Former Facebook Vice President Chamath Palihapitiya doesn’t care about genocide — at least, as long as it’s a wealthy country he does business with committing the genocide.
“Nobody cares about what’s happening to the Uyghurs, OK?” Palihapitiya said on his own podcast. “Of all the things I care about, yes, it’s below my line.”
Palihapitiya is currently the CEO of a Silicon Valley-based venture capital fund called “Social Capital,” and, more importantly, owns a minority stake in the NBA basketball team, the Golden State Warriors.
A Canadian and then U.S. immigrant, Palihapitiya became a billionaire while overseeing Facebook’s international user growth,
which has done very well in countries like Myanmar that use the website to help commit human rights abuses
.
But Palihapitiya doesn’t care about human rights abuses in other countries. He only cares about the citizens of his adopted country, the United States. “I care about America’s crippling, and, you know, decrepit healthcare infrastructure,” Palihapitiya said on the same podcast. “But if you’re asking me, do I care about a segment of a class of people in another country? Not until we take care of ourselves will I prioritize them over us.”
Palihapitiya’s exclusive concern for the well-being of American citizens is quite surprising, considering he is a co-founder of FWD.us, a lobbying group devoted to increasing immigration, particularly H-1B visa immigration. H1-B is a favorite program of tech companies that like to import foreign workers and pay them significantly less than American workers with the same skills.
In fact, Facebook was recently forced to pay the largest fine ever collected by the Justice Department’s civil rights division for violating the Immigration and Nationality Act’s anti-discrimination provisions. The Justice Department had accused Facebook of intentionally favoring cheaper international workers over American workers when filling more than 2,600 jobs.
So sure, Palihapitiya doesn’t care what happens to “a segment of a class of people in another country” — unless those people can make him money. At that point, his newfound loyalty to his new countrymen instantly evaporates, and he is all for pushing them aside for cheaper foreign replacements.
At least Palihapitiya,
who gave $250,000 to President Joe Biden’s campaign
, is now on the record.
