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Laurene Powell Jobs, the billionaire owner of The Atlantic, hosted "activists and left-leaning media members" last week to discuss "how the left’s well-funded digital media ecosystem failed in the 2024 election," according to a new report.
"After months of licking their wounds and reflecting on how they lost the internet, Democratic strategists and politically-aligned digital creators are privately planning their next steps," Semafor’s Max Tani wrote, citing "three people with knowledge of the event."
Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple visionary Steve Jobs and one of the wealthiest people on earth, owns the Emerson Collective, which purchased a majority of The Atlantic in 2017. Last year, The New York Times reported that she is one of former Vice President Kamala Harris’ "most essential confidantes."
Vice President Kamala Harris is extremely close with billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs, who controls The Atlantic. (Photographer: David Swanson/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Tara McGowan, whose Courier Newsroom has long been tied to a multibillion-dollar left-wing dark money operation and often runs "news stories" that appear to be little more than Democratic Party talking points, briefed participants. So did executives at Crooked Media, a company founded by former Obama administration staffers, according to Semafor.
"The summit was also an opportunity to connect several of the party’s prominent financial supporters with some of the liberal media organizations that are positioning themselves as vessels to help liberals regain digital ground they’ve lost to the right in recent years," Tani wrote.
State and Local Political Affairs for Emerson Collective director Ben Wessel, Catalis executive Laura Quinn and Soros Fund Management investor Michael Del Nin were also reportedly in attendance.
"Democrats have been on a monthslong party-wide effort to figure out how to regain credibility in digital, or at least develop their own network of friendly pundits and creators outside legacy media who can effectively deliver their message," Tani wrote.
"In the months since the election, Democrats have been beating themselves up over how they went from online dominance in the Obama era to playing catch-up; the online right is resurgent, especially in the podcast space, where many Americans now get their information and news," he added. "The initial shock of the presidential loss has been heightened by other frustrations among Democrats at their party’s superficially slow and unsatisfying response to Trump and Musk’s shock-and awe-changes to the federal government."
Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, inherited her husband’s multibillion-dollar fortune after the visionary’s death in 2011. (John Nacion / Contributor)
The Atlantic did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
Powell Jobs, who was married to Steve Jobs from 1991 until his death in 2011 and paid roughly $70 million for the most expensive home in San Francisco last year, opened her wallet to unsuccessfully help elect Harris while urging others to do the same.
Fortune also put a recent spotlight on the close friendship between Powell Jobs and Harris last year with a piece that called the Atlantic honcho one of the vice president’s "biggest bankrollers."
Powell Jobs has openly donated to a plethora of high-profile Democrats over the years, including Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Barbara Boxer, Andrew Cuomo, Gavin Newsom, Beto O’Rourke, Kirsten Gillibrand, Tammy Duckworth, Dianne Feinstein, Elizabeth Warren, Kathleen Hochul, Cory Booker, Andrew Gillum, Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi, in addition to Harris, and groups such as Planned Parenthood, according to Open Secrets.
Brian Flood is a media editor/reporter for FOX News Digital. Story tips can be sent to
