How the Tech Billionaires Bought Radical Journalists
On this episode of The Time of Monsters, I talk to Eoin Higgins about how rich tech weirdos co-opted huge chunks of the media.

The Time of Monsters podcast features Nation national-affairs correspondent Jeet Heer’s signature blend of political culture and cultural politics. Each week, he’ll host in-depth conversations with urgent voices on the most pressing issues of our time.
Tech lords such as Peter Thiel and Elon Musk are among the richest humans who have ever
lived and have an enormous sway over the American political system but even that isn’t enough
for them. They also want a compliant media, one that echoes their ideas, doesn’t investigate
their business practices, and goes after their enemy. This is the subject of a new book by Eoin
Higgins: Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left. I
talked to Eoin about two of the major figures in this story, Peter Thiel, a plutocrat who is eager
to abandon the human species and Matt Taibbi, a onetime anti-establishment voice who now
has become a standard reactionary.
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Peter Thiel
(Nordin Catic / Getty Images for The Cambridge Union)Tech lords such as Peter Thiel and Elon Musk are among the richest humans who have ever lived and have an enormous sway over the American political system, but even that isn’t enough for them. They also want a compliant media, one that echoes their ideas, doesn’t investigate their business practices, and goes after their enemy.
This is the subject of a new book by Eoin Higgins: Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left. I talked to Eoin about two of the major figures in this story: Peter Thiel, a plutocrat who is eager to abandon the human species, and Matt Taibbi, a onetime anti-establishment voice who has now become a standard reactionary.
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Derek welcomes back Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, founder and CEO of the Bourse and Bazaar Foundation and professor at Johns Hopkins University, to discuss the economic consequences of the Iran war and its implications for the Gulf and the global economy. They discuss Iran’s strikes on Gulf infrastructure, disruptions to shipping and energy routes through the Strait of Hormuz, risks to logistics hubs like Dubai and Doha, rising oil prices, the vulnerability of global supply chains, and the potential long-term economic impact of the conflict on the Gulf.
Read Esfandyar’s article in Foreign Policy, “The Iran War Is Jeopardizing the Entire Global Economy.”
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