Facebook co-founder launches ‘anti-monopoly fund’

For months, Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes has been warning about the dangers of corporate consolidation, even advocating for a break-up of the social-media giant where he started his career.

Now Hughes and his allies are putting money behind their calls for action, hoping to harness the heightened interest around big tech into a broader movement to analyze, regulate or dismantle behemoths in agriculture, healthcare, finance and other industries where he says a lack of competition is hurting consumers.

Hughes and the organization he co-chairs, the Economic Security Project, announced the launch of a $10 million “anti-monopoly fund.” Backed by a series of high-profile philanthropies, including the George Soros-financed Open Society Foundations and the Omidyar Network, created by a founder of eBay, the new effort aims to shine a spotlight on competition and “move the issue from the margins to the mainstream,” Hughes said in an interview.

“You don’t need a degree in economics to know corporations and the wealthy have had a heavy hand in setting a lot of economic (policy) over the past several decades,” he added.

The fund, which will invest in projects until March 2021, aims to provide financial support to a wide array of organizations. That includes academic researchers studying mergers and market power, policy advocates pursuing new rules to rein in tech and other industries, and grassroots groups that have battled bigness on the ground. The investments could serve as an early counterweight to the millions of dollars that Facebook, Google and other big businesses, well beyond tech, spend annually to furnish research in their favor and stave off regulation.

“Americans understand corporate power has gotten out of control,” Hughes said, “and a lot of (groups) are interested in organizing to push back against them.”