This is the concluding part of our series exploring billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar’s broad sweep of influence over global media and surveillance enterprises.\u00a0Part 1<\/a>\u00a0examined Omidyar’s use of investment to build a vast and tangled web of influence in NGOs and media outlets around the world;\u00a0Part 2<\/a>\u00a0illuminated his involvement with regime-change networks and the surveillance state.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Flinging accusations of cultism while funding the Dalai Lama<\/span><\/p>\n Since pumping $100 million into a network of news outlets, fact-checking sites, film projects and press-advocacy groups, Pierre Omidyar has emerged as one of the most quietly influential media funders in the country. All along, he has kept out of the spotlight, avoiding the scrutiny and attack campaigns that have followed other politically influential oligarchs like Jeff Bezos and George Soros.<\/p>\n Omidyar lives in Honolulu, Hawaii, far from the American mainland. From there, he courts famous gurus and wields his media empire against a Hawaiian lawmaker who has emerged as the most outspoken opponent of the national security state and its militaristic agenda.<\/p>\n The billionaire’s target is Rep. Tulsi Gabbard<\/strong>\u00a0(D-HI), a military veteran and member of Congress from Omidyar’s primary state of residence, Hawaii. Gabbard recently announced a long-shot campaign for the White House centered on mobilizing opposition to U.S. regime-change wars and interventionism.<\/p>\n Mark Ames, co-host of the\u00a0Radio War Nerd<\/em>\u00a0podcast<\/a>\u00a0and former editor of The eXile, who produced a series of investigations on Omidyar’s media activities, described the billionaire’s attacks on Gabbard as “very particular to Hawaiian politics and Omidyar’s love for the military-intelligence world. If you chart their respective political trajectories,” Ames continued, “you’ll see that Tulsi [Gabbard] has learned from her past mistakes and moved left on major issues, while Omidyar has moved gradually to the right – which is where he was already aligned overseas.”<\/p>\n This December, The Intercept published an article entitled, “Tulsi Gabbard is a rising progressive star, despite her support for Hindu nationalists.” It was one in a long series of\u00a0sharply critical pieces<\/a>\u00a0leveled at Gabbard<\/a>\u00a0by Omidyar-backed publications. Omidyar’s local Hawaiian outlet, the\u00a0Honolulu Civil Beat<\/em>, promptly\u00a0re-published<\/a>\u00a0the article.<\/p>\n This article homed in on Gabbard’s relationship with American supporters of Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India and leader of a party, the BJP, that has stoked lethally violent attacks on Muslims in the past. The article based its case partly on the arguably bigoted assertion that Gabbard had many donors with “names that are of Hindu origin.” It noted only in passing that Gabbard had recused herself from attending the 2018 World Hindu Congress, a gathering that has been criticized as a global hub of Hindu nationalism. Three weeks after publishing the article, The Intercept published an apology for “a parenthetical sentence about donations to Tulsi Gabbard from individuals with names of Hindu origin, as identified by an expert.”<\/p>\n![\"Pierre](\"https:\/\/www.sott.net\/image\/s25\/511843\/large\/94631381_edited.jpg\" "\\"Click")
<\/a><\/p>\n\u00a9 Jb Reed | Bloomberg | Editing by MintPress News<\/span>
\neBay founder Pierre Omidyar speaks at the eBay Developer\u2019s Conference in Boston, Massachusetts, Wednesday, June 13, 2007.<\/span><\/h5>\n<\/div>\n