Owned looks at former left wing journalists like Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi while documenting their right wing shift. I think this book was written a bit too early due to certain current events (Elon Musk) as well as how surface level it felt at times. I wish more time was spent on reactionary centrism and how the journalists as well as right wing billionaires appeal to them.

The focus of this book is the rightward turns of "journalists" Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, and Barri Weiss. Th author successfully layers evidence and the subjects' own words to show that they are in fact "owned" by the tech billionaires who are funding this 'New Right' movement. These billionaires include Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and Mark Andreessen.

What can we do? At this point, it will take a large societal shift away from giving power to billionaires and that does not look promising.

I remember Glenn Greenwood from his role in the famous Snowden leak, so I was shocked to learn of his conservative turn. That's why this book piqued my interest, but I found it a bit disappointing. Sure, there are some interesting facts about the connections between the media and tech moguls (yes, Elon Musk included) described here, but it's a bit chaotic and not very engaging. And the process of radicalization itself is much better analyzed in Naomi Klein's brilliantly insightful "Doppelgänger".

Thanks to the publisher, PublicAffairs, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.

This is a difficult book to review. The tag line to this title had me immediately interested, particularly after tech billionaires have become so ridiculously in line with this current administration. What I didn't realize was that this book was going to focus so heavily on specific writers and their turn to the right. Looking at the book's description now, I can see that this was an error on my part. The writers focused on are Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi - two writers who I have honestly never heard of before. Higgins interviewed Greenwald for the book it seems, so at least it does feel like a fair take on him. Taibbi refused to comment for the book (understandably so). Higgins also used to work with Greenwald, so this felt a bit like an exploration that felt very personal to Higgins. My issue is that, because I didn't know them before, I needed more introuction. I feel like the background on Greenwald and Taibbi's left-ness was very short and the focus on their right-ness was very long. There was also not as much explanation on the "How" tech billionaires bought the writers' views, and just an explanation of what happened. Also, both writers had moments of being criticized by the left that turned them against their former audiences - things that go against the thesis that they were purely bought. My initial take after finishing this was to give it 4 stars, but after thinking about it, it much more deserves 3.

Thank you to PublicAffairs and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The book is a micro-biography of two journalists, Glen Greenwald and Matt Taibbi, and a nano-biography of silicon svengali-i Peter Thiel and Mark Andreessen. The book focuses on their rightward shift, including questioning whether it is a shift, but what stands out by the end of the book is the eeriness. How does someone like Greenwald, who bust open a legitimate government conspiracy, end up now doing laundry for chemtrails-grade conspiracy-advocates?

The standout here is the author's journalistic effort. He tries to let the principals speak for themselves, especially Greenwald, who to Greenwald's credit seems to have engaged in an extensive, candid, and far ranging interview with the author. Taibbi seems to have told him to **** off; first briefly, then at length. The author is plain about when they are right, not just in their careers before the flop, but also afterwards, and when the author feels that they have been maligned unfairly on some point at any time. This applies more generally in the author's treatment of his sources. He is clear about his own feelings on the matter, but tries to get out of the way and let the people's words work for themselves. Decent reporting: who knew it could still get you published?

The weakness of the book is necessitated by its brevity. There are a few topics - Russian attempts at U.S. election interference, the status of free speech rights in the U.S., and the curated releases from Musk about Twitter policy are the standouts - where the author is too summary, and relevant context is elided. I also expected more about the reactionary centrist infrastructure. (remember when this was a joke?) and figuring it into the context of these journalists and crypto-monarchist finance.

I liked the book less at its start. Parts feel aimless, or without any sort of theory. I wondered if this book is too soon to write, that we need more perspective to reach consensus on what the ****. But a thesis starts to resolve, which is how the inclusion of the tech conservatives matters. Yet it is not the one promised by the subtitle, which takes the book away from a tepid go at salacious exposé and into challenging content. Is this personality? Or is this politics?

The book presents both arguments, resolving its own answer in a sort of lateral approach that would be cowardly if it were not functional. The shocking part is that the personally-based argument comes off as colorable. Particularly across the reach of their biographies, the Greenwald and Taibbi come of as useful assholes, pseudo-contrarians who are capable of providing social good if pointed away from user. They are not even in it for the money, but who are people doing that one thing they are best at: playing knight and being as expert agents of the post-information age itself.

Oh, and who think that trans people are icky.

The same operable thesis works for the billionaires as well, (including the Fear of a Queer Planet). For all the ideological notions, Thiel and Andreessen come off as 'what if Amy Dunne got into D&D' enacting trivial revenge at a Enlightenment-busting scale, the distinction being that Greenburg & Taibbi swim in the water that Thiel and Anderseen drown.

There is a lot to say on the topic, all of which extends past the scope of a review. And that is why this is a good book. It has a solid basis in interesting and well-reported information. It has structural flaws, mostly related to context. It is mis-subtitled. But it is a detailed discussion prompt to a topic of immediate international importance.

My thanks to the author, Eoin Higgins, for writing the book and to the publisher, Bold Type Books, for making the ARC available to me.

Thank you, PublicAffairs, for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I just finished Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left, by Eoin Higgins.

This book will be released on February 4, 2025.

This book examines former liberal online writers, Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi, who have subsequently turned into right-wingers. The book discusses how they were lured by the amount of money they could make by switching sides and also how their transition was also triggered by some petty disputes.

While there was an occassional story in the book, mostly it just wasn’t that interesting. It could have been something that worked better as a set of online articles than as a full book.

I give this book a C. Goodreads and NetGalley require grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, a C equates to 2 stars. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).

This review has been posted at NetGalley, Goodreads and my blog, Mr. Book’s Book Reviews

I finished reading this on September 30, 2024.