Charter Cities Advocates Find Hope in Trump's Freedom Cities Proposal

Proponents of libertarian city-states are allying with MAGA lawyers, lobbyists, and policy shops.

Among his 2024 campaign policy proposals, President Trump promised to build 10 “Freedom Cities” — built-from-scratch developments on federal land (though Greenland might soon be an option) based on individual freedom, low regulation, low taxes, and unfettered entrepreneurialism. These neo-homesteads would be places where ambitious tech startups and big corporations could thrive and new residents would get “baby bonuses” for spawning future patriotic workers. Announcing a contest to solicit Freedom City proposals in March 2023, Trump said that these new cities offer a chance to “reopen the frontier, reignite American imagination, and give hundreds of thousands of young people and other people, all hardworking families, a new shot at home ownership and in fact, the American Dream.”

There would even be flying cars, the ultimate retro-futuristic symbol of technological innovation, whose failure to launch Peter Thiel and other libertarian venture capitalists have been mourning for years. But mostly there would be data centers, nuclear power, biotech and anti-aging startups, cryptocurrencies, AI development, fusion power experiments, and, according to Trump, “towering monuments to our true American heroes.”

For the tech financiers and right-wing entrepreneurs looking to “exit” from democracy — from the rule of law, consumer protection regulations, financial enforcement, and anything that might slow their vision of unchecked technological development — the Freedom Cities concept has been enticing. A number of startups and nonprofits, some backed by hundreds of millions of dollars in investment capital, have spent years trying to create charter cities, floating polities (seasteading), or tiny corporate fiefdoms inspired by Balaji Srinivasan’s Network State movement. In my forthcoming book, “Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley,” I write about the Network State, charter cities, and the project known as California Forever in Solano County, CA. All of these efforts in some way look to expand on the neoliberal tradition of special economic zones and create what are essentially tech-forward company towns or corporate city-states (in some cases, they’re veritable dictatorships). And now, the promoters of this ideological project seem to be developing the political relationships — facilitated by some very well-connected lawyers — to merge their vision with Trump’s Freedom Cities concept.

Wired recently ran a good article looking at how charter cities proponents are forming interest groups, writing potential legislation, and lobbying the Trump administration. The article looks at the Freedom Cities Coalition, which is funded by NeWay Capital LLC, which in turn is part of Prospera, the charter-city venture currently battling the Honduran government over its claims to sovereignty. The Freedom Cities Coalition touts three possible policy approaches that it claims would, in Trump-ian fashion, unleash the flood of American prosperity that has been damned behind onerous regulations: “By creating zones of regulatory clarity and economic dynamism, these specially designated areas strip away decades of bureaucratic buildup while maintaining essential protections, allowing entrepreneurs and builders to move at the speed of human ingenuity rather than the pace of paperwork.”

The other group Wired mentions is the Frontier Foundation, a 501c4 affiliated with the Charter Cities Institute, a 501c3 that’s officially registered as the Center for Innovative Governance Research, and which has received funding from right-wing donors like the Charles Koch Foundation. The Frontier Foundation has been distributing policy memos and having conversations with government officials, according to Wired.

What’s interesting about these groups is how nominally libertarian, market-oriented city projects are making moves to tap government connections, shape legislation, and receive potential subsidies or access to federal land. Pure libertarianism, when put into practice, tends to resemble corporatism, with the attendant networks of transactional politics and favor-trading. Taking a closer look at these organizations — and the flurry of proper nouns orbiting them — one can get a sense of how the charter city movement is insinuating itself into the MAGA power structure and policy apparatus.

The Charter Cities Institute’s public filings list its address as 1717 K Street NW, 900 Washington, DC 20006. That happens to be the address of a virtual office space used by the law firm Schaerr Jaffe, which has represented Elon Musk in some of his free-speech litigation, including his lawsuit against Disney on behalf of actor Gina Carano. Mark Paoletta, the current general counsel of the Office of Management and Budget, was a partner at Schaerr Jaffe. A prolific and fierce defender of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Paoletta’s firm received $300,000 in funding from right-wing patronage king Leonard Leo.

On its website, the Frontier Foundation lists an address of 300 Independence Avenue, SE, Washington, DC 20003. That is the same address as the Conservative Partnership Institute, a 501c3, founded in 2017 and led by former Congressman Jim DeMint and former Trump chief-of-staff Mark Meadows, which has become a major player in the MAGA movement. CPI has been an “incubator and activist hub” for a number of groups, from Russell Vought’s Center for Renewing America to Stephen Miller’s America First Legal, which are investigating Democratic officials and public-sector employees; monitoring “election integrity”; and filing lawsuits against wokeness wherever it may rear itself. (America First Legal Foundation paid the aforementioned Schaerr Jaffe $314,738 for legal services in 2023.)

Despite the shared address, the Frontier Foundation has no relationship with CPI, according to Frontier Foundation President Nick Allen. “No involvement, I just used the same law firm as them and they have that for the mailing address,” Allen wrote in response to a text message query. “I’m located in New York” — Allen is involved with Sovereign House, a right-wing tech hangout in lower Manhattan — while 501c4s like his tend to be formed in DC. “I leave that stuff up to reputable firms,” he wrote.

If the Frontier Foundation isn’t involved with CPI, it is still sitting cheek-by-jowl with the most important policy, lobbying, and activist shop in the MAGA governance structure. They share lawyers, as Allen acknowledged. William Klimon, who incorporated the Frontier Foundation in crypto-friendly Wyoming, is part of the Compass Legal Group, which has done work for many CPI-related organizations. Compass Legal Group is owned in part by Cleta Mitchell, a Republican lawyer who was on the phone call in which Trump asked Georgia’s secretary of state to find him 11,780 more votes. Mitchell has led the Election Integrity Network, a CPI-incubated organization that promotes conspiracies about election fraud and the 2020 “big lie” and has tried to use “flawed” AI software to help purge state voter rolls. In reports from Compass and CPI, the former is described as a “spinoff” of the latter. “CPI also continued to support Compass Professional and Compass Legal Group, who in turn helped conservative start-up organizations to run effectively and stay focused on their missions,” CPI wrote in its 2022 annual report.

At their core, charter cities are supposed to be about individual liberty and human flourishing. But seizing sovereignty is a messy business, requiring aggressive lawfare, politicking, and a lot of money. The road to this particular techno-utopia runs through the all too appropriately named Independence Avenue.