Knight Foundation, a U.S. non-profit that provides grants to businesses in the journalism, communities, and the arts sectors, has been discovered to be supporting businesses that have close ties to both the Chinese and Russian governments, a report says. It also has links to known left-wing globalist George Soros.
The foundation, which was founded 70 years ago, has been found to have over $17 million worth of investments in a Chinese Communist Party-linked investment fund and over $1.2 million in Russia Partners, the oldest and largest private equity firm that has close connections to the leaders of the Russian government.
The revelatory report comes from the National Pulse, which unearthed the financial ties between the Knight Foundation and several investments into Chinese firms.
The group continues to fund "fact-checkers" while peddling disproven conspiracy theories about the Russian influence during the 2016 Presidential Elections that named former President Donald Trump as the winner, the Pulse noted.
It also does this while claiming to "protect press freedom," while continually investing in countries where the press are "consistently ranked among the least free."
The Knight Foundation has a wide reach in universities across the United States, funding journalism-technology labs and endowing journalists in tenured positions in various universities.
However, a shocking new report reveals that the Knight Foundation has, since 2011, has invested in IDG-Accel China Capital II with upwards of $11.5 million and IDG-Accel China Growth III with $6 million.
Moreover, between 2013 and 2015, the foundation's financial disclosures listed China as its a "foreign country in which organization has financial interest." China stood out in the list of countries, which also included South Korea, Greece, Romania, Turkey, Indonesia, Brazil, Peru, and Hungary, among others.
Meanwhile, the two Chinese private equity funds are described as "making investments within China," mostly in state-run organizations.
The report also revealed how in 2011, the Knight Foundation, which according to WWD donated $140,000 to Politifact in 2015 to "educate and inform voters," had in fact retained investments with Russia Partners, a private equity fund. Two investments had been made with Russia Partners, amounting to $21 million and $1.2 million respectively.
The report on the Knight Foundation's investments is worrying as its ties to both Chinese and Russian companies show a hypocritical side to the foundation that is funding "fact-checkers" while peddling disproven lies, specifically that a Russian disinformation campaign was the reason why former President Trump won the 2016 election.
According to the report, the left-wing foundation has continued to funnel millions of dollars into operations running "fact-checkers" who use social media platforms such as Facebook and other mainstream media outlets under the guise of "combating misinformation."
More concerning is the recent news that the Knight Foundation is funneling $2.2 million of investments into nine civic projects in Philadelphia, most of which involve technology and innovation, Government Technology reported.
Knight Foundation claims that these investments are aimed at "local programs that advance equitable community development and digital innovation in city neighborhoods," through the use of AI data analytics tools.
It is yet unclear what actual tools they are to develop for the citizens of Philadelphia and how they are to impact the privacy of these people.
