Dustin Moskovitz, the Facebook co-founder turned Democratic megadonor, has funneled nearly half a billion dollars into activist groups that farmers say have helped push meat, egg and pork prices higher for American families, even as his foundation holds an $89 million stake in a plant-based meat rival.
Dustin Moskovitz likes to eat meat. He has said so publicly. But since 2016, the Facebook co-founder has funneled more than $480 million through his nonprofit Coefficient Giving into a network of activist groups working to make it harder and more expensive to raise animal food, according to a New York Post investigation.
The recipients read like a who's who of the animal-rights lobby. The Humane League has collected $94.5 million. Mercy For Animals has taken in $38.7 million. Compassion in World Farming has received $27 million. The Good Food Institute, which promotes lab-grown and plant-based meat substitutes, has pulled in $32.5 million. Anima International has gotten $21.1 million more.
Farmers and industry sources told the Post the money has bankrolled ballot measures, corporate pressure campaigns, lawsuits and media pushes aimed squarely at conventional livestock operations. They say the cumulative effect has been to squeeze the supply chains that keep bacon, eggs and pork chops affordable, adding costs that eventually land on grocery store shelves.
Here is the part that should raise eyebrows. Moskovitz and his wife Cari Tuna, through their foundation Good Ventures, hold a stake in Impossible Foods worth nearly $89 million, according to the Post's reporting. Impossible Foods is a plant-based meat company. It competes directly with the traditional meat industry that Moskovitz's grant money has spent a decade pressuring.
When cage-free egg mandates raise costs for conventional egg producers, or when corporate pledges squeezed out of pork suppliers by activist campaigns raise production costs, the beneficiary isn't just animal welfare. It's also, quite literally, a company Moskovitz has a direct financial interest in seeing succeed. A man who says he enjoys a hamburger is bankrolling the campaign that makes the alternative to that hamburger relatively cheaper.
Coefficient Giving, formerly known as Open Philanthropy, is the vehicle for this spending. Moskovitz and Tuna are its primary funders. The group has increasingly focused on what it calls factory farming reform, treating it as a moral cause on par with global health initiatives. Nobody disputes that Moskovitz is entitled to spend his fortune as he pleases. What deserves scrutiny is the gap between the stated mission of reducing animal suffering and the financial reality of a portfolio that profits when meat gets more expensive.
Working families feel it at the register
American grocery bills have not been kind to working families over the past several years. Egg prices spiked dramatically in 2025 amid avian flu outbreaks, and meat prices have climbed steadily as well, forcing households to make hard choices at the checkout line. Industry sources cited by the Post argue that activist-driven regulatory changes, from state ballot initiatives dictating cage sizes to corporate pledges extracted through boycott threats, have compounded those pressures rather than eased them.
None of this shows up on a receipt as a line item. Nobody sees
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