A New Report Unveils Abundance Convention's Far-Right Financiers
And one group with ties to Swedish Neo-Nazis
Last week, I wrote about the Democratic Party’s top-down political theory and how it drives them to sabotage left-wing and populist challengers, even when such challenges could benefit the party brand. If you haven’t read it, the TLDR is that too many establishment politicians and figures believe political direction should be decided by donors, think tanks, and wonks, which are then sold to voters through allied media. This contrasts with the political theory of left-wing populism, which takes its cues from the immediate concerns of median Americans — Tax the rich, fast and free buses, socialized healthcare, etc., etc.1 The top-down theory was best articulated in Abundance, the book that has now become gospel for much of the political spectrum.
The Abundance Movement predates Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s book. But as this year’s Abundance convention, aptly named Abundance 2025, shows, the namesake bestseller has vitalized the movement. Running from September 4th to 5th, Abundance 2025 is headlined by Klein, Thompson, Spencer Cox, the Republican governor of Utah. The authors have always talked about ‘their’ movement as a big tent. However, a new report from the
investigating Abundance 2025’s sponsors shows that many Abundance financiers have goals far departed from what Klein and Thompson have claimed was their book’s intent. (In the interest of transparency, RDP sent this report to me before publication.)
After its release, Abundance was quickly seized by wealthy donors and centrist politicians as a means to counter the surging left-wing populism. Klein was always hesitant to make his work a weapon in the factional fight, likely because it was never intended to be a political program; never mind one that claimed to hold the keys to defeating both Republican fascists and democratic socialists. But
had no such reservations, publicly stating, “Our book is trying to win a certain intra-left coalitional fight about defining the future of liberalism in the Democratic Party.”Given Klein, Thompson, and numerous other Abundists have argued that Abundance-style ideas are the path to the Democrats’ success for the last six months, Abundance 2025’s right-wing character is startling. The event’s mission statement significantly diverges from previous claims that Abundance was a Democratic project. It reads:
What exists today is a cross-partisan coalition committed to accelerating economic growth, reinforcing American leadership in science and technology, dismantling bureaucratic inertia, restoring effective governance, and reducing the cost of living. Abundance is not an abstract ideal but a moral and civic imperative: to revitalize the nation’s productive base, support working families, and reassert democratic control over technocratic systems.2
While there’s always been space between The Abundance Movement and Abundance, the book, Klein and Thompson’s top-billed speaking slots show the authors and movement drivers view each other as allies. Their presence at a conference aimed at building a ‘cross-partisan coalition’ raises eyebrows. If Thompson and Klein still want their ideas to “define the future of liberalism in the Democratic Party,” it’s fair to ask where and how they see conservative mega-donors fitting into that future. The conclusion of the mission statement is equally as baffling, as Abundance is openly hostile to democratic control over technocratic systems. Environmentalist groups, unions, local town halls, and other functions of America’s restricted liberal democracy are the enemy of Abundance. Not only is the claim that the Abundance Movement aims to increase democratic levers false, but as The Revolving Door Project shows, many of its chief sponsors and advocates are openly hostile to democracy — and not just in a “We should have fewer town halls” kind of way.
While the Abundance Movement’s coziness with libertarian think tanks and Silicon Valley moguls is no secret, the reports’ details on the parties funding Abundance 2025 show there’s a massive appetite for Abundance on the hard right — often from the very people Thompson and Klein claim to be fighting against. This year’s promoted sponsors include:
Arnold Ventures: The private foundation of former Enron executive John Arnold, who has spent over $200 million fighting to privatize public schools since 2011.3 Arnold also funded Bari Weiss’ anti-woke University of Austin.4
Open Philanthropy: Founded by a Facebook co-founder and flush with Silicon Valley cash, Open Philanthropy has supported the Abundance convention for two years. The group launched a $120 million “Abundance & Growth Fund” in March of this year, the same month Abundance launched.5
Blue Horizons Foundation: Apparently, the only available information about this group appears to be from a 990 tax form. Founded by a billionaire who was previously the Chairman of Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital, Blue Horizons will be represented by speaker Jane Flegal. Finding information on Blue Horizons is difficult, seemingly by design. It doesn’t even have a LinkedIn page, never mind a website, which is odd for an entity with enough money to donate to an event like this.
Chamber of Progress: Funded by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (which is currently recruiting IDF soldiers6), the Chamber of Progress represents prominent tech companies such as Apple, Amazon, Meta, Google, Waymo, DoorDash, Zillow, and Twitter/X.
Clear Path: A right-wing environmental group, Clear Path is heavily staffed by Republican staffers and allies. Clear Path’s Chief of Staff is a former member of the Trump Administration, as is its senior director for renewable energy, who originates from the Koch network.789 Its Head of Policy is a former Chevron executive.10
New American Industrial Alliance: Another group with close ties to Donald Trump (I’m noticing a pattern), members of the New American Industrial Alliance include surveillance giant Palantir, Andreessen Horowitz, and Silicon Valley Bank. NAIA is headed by Julius Krein, the founder of The Journal of American Greatness and American Affairs, two pro-Trump publications. American Affairs is a favorite of Vice President J.D. Vance.11
Pacific Legal Foundation: A conservative legal advocacy group, PLF was formed to fight liberal advocacy groups (environmentalists, unions, community organizations, etc.), typically on behalf of energy companies. Funded by the conservative Koch Network and tobacco giant Philip Morris, the group shares executives with the Ayn Rand Institute. Two notable George W. Bush-era figures sit on PLF’s board. Brian Cartwright, former SEC general counsel, and John Yoo, architect of Bush’s torture program.12
Stand Together Trust: Part of the Koch family network, Stand Together funds libertarian and Abundance-style conferences and think tanks. Stand Together CEO Brian Hooks is also the president of the Charles Koch Foundation and will speak at Abundance 2025.
