Paranoid Tech Elites Completely Misunderstand the Media

Joe Lonsdale and Ben Horowitz's social-media tirades shows that they don't know how journalism works.

A few days ago, two incredibly wealthy, influential venture capitalists separately threw public tantrums on X about articles that hadn’t yet been published. Both VCs are prominent Trump donors this cycle, and they objected to queries from journalists about topics related to their businesses and their political activities. In both cases, the articles were still in progress, but the VCs had apparently been set off by private inquiries from the reporters and decided to publicly complain about “hit pieces” coming their way.

It’s normal for journalists to reach out to subjects of their reporting, especially public figures, to ask questions or request an interview or simply to say, I’m going to be writing about your sizeable political donations, which have taken a distinct right-wing turn this cycle, which is of interest to the public. Sometimes these queries can lead to nothing being published, even after a great deal of research and writing (to a journalist’s frustration). But this is the rote grunt work of reporting: email the person you’re looking into and say that you have some questions — questions that they may not like, but that should be within the realm of journalistic interest. This is simply how the rudiments of reporting work.

In fact, pretty much everything that happened journalistically in these episodes was so routine and by the book that the subsequent outrage generated — almost exclusively by millionaire and billionaire tech executives and VCs on X — was deeply revealing of how little today’s tech elites understand journalism and the journalists who practice it, and how devoted they seem to maintaining an ignorance hemmed in by ideological blinders.

On August 15, venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale — Peter Thiel disciple, Palantir co-founder, scourge of the homeless, China hawk defense tech investor, once banned from Stanford’s campus, etc — wrote a long post on X complaining about a piece that appeared in In These Times and Rolling Stone investigating how Lonsdale’s Cicero Institute — and Lonsdale himself — helped “make homelessness a crime” by pushing anti-camping ordinances in numerous states and filing a Leonard Leo-sponsored amicus brief in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, the consequential Supreme Court case that has helped cement bans on camping (or even sleeping in public with a blanket). Lonsdale didn’t appreciate the article:

Chipping away at public homeless services, the right for homeless people to exist in public, and the widely accepted “housing first” policy that puts people in stable, permanent housing right away — that’s a badge of honor for Lonsdale. And critical reporters, experts, and observers might disagree. Fair enough. This is a typical, chip-on-his-shoulder response from a very rich guy with rising political influence.

But then Lonsdale had another grievance to air out. The rest of the post — about 885 words, thanks to the character bloat afford to blue checks — is devoted to castigating a “nativist Forbes reporter looking to paint our two Russian colleagues at [Lonsdale’s venture capital firm] 8VC as a ‘scandal.’” Lonsdale, whose VC firm is devoted to military technology investments, uses of the rest of the post to explain that he hates terrorists and Vladimir Putin, his colleagues are talented and loyal, and his firm is devoted to working with the best people from all over to strengthen America’s military prowess. Yes, one of his firm’s principals, he notes, has a father on a list of sanctioned Russian oligarchs — which might have been part of the Forbes inquiry (Lonsdale doesn’t say). “I didn’t hire his father though,” Lonsdale wrote. “I hired him.”

He ends by saying he won’t be discussing this issue with the media. Again, no article has been published on the topic, so far as I can tell. (I’ll update the post if that changes.) But Lonsdale seemed to believe that this kind of outraged soapboxing might pre-empt any article — or perhaps discourage reporters from digging deeper. In all likelihood, it will have the opposite effect.

Media intimidation seemed to be at least part of the calculus for billionaire venture capitalist Ben Horowitz when, the same night Lonsdale issued his jeremiad, Horowitz went to war against rival VC Michael Moritz and the media outlet he owns, The San Francisco Standard. Emily Shugerman, a freelance journalist, had written a standard journalistic query to Horowitz about an article she was working on looking at Horowitz’s decision to embrace Trump and the role of his wife, Felicia, another prominent Silicon Valley figure.

“Sir Michael Moritz is now having his fake disinformation ‘newspaper’ fabricate hit pieces on his business rival, me,” Horowitz wrote in a 448-word post, which he opened with a Kendrick Lamar lyric. “And, he has chosen to attack my wife, Felicia.” He also implied that Shugerman’s questions were racist (Felicia Horowitz is Black).

Horowitz was kind enough to copy and paste (?) Shugerman’s query email at the end of his X post:

Again, this is a completely normal inquiry about a subject of public interest — the shifting politics of members of the power elite. Some PR pros might suggest that their wealthy clients engage with journalists more constructively — or at least be a little more discrete in their attempt to bully a publication’s owner into spiking a story. But this is not how tech elites, who chafe at the slightest negative coverage, the mere suggestion of not being sufficiently appreciated, operate today. They hate the media — witness their neurotic obsession with Washington Post columnist Taylor Lorenz — and aren’t interested in tolerating its place in Democratic society. They’d rather destroy it.

