Former Republican presidential candidate and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy purchased an activist stake in BuzzFeed, according to a May Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
Ramaswamy purchased a 7.7% stake consisting of 2.7 million shares between March 14 and May 21 at costs ranging from $1.47 to $2.51 per share, according to the filing. The businessman asserted in the filing that he feels the company’s shares are “undervalued and represent an attractive investment opportunity.”
The New York Times vehemently claims that the noncitizen voting problem is a “false narrative.” If it’s such a non-issue, it’s interesting that they’re so staunchly opposed to a bill that bans it. pic.twitter.com/o40FK6sU05
Ramaswamy “will seek to engage in a dialogue with the Issuer’s Board of Directors (the “Board”) and/or management about numerous operational and strategic opportunities to maximize shareholder value, including a shift in the Company’s strategy,” according to the filing.
Buzzfeed has been laying off employees since late 2022 as it has struggled with digital advertising, according to The Associated Press. The company closed down its BuzzFeed News in early 2023.
The company also recently reported a loss of $35.7 million in the first quarter of 2024 as advertising revenue plunged 22%, according to the AP.
“It’s an interesting bet,” an individual who is close to Ramaswamy told Mediaite. “Vivek, the anti-woke warrior, buying a material stake in one of America’s most woke media entities would signal to this long time investor that he intends to make it a free speech platform … If he turns it around financially, he would have serious street cred for another conservative political move.”
Ramaswamy in January suspended his presidential campaign and endorsed former President Donald Trump as the 2024 Republican nominee. The businessman also recently visited Trump at the New York courthouse where he is currently on trial.
“The most remarkable part was the one thing you get from being in that courtroom is a sense of the depressing atmosphere, which matches the depressing nature of what’s happening in there. It’s sort of like a concrete poem for the decline of America, actually. You get like a third-world visual, atmospheric courtroom, open wires sticking out, temperature regulation nonexistent, stuffy air a thick scent. And in the same place is happening. It’s not just third-world atmospherics, but a third-world proceeding,” Ramaswamy told the Daily Caller.
Online news outlet The Messenger shut down in January after less than a year of operations; the outlet started out with $50 million in May 2023, but it was hemorrhaging tens of millions of dollars while only taking in about $3 million in revenue last year. The Washington Post planned to eliminate roughly 240 jobs as of December 2023 amid its financial struggles and NPR has similarly been laying off workers since 2022.
BuzzFeed and Ramaswamy did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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2016 image provided by Misti Leon, left, sits with her mom, Juliana Leon. Misti Leon is suing several oil and gas companies in one of the first wrongful-death claims in the U.S. seeking to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for its role in the changing climate.
They twist yesterday’s weather into tomorrow’s crisis, peddle apocalyptic forecasts that fizzle, and swap “global warming” for “climate change” whenever the narrative demands. They sound the alarm on a so-called climate emergency — again and again.
Now, the Left has plunged to a new low: weaponizing the courts with a lawsuit in Washington State that marks a brazen, desperate escalation. This isn’t just legal maneuvering—it’s the exploitation of personal tragedy in service of an unpopular anti-energy climate crusade.
Consider the case at the center of a new legal circus: Juliana Leon, 65, tragically died of hyperthermia during a 100-mile drive in a car with broken air conditioning, as a brutal heat wave pushed temperatures to 108 degrees Fahrenheit.
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The lawsuit leaps from this heartbreaking event to a sweeping claim: that a single hot day is the direct result of global warming.
The lawsuit preposterously links a very specific hot weather event to theorized global warming. Buckle up—their logic is about to take a wild ride.
Some activist scientists have further speculated that what may be a gradual long-term trend of slight warming thought to be both cyclical and natural, might be possibly exacerbated by the release of greenhouse gases. Some of these releases are the result of volcanic activity while some comes from human activities, including the burning of oil, natural gas and coal.
Grabbing onto that last, unproven thread, the plaintiffs have zeroed in on a handful of energy giants—BP, Chevron, Conoco, Exxon, Phillips 66, Shell, and the Olympic Pipe Company—accusing them of causing Leon’s death. Apparently, these few companies are to blame for the entire planet’s climate, while other oil giants, coal companies, and the billions of consumers who actually use these fuels get a free pass.
Meanwhile, “climate journalists” in the legacy media have ignored key details that will surely surface in court. Leon made her journey in a car with no air conditioning, despite forecasts warning of dangerous heat. She was returning from a doctor’s visit, having just been cleared to eat solid food after recent bariatric surgery.
But let’s be clear: this lawsuit isn’t about truth, justice, or even common sense. It’s lawfare, plain and simple.
Environmental extremists are using the courts to hijack national energy policy, aiming to force through a radical agenda they could never pass in Congress. A courtroom win would mean higher energy prices for everyone, the potential bankruptcy of energy companies, or their takeover by the so-called green industrial complex. For the trial lawyers, these cases are gold mines, with contingency fees that could reach hundreds of millions.
Earlier this year, a Pennsylvania judge threw out a climate nuisance suit against oil producers brought by Bucks County, citing lack of jurisdiction. In New York, Supreme Court Justice Anar Patel dismissed a massive climate lawsuit by New York City, pointing out the city couldn’t claim both public awareness and deception by oil companies in the same breath.
But the Washington State case goes even further, threatening to set a dangerous precedent: if it moves forward, energy companies could face limitless liability for any weather-related injury. Worse, it would give unwarranted credibility to the idea — floated by a leftwing activist before the U.S. Senate — that energy executives could be prosecuted for homicide, a notion that Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz rightly called “moonbeam, wacky theory.”
The courts must keep rejecting these absurd lawfare stunts. More importantly, America’s energy policy should be set by Congress—elected and accountable—not by a single judge in a municipal courtroom.
Jason Isaac is the founder and CEO of the American Energy Institute. He previously served four terms in the Texas House of Representatives.
President Donald Trump on Saturday said he will impose 30% tariffs on imported goods from the European Union and Mexico in his latest move to balance trade between the U.S. and other countries.
The tariffs are set to go into effect Aug. 1.
Saturday’s announcement comes a day after the U.S. Department of Treasury released a report Friday showing that tariff revenue helped revenue in the month of June exceed expenses by $27 billion.
“We have had years to discuss our Trading Relationship with The European Union, and we have concluded we must move away from these long-term, large, and persistent, Trade Deficits, engendered by your Tariff, and Non-Tariff, Policies, and Trade Barriers,” Trump wrote in the letter to the EU and posted on his Truth Social account. “Our relationship has been, unfortunately, far from Reciprocal.”
The 30% tariff on EU goods is higher than expected. EU trade ministers are scheduled to meet Monday and could agree to increase tariffs on U.S. goods as retaliation.
In his letter to Mexico, Trump said the U.S. neighbor to the south has helped stem the flow of illegal narcotics and people from entering the country but added that it needed to do more to prevent North America from being a “Narco-Trafficking Playground.”
Earlier in the week, Trump announced new tariffs on several other countries, including 20% tariffs on imports from the Philippines; 25% on Brunei and Moldova; 30% on Algeria, Iraq and Libya; and 50% on Brazil.
All of the new tariffs announced this week are scheduled to go into effect Aug. 1.
• The Center Square reporters Therese Boudreaux and Andrew Rice contributed to this report.
