The Atlantic has faced intense scrutiny in recent days for an unflattering report about former President Trump that has been declared everything from “false” to a “hit piece” by critics and even those involved with the story, and a look at the high-powered owner of the liberal publication reveals a “genuine friendship” with Vice President Kamala Harris.
Billionaire philanthropist Laurene 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.
Powell Jobs and Harris are both 60-year-old women who rose to prominence in liberal Northern California, but they have much more in common. The New York Times reported last month that Powell Jobs, who is reportedly worth north of $11 billion, is one of Harris’ “most essential confidantes” who has shelled out cash and provided counsel in order to help expand the vice president’s public profile.
“Now, in this year’s presidential race, the wealthiest woman in Silicon Valley has emerged as a powerful player behind the scenes. She has quietly contributed millions of dollars to an organization backing Ms. Harris, according to three people briefed on the gifts,” the Times reported.
Vice President Kamala Harris is extremely close with billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs, who controls The Atlantic. (Photographer: David Swanson/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“She played a hidden but key role in helping usher Mr. Biden out of the race, which cleared the way for a Harris run,” the Times continued. “Powell Jobs, who is so close to the vice president that her staff refers to her simply as ‘L.P.J.,’ is positioned to have extraordinary influence, or at least access, in a potential Harris administration.”
The Times noted that three dozen sources with “insight into their bond” believe Harris and Powell Jobs have a “genuine friendship built on a shared political philosophy, an interest in art and culture and their mutual trials as women in the public spotlight.”
When Harris was sworn into office as a United States Senator in 2017, she summoned Powell Jobs to hop into a photo alongside her family. “My extended family is here,” Harris said as she waved in Powell Jobs and other close friends, the Times reported.
Harris and Powell Jobs have gone on personal trips together, sometimes on the philanthropist’s private plane, according to the Times. Powell Jobs attended Harris’ 2014 wedding to Doug Emhoff, and Emhoff attended the wedding of Powell Jobs’ son in Hawaii earlier this year. Powell Jobs has also visited the Biden-Harris White House at least nine times, according to the Times.
Vice President Kamala Harris and Laurene Powell Jobs appeared together at the In Her Hands launch event in 2022. ( (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images))
She also attended the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where she regularly sat in an exclusive box for Harris’ friends and family.
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 earlier this year, has also opened her wallet to help elect Harris while urging others to do the same.
Powell Jobs has reportedly been urging other influential women and megadonors to support Harris, although the Times noted she likes to make “undisclosed contributions” and she has “donated millions to Future Forward’s dark-money vehicle” as friends have pondered whether she would seek a formal role in the administration if her friend prevails.
Many of her donations are undisclosed, but 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.
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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)
Fortune also put a recent spotlight on the close friendship between Powell Jobs and Harris last month with a piece that called the Atlantic honcho one of the vice president’s “biggest bankrollers.”
“Not only has Powell Jobs consistently donated to Democrats, but she’s also taken a special interest in her friend Harris. In 2023, Powell Jobs made three donations to the Biden and Harris reelection campaigns, amounting to nearly $1 million,” Fortune reported.
Powell Jobs has posted on X in support of liberal causes such as a pathway to citizenship for immigrants, various climate change initiatives and LGBTQ+ Pride, although she has been silent on the platform since it was purchased by fellow billionaire Elon Musk.
In 2017, Powell Jobs brought then-Senator Harris along for an on-stage interview with journalist Kara Swisher at the Code Conference. Swisher asked the friends if one of them would run for president in 2020, Powell Jobs said, “One of us should… I vote for her,” while pointing to Harris.
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Laurene Powell Jobs “is positioned to have extraordinary influence, or at least access, in a potential Harris administration,” according to The New York Times. (Jemal Countess / Stringer)
Seven years later, as speculation builds that Powell Jobs could be either directly involved or at least extremely influential behind-the-scenes in a potential Harris White House, her liberal news organization has found itself the center of attention with a brutal story about Trump that’s been both widely disseminated and scrutinized.
The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg penned a lengthy report published Tuesday about Trump’s interaction with the family of 20-year-old Vanessa Guillén, the daughter of Mexican immigrants who was murdered in April 2020 by a fellow soldier at Fort Hood.
After her remains were discovered two months later, Trump consoled Guillén’s family at the White House and offered to provide financial assistance to cover the funeral costs. But Goldberg reported Trump became enraged when he got the bill, refusing to pay it, saying, “It doesn’t cost 60,000 bucks to bury a f—ing Mexican!”
According to the report, Natalie Khawam, Guillén’s family attorney, told Goldberg the family did not receive money from Trump and that the costs were ultimately covered in part by the Army and donations.
Khawam has since accused The Atlantic’s Goldberg of lying. Guillén’s sister, Mayra Guillén, also blasted The Atlantic report and voiced her support for Trump.
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Jeffrey Goldberg speaks on stage during the “Nancy Pelosi on The Art of Power” panel for The Atlantic Festival 2024 on September 19, 2024 in Washington, DC. ( Jemal Countess/Getty Images for The Atlantic)
NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck, a conservative media watchdog, criticized The Atlantic as a “political laundering operation for Laurene Powell Jobs and her fellow liberal elites” to push their talking points.
“She has a vapid editor-in-chief in Jeffrey Goldberg who not only shares her worldview, but has shown himself to be the ultimate pinprick showing a ruthless arrogance,” Houck told Fox News Digital.
“If Laurene Powell Jobs told him to write a story about how Trump is good, he’d comply because that’s his role in the world,” Houck added. “The Atlantic is where White liberals go to feel like they’re still in charge and can claim they think more deeply and care more than the rubes out in real America.”
Goldberg’s Atlantic piece laid out another explosive claim in the piece that Trump had once said, “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had. People who were totally loyal to him, that follow orders,” citing two unnamed sources who allegedly heard him say it in the White House.
A spokesman for Trump called the claim “absolutely false,” telling The Atlantic, “President Trump never said this.”
The Atlantic firmly pushed back on the notion that Powell Jobs was involved in the Goldberg piece, or any editorial decisions.
“There is a strict firewall between The Atlantic’s newsroom and our business side and ownership. The editorial team operates with complete independence. Our ownership does not and has never influenced what we report or publish,” The Atlantic senior vice president of communications Anna Bross told Fox News Digital.
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Fox News contributor Joe Concha said The Atlantic’s attempt to harm Trump days before the election “has no legs.”
“It was widely disputed, including by the family involved, and this reporter has a history of engaging in Democratic activism. Remember, remember, Jeffrey Goldberg is the same so-called journalist who pushed the ‘suckers and losers’ hoax. That was in 2020, and at the time he promised more corroboration of this alleged comment by Trump would be brought forth… we’re still waiting,” Concha told Fox News Digital.
“Voters have been hearing for nine years that Trump is Hitler,” Concha added. “And, therefore, these stories don’t move the needle one bit.”
But despite the denials and harsh rebuttals, The Atlantic’s attempted takedown of Trump provided CNN and MSNBC with talking points for much of the week.
The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Emerson Collective did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Fox News Digital’s Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.