For Immediate Release
Wednesday, April 20, 2022
Contact: Hannah Goss, hgoss@azdem.org
FOLLOW THE MONEY: Who’s Bankrolling Blake Masters’ #AZSen Campaign?
Even Beyond Peter Thiel, Big Tech Money Is Propping Up the CA Tech Bro
PHOENIX — Despite running on a platform to “take on” the tech industry, Silicon Valley sweetheart turned U.S. Senate candidate Blake Masters isn’t even hiding that his entire Senate candidacy is a front for Big Tech interests.
Masters is running to be Peter Thiel’s mouthpiece in Washington:
- Thiel — a Big Tech billionaire responsible for Masters’ career — has poured $10 million into a super PAC with a singular objective: To elect his protegee.
- In exchange, Masters has promoted his longtime mentor’s businesses on the campaign trail and echoed his boss’s distinct “Thielian ideology.”
For supplemental campaign funding, Masters naturally turned to the people he’s planning to represent in the Senate…Silicon Valley:
- Last quarter, Masters launched a second round of “super rare” NFTs to draw in more tech bro money.
- Periodically, Masters even invites aspiring tech bros into the inner circle, auctioning off dinners with industry giants including David Sacks and Peter Thiel himself with the promise to discuss “VC, crypto, AI; UFOs, Epstein, conspiracy; China, globalization; the future.”
- As a result of his target marketing, Masters’ FEC reports are dominated by contributions from Big Tech employees and funders, both within Thiel’s empire and beyond.
“Blake Masters was raised by Big Tech, is bought by Big Tech, and now, is running to represent Big Tech in Washington. Arizonans deserve a Senator who is beholden to them and their interests alone — not the industry that funded their campaign or the billionaire who poured millions into buying their seat in Washington,” said ADP spokesperson Hannah Goss.
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