By Tony Romm, Craig Timberg, and Aaron C. Davis
Billionaire Reid Hoffman apologized Wednesday for funding a group linked to a “highly disturbing” effort that spread disinformation during this year’s Alabama special election for U.S. Senate, but he said he was not aware that his money was being used for this purpose.
Hoffman's statement is his first acknowledgement of his ties to a campaign that adopted tactics similar to those deployed by Russian operatives during the 2016 presidential election. In Alabama, the Hoffman-funded group allegedly used Facebook and Twitter to undermine support for Republican Roy Moore and boost Democrat Doug Jones, who narrowly won the race. Hoffman, an early Facebook investor and the co-founder of LinkedIn, expressed support for a federal investigation into what happened, echoing Jones' position from last week.
Hoffman named a group he funded, American Engagement Technologies, or AET, as being involved in the effort to spread disinformation targeting Moore. Hoffman invested $750,000 in the organization, some of which covered its work in Alabama, according to a person close to the matter but not authorized to discuss Hoffman's spending.
But the statement left key facts unaddressed, including a full accounting of everyone who crafted and executed the campaign. The effort was the subject of a presentation in September to a group of progressive technology experts who met in downtown Washington to discuss electoral tactics, according to documents from that meeting obtained by The Washington Post and one of the attendees. This person spoke on the condition of anonymity because those at the gathering were required to sign nondisclosure agreements.
In his statement, Hoffman said, "I find the tactics that have been recently reported highly disturbing. For that reason, I am embarrassed by my failure to track AET - the organization I did support - more diligently as it made its own decisions to perhaps fund projects that I would reject."
The head of the AET, former Obama administration official and Google engineer Mikey Dickerson, has not responded to numerous requests for comment.
After Hillary Clinton's defeat in 2016, Hoffman emerged as one of the most active and deep-pocketed backers of new efforts to elect Democrats. Along with donations to party candidates, Hoffman has spent millions of dollars on "dozens of organizations," he said Wednesday, including startups that seek to apply Silicon Valley's penchant for disruption to politics.
Hoffman's public apology follows news reports on the effort, known as Project Birmingham, which involved the creation of misleading Facebook pages to persuade Alabama conservatives to vote for somebody other than Moore and other online tactics that echoed Russia's attempts to spread disinformation during the 2016 presidential election and after President Donald Trump took office.
One Project Birmingham tactic created false online evidence that a network of Russian automated accounts, called bots, were supporting Moore. In his statement, Hoffman called this "the most disturbing aspect" of the disinformation effort. This and some other key details were first reported in The New York Times.
Facebook suspended at least one of the individuals involved in Project Birmingham for violating its policies against "coordinated inauthentic" behavior, as The Post first reported Saturday. Facebook said at the time its investigation is ongoing.
The revelations call into question the full scope of Hoffman’s other political investments. He pledged to review his full portfolio but showed no signs of an exit from upcoming elections