Future of Life Institute: Funded by Elon Musk and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, FLI claims to “steer transformative technologies away from extreme, large-scale risks and towards benefitting life.” Headed by MIT professor Max Tegmark, FLI came under scrutiny for approving a $100,000 grant for the Swedish Neo-Nazi group Stiftelsen Nya Dagbladet in 2022.
This is a striking amount of right-wing connections for the Abundance Movement. There has always been a strain of libertarianism in the deregulatory, de-red tape effort, but direct financing from Republican mega-donors and foundations run by formerly high-ranking GOP officials raises serious concerns about what Klein and Thompson are hoping to achieve. When I asked the report’s author, Henry Burke, for comment on what the sponsorship of Abundance 2025 said about the movement, he had this to say:
"I think what we are seeing is that Abundance, as a movement, has a lot of libertarian and tech-utopian tendencies. This is something that naturally brings the Democratic-aligned abundance folks into alignment with more traditional libertarian and right-wing groups.
I’m unsure what liberal abundance groups could do about this natural overlap, but rather than attempt to fight association with the right, they’ve openly embraced it at events like the Abundance conference. Given this, it seems unlikely to assume that increased liberal participation in abundance will result in a more left-wing movement; it will likely just be co-opted by the existing libertarian tendencies.”
Co-option is a good way to put it. Perhaps Klein and Thompson thought their work could invigorate a surge of liberal donors that would make the conservative financiers irrelevant. They’ve certainly been successful in the first part, but the latter can’t be ignored — especially when ‘Abundance’ is being used for aggressively fascist policies.
I’m not accusing the Abundance authors of desiring mass deportation or segregating Scandinavia. They have both vocally opposed the fascism of Donald Trump. This is one of many reasons they should look around the conference room and ask themselves who is actually interested in their political theory. In many instances, it’s the very people who built the Republican agenda that Trump is now instituting.
To be fair, Abundance 2025 is not exclusively right-wing. Thompson and Klein are socially progressive themselves, and the event’s co-hosts include the Federation of American Scientists and Yimby Action. So it’s not like this is CPAC. However, as Burke illustrated, the conservative support for Abundance 2025 does show right-wing backers are dedicated to amplifying Klein and Thompson’s message for their own causes. If the authors’ goal remains to define the future of the Democratic Party, and they’re doing so with the help of the Republican Party’s financiers (and only a degree removed from a literal Neo-Nazi newspaper), they might want to stop and ask themselves if their vision for Abundance liberalism could — or more importantly, should — be built with the help of conservative activists.
Thank you to The Revolving Door Project for providing me with your excellent report. They also have a unique interactive diagram mapping Abundance’s funders. And thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this essay, don’t forget to click the ❤️ (it helps me rise in Substack’s algorithm) and subscribe so you never miss a future article. Thanks in advance!
In Solidarity — Joe
https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/econTabReport_haeOEK5.pdf
https://www.abundancedc.org/mission
https://npeaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Hijacked-by-Billionaires.pdf
https://nypost.com/2024/10/14/business/deep-pocketed-donors-fund-anti-woke-university/
https://www.openphilanthropy.org/research/announcing-our-new-120m-abundance-and-growth-fund/
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/oif0bk8uu
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2025/01/energy-nominee-wright-lines-up-his-chief-of-staff-00199950
https://clearpath.org/about-us/katie-christian/
https://www.desmog.com/2020/10/28/koch-simmons-fitzsimmons-trump-censor-renewable-energy-science/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-epifani-1400b513/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/01/04/jd-vance-hillbilly-elegy-radicalization/
https://ballsandstrikes.org/legal-culture/decline-and-fall-of-john-yoo/
The Abundance circus swears it’s a “big tent,” but who’s actually inside the tent? Koch money, crypto cowboys, Peter Thiel’s fertility cultists, and Andreessen’s crypto-burning ghost of Enron past. Ezra Klein may not dream of mass deportations, but the financiers underwriting his “abundant” utopia sure as hell do.
What you’ve outlined is the oldest game in American politics: liberals write the pamphlets, billionaires write the checks, and suddenly what started as an intra-Democratic “fight about the future of liberalism” becomes a bipartisan liquidation sale of the commons. When John Arnold and the Pacific Legal Foundation are in the sponsor lineup, you don’t have a coalition - you’ve been colonized.
Klein and Thompson wanted to rebrand liberalism as visionary technocracy. What they delivered is a Trojan horse where the “vision” is funded by people who think unions, environmentalists, and town halls are obstacles to be bulldozed. They can insist they’re progressives, but when the guest list includes Koch emissaries, Thiel’s surveillance state, and a foundation that literally cut checks to Swedish neo-Nazis, the question isn’t whether Abundance defines the future of the Democratic Party. It’s whether the Democratic Party is willing to be defined by the very forces trying to dismantle it.
The Democrats started the genocide. They're dead to me💀