Why did Big Tech Billionaires Fund the Distribution of Sound of Freedom? The “New Right” Technocrats are Redefining Conservative Politics and Religious Values
I (and many others) have already reported on the fact that the original funding to produce the film "Sound of Freedom" came from Billionaires, many of whom have direct associations with child trafficking themselves. In an investigative article published this week on The Information, Julia Black has reported that Elon Musk's venture capital firms rescued Angel Studios from bankruptcy last year with a $47 million funding round that allowed them to distribute the box office hit, Sound of Freedom. She wrote: "In February 2021, a Mormon film producer named Jeffrey Harmon returned home to Provo, Utah, raving about an exclusive gathering he’d just attended in Austin, Tex. He’d been invited by an old friend, Stephen Oskoui, who ran Austin-based venture capital firm Gigafund alongside Luke Nosek, a founding partner of Founders Fund and a member of the famed PayPal mafia. According to sources close to Harmon, the event was attended by a who’s who of tech elites, including Oskoui, Nosek and, most memorably, Elon Musk. At the gathering, Harmon had the chance to speak to Musk and Oskoui about VidAngel, the film company founded with three of his brothers that would soon become rebranded Angel Studios. Later that year, Oskoui and Nosek’s Gigafund led a $47 million funding round to support Angel Studios in its efforts to upend Hollywood with religious programming and other 'stories that amplify light.' This summer, the fruits of that investment appeared: Angel Studios released the blockbuster film about child sex trafficking 'Sound of Freedom,' which has surpassed $210 million in global box office numbers and become a rallying point for Christian conservatives and the far right. The investment in Angel Studios was an unusual one for Oskoui and Nosek, who had never previously shown interest in the entertainment industry. The duo started Gigafund in 2017 with the intention of raising funds for Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, and followed up with a $125 million investment that year. In the years since, they have followed up with bets on other firms owned by Musk as well as on companies developing nuclear energy solutions (Last Energy), photonic artificial intelligence chips (Luminous Computing) and precision genome engineering (Synthego)." This funding of religious content by Big Tech is part of what some people are defining as "The New Right", where former PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, part of the infamous PayPal Mafia, is seen as one of their leaders. See: Inside the New Right, Where Peter Thiel Is Placing His Biggest Bets - "They’re not MAGA. They’re not QAnon. Curtis Yarvin and the rising right are crafting a different strain of conservative politics." It is not surprising that these Technocrat Billionaires that make up the "New Right" are defining Christianity through Mormon lenses, as there are elements within Mormonism that find transhumanism as an acceptable outcome of modern technology.