are being very explicit in their pitch to Silicon Valley billionaires, which is who this document was intended for. It specifically says in the intro, this memo is for prospective UH&W donors, that's ultra high net worth. So they are explicitly addressing a memo to powerful Silicon Valley and aligned billionaires that abundance organizing is a mechanism to take control of local democratic institutions and empower a business friendly faction of Democrats.