With just weeks to go before Election Day 2016, Silicon Valley billionaire Dustin Moskovitz joined the ranks of Democratic mega-donors. His $20 million commitment was spread across groups like the Hillary Victory Fund, the DCCC and the League of Conservation Voters, and was accompanied by a Medium post by Moskovitz called “Compelled to Act.” The Facebook co-founder wrote that while he usually stays out of politics, Donald Trump winning would make the “country fall backward” and he needed to try to stop him. Of course, the money wasn’t enough to stop Trump’s 2016 victory, but Moskovitz was hardly done funding Democrats.
Moskovitz and his wife Cari Tuna were the top individual donors to Democrats in 2020 that didn’t run for president (only Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer gave more to liberals). The couple gave $48.8 million this cycle, contributing to voter registration and turnout, giving the bulk of his money to a Super PAC called Future Forward.
Millions for late TV ads
The PAC spent millions late in the 2020 race on ads slamming Trump and promoting Joe Biden, and Moskovitz was its top backer. He gave nearly $30 million to the PAC between July and October toward the final ad buys in key states. Moskovitz, who is well-known for his impact-focused approach to philanthropy, paired well with Future Forward, which touted its thorough “content testing” of its ads. PAC leadership told Recode in October the main goal was to get Biden elected, but they were also pumping money into Texas in the hopes of unseating Republican Sen. John Cornyn.
Democrats were unable to flip the seat blue, but the late ad push by Moskovitz and Future Forward contributed to Biden’s large advertising spending advantage over the Trump campaign. Biden’s campaign and supporting groups spent a reported $600 million on ads compared to $400 million from Trump’s camp. Democrats are still disagreeing about the takeaway from the 2020 cycle, since Biden won the presidency while the party won fewer congressional seats than expected, but successfully ousting Trump was something of a redemption for Moskovitz.
Even before Election Day in 2016, Moskovitz lamented that he was “slow to act” in that race, and his focused political giving four years later was no doubt in the hopes of repairing missteps from before. Hillary Clinton’s campaign was infamously absent in key swing states, and post-election analysis found her ads were too focused on Trump and didn’t sufficiently highlight her policies. By contrast, Future Forward’s ads were more subdued, highlighting Biden’s best traits compared to Trump without using the same fire as other anti-Trump groups in 2020, like the Lincoln Project.
Still, Future Forward’s impact this cycle was a bit of a mixed bag for Moskovitz, who touts his targeted, highly efficient approach to donating. His team attempted to calculate the “cost per net Democratic voter” to determine where best to spend his money; they concluded late-race TV ads were the most impactful on voters, Recode reported. It’s hard to say whether it was the targeted approach that helped Biden or simply the fact that Biden spent millions more than Trump, but Future Forward conclusively failed to meet its goal in Texas. Despite spending roughly $11 million on Democratic challenger M.J. Hegar, Cornyn still won by nearly 10 points.
A mega-donor emerges
Before 2016, Moskovitz was nearly unknown on the national stage. Thanks to having a birthday one week after Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook co-founder was at one point the world’s youngest billionaire. Moskovitz still holds an estimated 2% of Facebook shares, but he left the company in 2008 to start the software company Asana. All the tech success has shot Moskovitz’s net worth up to about $17 billion, putting him among the 50 richest people in the world. Moskovitz is already a signatory of the Giving Pledge, a commitment by the ultra-wealthy to give away most of their money by the end of their lives.
Moskovitz channels most of his philanthropy through the foundation he started with Cari Tuna. Their Good Ventures Foundation won early praise for its targeted, research-based approach to selecting grantees, with a focus on global anti-poverty work and other issues. Finding their approach to philanthropy was similar to that of another organization, GiveWell, Moskovitz and Tuna joined with GiveWell to form Open Philanthropy. Tuna serves as president of Good Ventures, and both she and Moskovitz are on the board of Open Philanthropy.
Moskovitz’s political giving increased dramatically in the Trump era. Donor records show Moskovitz rarely donates to candidates directly, opting instead to make large gifts to liberal PACs and funds. After giving only about $10,000 toward politics during his lifetime, Moskovitz in 2016 pledged $20 million to help Democrats. Moskovitz’s recent eruption in political giving was part of an effort to resist Trump and ultra-conservative Republicans.
It’s unclear whether Moskovitz and Tuna will remain motivated to give to Democrats beyond 2020.
