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Dustin Moskovitz and his wife Cari Tuna are publicly mapping out a plan to give away what Forbes estimates could be as much as a $20 billion slice of the Facebook fortune, and they mean to do it on their own terms. That kind of concentrated influence—two private citizens deciding how vast sums should be spent on shaping the future—is exactly the kind of unchecked power Washington pretends to worry about but rarely constrains.
Their record shows they are not sloppy philanthropists: the couple and their vehicles have already directed billions toward global health, biosecurity and AI safety, with Forbes reporting more than $4 billion given away and hundreds of millions more committed in recent years. Money in the hands of the wealthy can be spent well, but when the people writing the checks are also the ones calling the shots on what counts as a threat or a priority, the public loses a say.
Tuna’s influence is especially notable in the world of artificial intelligence and so-called effective altruism; she steered early grants to groups like OpenAI and invested in Anthropic before AI became a household concern. Now those early bets are shaping research agendas, policy debates and even lobbying efforts aimed at regulating the technology in ways that reflect the preferences of a tiny technocratic class rather than the will of everyday Americans.
This week’s moves also reveal a shift in tactics: the philanthropic operation behind their giving has rebranded and expanded to offer advisory services to other large donors, aiming to channel more capital into areas decided by their experts. That new vehicle—announced as Coefficient Giving—formalizes a private advisory role that can steer billions more into the priorities of the effective altruism intelligentsia, further concentrating agenda-setting power in unelected hands.
Conservatives should welcome generosity, but not a system where unelected elites use philanthropy to substitute their judgment for democratic debate and the marketplace of ideas. When billionaires bankroll regulatory campaigns, research priorities and think tanks, the real question is accountability: who sets the values, who bears the costs, and who benefits from the consequences of those choices?
Hardworking Americans deserve transparency and democratic oversight of institutions that shape national security, technology and public health policy. If charity becomes a backdoor for centralized control, then lawmakers and citizens must push back—demanding clearer rules, public scrutiny, and a return to policymaking that answers to voters, not to the whims of Silicon Valley donors.
