CCP and Swiss Billionaire-Tied Companies Roll Out Axios Advertisements
Axios rolls out ads that are pro-CCP companies or factually inaccurate in recent weeks
In recent days, discerning readers may have noticed that Axios has had an…interesting set of sponsors, ranging from companies controlled by the Chinese Communist Party to liberal advocacy groups funded by non-citizens.
I first noticed this as the TikTok bill that does not ban TikTok was being deliberated in the House of Representatives–an Axios story was sponsored by Alibaba, the Amazon.com of China. Unlike Facebook, Twitter, and, of course, TikTok, Amazon was not formally banned by China–but its local competitors crowded it out of the market.
In China, there are of course no truly private companies the way we think of them in America. And, the CCP knows what it’s getting in purchasing so-called “golden shares” in companies like Alibaba and Tencent.
According to the Financial Times:
The stakes, usually involving a 1 per cent share of internet groups’ key entities, are akin to “golden shares” as they come with special rights over certain business decisions.
Within China the stakes are known as “special management shares” and since 2015 have become a common tool used by the state to exert influence over private news and content companies.
That was the aim of China’s internet regulator when it took a stake in an Alibaba unit last week, according to two people involved in the matter. An entity under the state investment fund set up by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) acquired a 1 per cent share of an Alibaba subsidiary, Guangzhou Lujiao Information Technology, on January 4, according to Chinese business records.
CAC took the stake to tighten control over content at the ecommerce giant’s streaming video unit Youku and web browser UCWeb, the people said. As part of the deal the unit also appointed a new board member, Zhou Mo. CAC has a mid-level official with the same name.
It’s that same Alibaba that is buying up ad space on Axios’s site. Obviously Alibaba and Bytedance–TikTok’s parent company, are not the same entities, but they do serve the same master at the end of the day: the Chinese Communist Party.
It’s tough to think that these ads will in no way affect Axios’s China coverage. In fact, these Chinese companies know what they’re doing. Last year, TikTok bought massive advertisements both online and in hard copies of news outlets in and around DC–a not so subtle threat that TikTok is truly always watching.
While these Alibaba ads are concerning, they’re in no way alone in Axios. Earlier this month, the liberal activist group Climate Power sponsored the top of an Axios evening newsletter–and straight up lied, even by its own accounting.
But first, what is Climate Power? It’s a liberal advocacy group that recently rolled out plans to spend tens of millions of dollars boosting President Joe Biden. Most relevant to this piece, it has been indirectly bankrolled by a non-citizen billionaire, Hansjorg Wyss.
For years, according to the Daily Caller, “the charitable organization affiliated with Hansjorg Wyss, a Swiss health care mogul and billionaire philanthropist, donates millions of dollars to the Fund for a Better Future, which was the fiscal sponsor for Climate Power until 2023.”
Wyss is, famously, not an American citizen, but he has plowed tens of millions of dollars into our political system anyway, bolstering a Democratic Party that is fueled by dark money; per Open Secrets, over $84,000,000 was spent by liberal groups either promoting Democrats or attacking Republicans last year alone.
In its Axios email, Climate Power claims that “Americans are saving an average of $1,000 on their energy bills each year when they switch to clean energy to power their homes.” But, the website linked to in the Climate Power ad makes it clear that that is, ironically, gaslighting.
“Families can save more than $1,000 each year on their energy costs thanks to the clean energy tax credits,” its Clean Energy Plan actually reads. You don’t have to be an energy expert to know that saving energy costs and getting tax credits are definitionally not the same thing. It’s weird that they felt the need to conflate the two in their advertising.
In the past, Climate Power had, ironically, demanded that broadcasters “remove [] ads from the air immediately” that warned about a possible “car ban” due to emissions regulations. Climate Power’s activism was critiqued in a withering Wall Street Journal editorial board piece, which lauded “[American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers’s] public service. Mr. Biden and the climate lobby are misleading the public. There’s no reason for local broadcasters to bow to the climate lobby’s deceptions.”
Joining the Wall Street Journal were groups like Alliance for Consumers, which noted at the time that “broadcasters can and should air ads critical of the Biden Administration's EV mandates, which are being hotly debated and on the verge of being rolled back...They cannot allow the liberal dark money network to shut down debate.”
Obviously ads should not be banned unless there is a very specific legal reason to do so–Climate Power’s Axios-enabled lies are far more American than their longtime indirect benefactor, Hansjorg Wyss. However, it’s of course ironic that as the group is trying to ban “disinformation” that is obviously protected political speech, it is peddling lies in an evening newsletter.
In the same way that Alibaba can fund Axios out of the goodness of its heart, so too can Climate Power. But, as readers go about perusing Axios, they should remember who butters its bread–and recently, it’s been the Chinese Communist Party and a Swiss billionaire’s legacy project.
I’m sure Axios’s coverage of China and the environment will in no way be impacted!