Horowitz’s battle cry was echoed by dozens of his friends and colleagues on X, who saw another shameful attempt by the mainstream media to go after an industry leader for his politics. In the typical paranoid formulation of today’s X-addicted tech elites, what was a basic political story became a “hit piece” dreamed up by Moritz, himself a billionaire who, according to the Standard’s top editor, has never interfered in editorial decisions. It either did not matter or did not occur to Horowitz & co. that The San Francisco Standard is probably just another bauble in Moritz’s curio — a mere line item for a multi-billionaire with vast civic and political ambitions. Moritz might be a ripe target for political criticism, but the notion that he’s giving editorial assignments to freelance journalists via The Standard is ridiculous.

Perhaps I’m not well traveled enough, but I’ve never heard another journalist use the word “hit piece” with any seriousness. It’s an internet term used to describe a critical article someone doesn’t like. Certainly there are bad reporters, bad incentives, and corruption in some parts of media. But if you think that journalists making $60k per year are sitting around dreaming up a “hit piece” on powerful people — the very sort who we’re compelled, by the ethics of our profession, to report on — then, to quote San Francisco Standard executive editor Jon Steinberg, “your conspiracy theory is wack.”

Horowitz followed up his rant with more derision against Moritz, the media, and a freelance journalist he knew nothing about. He reposted supportive messages from similarly outraged millionaire executives.

The next day, on Aug. 16, the San Francisco Standard published Emily Shugerman’s article under the headline “How billionaires Ben and Felicia Horowitz made a MAGA U-turn.” It’s a good article that should be completely uncontroversial except for how it tweaks the egos of its subjects and asks an important, fundamental question: How did the politics and charitable giving of a billionaire liberal power couple transform in just a few years?

The article finds that the couple’s changing politics have been well noted by their friends and business partners. Felicia Horowitz has scrubbed her social media of references to the many liberal and Black causes and politicians she supported. Her X banner reads “Exiting the Matrix” — a likely reference, as Shugerman notes, to the right-wing meme about “waking up” from a controlled society. Shugerman tracks some other signs of the kind of reactionary swerve that has affect through tech and business elites since 2020: resentment against Covid-19 protocols; a retreat into a heavily gated mansion; resentment of Black Lives Matter protests; deleting social media posts and articles about liberal politics, including an essay on the couple’s trans son; redirecting their money toward MAGA organizations. They even spent time on Clubhouse, a kind of pandemic-era online hangout for techies who resented Silicon Valley’s liberal culture.

“They’ve had this mentality and this experience that they’re under siege for a long time,” one startup founder told Shugerman. “It’s been painful for me to basically watch them go crazy.”

The only mistake The San Francisco Standard made was in its photo illustration, which put MAGA hats on a picture of the couple. While it was labeled a photo illustration, the collage looked like the hats were made to seem real. It was an unforced error in an otherwise reasonably reported article.

Together, the Lonsdale and Horowitz stories show how powerful people in tech see themselves and how they think they’re entitled to be treated. They also show a remedial understanding of how media — which is largely produced by precarious employees and underpaid freelancers — works today. As a class, tech elites show almost no media literacy, discernment, or fixed standards for what makes good journalism.

This is most apparent in the case of Elon Musk, who will re-post any viral meme that appeals to his snap-twitch bigotries. The man with a veritable repository of real-time events and global intelligence at his disposal displays minimal capacity for critical thinking, much less googling to see if something is true. As a consequence, he spreads lies and hatred constantly. And like his peers, he takes any critique — even of the obviously turgid Trump/Musk Spaces event — as an unjustified personal attack.

Lately Musk has been preaching the virtues of “citizen media,” a category that was valorized and then mostly dispensed with 10 years ago, after the initial social-media utopia gave way to a morass of disinformation, viral mediocrity, and ketamine-addled billionaires manipulating platform dynamics. In truth, while the public and amateur social-media sleuths play important roles in uncovering and spreading worthwhile information, journalists and media outlets still produce much of what counts as “journalism” and what influences politics and public discourse. When Musk bloviates about a new outrageous example of the woke mind virus, he is usually citing a story that, while now distorted, originated in a mainstream outlet. Far more than citizen journalists or Elon Musk or Grok AI, it’s actually the censorious, woke Washington Post and New York Times who help investigate wrongdoing and put new information in front of the public.

I’m not sure why Sequoia partner Shaun Maguire — another convert to Trumpism — thought that World War III was starting a few weeks ago, but I think we dodged that one. And the supposed financial market collapse righted itself within days, if not hours. Most people didn’t even notice it, because most people don’t own stocks and aren’t plugged into the paranoid blackpilled fever-swamp where tech elites have found a warm welcome for every one of their absurd conspiracies. But this is where the people who increasingly control more of our society and our politics spend their time. It’s heady and excites their passions. It gives meaning to their roving resentments. And it’s a very grim place for anyone who hopes for a brighter political future.