What the Powerful Men Boosting Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Really Want
Reading Time: 5 minutesThe vaccine conspiracy theorist with a famous name flatters his admirers’ grievances. But that’s not all he offers., Robert F. Kennedy Jr: What the powerful men supporting him, like David Sacks and Elon Musk and Bill Ackman, really want.
It’s time to start paying attention to Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., according to some of the wealthiest, most reactionary tech and business leaders in the country. Elon Musk is the most visible member of this clique. Over the weekend, he helped catalyze an online mob made up of thousands of his sycophants and a seemingly equal number of podcasters to force a Joe Rogan–moderated debate between RFK Jr. and Peter Hotez, a doctor and scientist who develops low-cost vaccines for the global south, and who had criticized the politician’s message. The subject of the debate would be RFK Jr.’s bête noire and personal obsession: vaccines and the role they supposedly play in a government and corporate conspiracy to undermine public health.
Over the last month, RFK Jr. has become an object of fascination for Twitter-addled tech moguls. Some of them lean Republican, while others conform with the very rich person’s tendency of donating widely and strategically, to Democrats and Republicans alike. Venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya has donated to everyone from the Democratic Party of Vermont to Ted Cruz to Joe Biden to Evan McMullin. Now he’s on the RFK Jr. train, calling him ‘really dynamic and credible.’ Then there’s former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, a Bitcoin obsessive who has tweeted approvingly of Austrian School economist Murray Rothbard and has tended to focus on pet causes like universal basic income while donating to Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard. Recently he said that RFK Jr. ‘can and will’ beat Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. And billionaire financier Bill Ackman described RFK Jr.’s appearance on Rogan’s podcast as ‘one of the most powerful and mind opening interviews that I have ever heard.’
Some of RFK’s new boosters in finance and tech genuinely appear to share some of his beliefs, particularly around the futility of the war in Ukraine and fears of tech censorship. But that doesn’t suffice to explain why they would line up behind a figure who’s been known up until this point largely for his anti-vaccine activism. Rather than a meeting of heterodox minds, these moguls and others may instead see in RFK Jr. a useful instrument for complicating President Joe Biden’s re-election run. While RFK Jr. is unlikely to be the Democratic Party nominee—he’s currently polling around 14 percent of Democratic primary voters—he can still be a problem for the incumbent. An occasionally charming kook with a famous last name, RFK Jr. hopes to force Joe Biden to the debate stage, where the president’s declining mental acuity might be exposed and his policies challenged. Certainly the presidential primary process is too closed—dominated by money and a sclerotic party leadership that undermines progressive candidates like Bernie Sanders. There’s nothing inherently wrong about RFK Jr.’s decision to run. But the motives of his high-profile supporters matter. It’s hard not to see the recent surge of Silicon Valley cash flowing to RFK Jr. as anything but a disingenuous effort to screw over Democrats.
RFK Jr. is a prolific speaker and has long made the rounds of obscure podcasts and conspiratorial online media, talking about his false belief that vaccines cause autism, that they have killed more people than they have saved, that big pharma is conspiring against public health, and other choice selections from the conspiracist’s handbook. He’s offered much of the same on channels like MSNBC, too; his views aren’t a mystery, and experts have debunked most of his claims. As the leader of a major anti-vaccine organization, his work has had a genuinely deleterious impact. He has helped stoke anti-vaccine sentiment in Samoa, where in 2019 a measles outbreak killed at least 32 people and sickened thousands. His work as an environmental lawyer and activist has produced some good outcomes, such as helping improve the health of the Hudson River, but any achievements have been surpassed by his dark-eyed paranoia about proven drugs that have saved millions of lives.
This latest round of RFK Jr. publicity has coincided with a profound disenchantment with political and public health authorities and their botched response to the COVID-19 pandemic. U.S. politicians from Trump on down failed to adequately respond to the crisis, and the fact that we still do not have paid sick leave or universal health care reflects a barbarous indifference on behalf of the ruling elite and their insurance-industry donors. But much of what can be chalked up to negligence, incompetence, or systemic corruption has been recast, in the minds of RFK Jr. and millions of other armchair theorists, as a deliberate and murderous conspiracy against the public.
While RFK Jr. has been periodically banned from YouTube and other platforms, his views have found some purchase on Elon Musk’s freewheeling version of Twitter. And now they have the attention, and some of the resources, of Musk himself and his wider political and social network. Earlier this month, Musk hosted RFK Jr. for a discussion on Twitter Spaces. Recently, venture capitalist and Musk advisor David Sacks hosted a fundraiser for RFK Jr., just weeks after he had introduced Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign on a balky Twitter livestream. RFK Jr. has repaid the favor of his new boosters, for example, by appearing at the annual Bitcoin Conference in Miami, where he touted the importance of cryptocurrencies as a force for freedom. He’s also appeared on Steve Bannon’s podcast and posed for pictures with Michael Flynn and Roger Stone.
On Tuesday, RFK Jr. announced that he was setting up shop on Rumble, a once-obscure video startup that in the last couple years has attracted investment and talent from the right. Now emphasizing its belief in free speech and flush with money from a SPAC offering, Rumble has given contracts to a number of conservative influencers and media figures while insisting it’s a nonpartisan outfit. Sacks is a Rumble shareholder and recently joined the company’s board after it acquired Callin, his ‘social podcasting’ startup. As with Rumble, Callin attracted its share of disillusioned leftists whose critiques of liberalism, identity politics, or the Democratic Party sometimes put them in awkward alliance with more conservative Republicans and right-wingers.
That seems to be, approximately, where RFK Jr. stands now. His peacenik sensibility, his advocacy for the environment and the homeless, and his sense of outrage toward the cruel indifference of the power elite (of which he’s of course a scion) hold some appeal for those outside the corporate Democratic Party base. He and Sacks both speak in similar blinkered language about bloodthirsty American neocons committing Ukraine to a devastating war. But his deep well of bizarre conspiracy theories goes beyond eccentric skepticism to something genuinely harmful, particularly if he’s allowed to have command over public health policy. His alliance of convenience with right-wing tech millionaires and billionaires who have otherwise been vocal, paid-up DeSantis supporters makes one doubt his sincerity. In other contexts, such as his unvarnished support for Israel, RFK Jr. has revealed himself as a proud militarist.
We wouldn’t be talking about RFK Jr. if there weren’t some fundamental problems with American politics and the bipartisan consensus around major issues of war and peace, the economy, and the primacy of corporate power. American elites and governing institutions have failed the public, when not contributing to its outright exploitation. But RFK’s most powerful backers are among the main beneficiaries of that unequal status quo, and their motives deserve scrutiny. We should ask how they have become so wealthy and powerful as to be able to help prop up two presidential campaigns as we near 2024. After all, it shouldn’t be long until Sacks hosts another fundraiser for DeSantis, the candidate he’s long pushed. Which one does he really want to be president?
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