An advocacy group backed by Facebook received a $34 million donation from an anonymous donor as it waged a battle against antitrust legislation that would have more tightly regulated the tech industry.
A person who works with the group, American Edge Project, told CNBC that the $34 million was from Facebook. This person declined to be named in order to speak freely about the group’s finances.
The nonprofit raised the massive amount almost two years ago, according to the organization’s latest 990 tax forms. The documents reflect the nonprofit’s finances starting on Nov. 1, 2020, and carrying into Oct. 31, 2021. These disclosures are the most recent tax records available for public viewing and do not list names of the group’s donors.
A Meta spokesman declined to comment and referred CNBC to American Edge instead.
Doug Kelly, American Edge’s CEO, told CNBC in a statement that “the threats to America’s technological edge have a profound impact on our national security and economic well being and we’re leading the charge to make sure everyone is aware.”
The new documents show the tech advocacy group scored its biggest fundraising haul yet when bipartisan lawmakers on Capitol Hill were attempting to take on tech giants, including through antitrust legislation that didn’t pass Congress and a hearing in March 2021 featuring tech CEOs such as Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook changed its name to Meta in late 2021.
The American Edge Project launched its first pro-tech industry ad in 2020. The group’s previous 990 forms, from 2019 through late 2020, showed it raised all of its money from a single anonymous $4 million donation during that period. Facebook confirmed in 2020 to The Washington Post that it was contributing to the group. The person who works with American Edge told CNBC that the $4 million was also entirely from Facebook.
American Edge launched a wave of TV and digital ads from late 2020 through 2021, taking on antitrust proposals. A TV spot funded by the group…
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