Dustin Moskovitz

Dustin Moskovitz is the quietest of the Facebook billionaires and arguably the most ideologically pure mega-donor on the Democratic side. The Facebook co-founder — who roomed with Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard and served as the company's first CTO — has channeled his $12 billion fortune into a distinctive combination of effective altruism philosophy, Democratic politics, and global philanthropy that sets him apart from donors driven by financial self-interest. Born in Gainesville, Florida in 1984, Moskovitz was a sophomore at Harvard when he helped Zuckerberg build Facebook in their dorm room. He left Harvard to work full-time at Facebook, becoming its VP of Engineering and overseeing the company's rapid growth. He left Facebook in 2008 at age 24 to co-found Asana, a work management software company that went public in 2020. But it was his Facebook shares that made him a billionaire many times over — at one point, he was the youngest self-made billionaire in the world. With his wife Cari Tuna, Moskovitz founded Good Ventures and partnered with GiveWell to create Open Philanthropy, an organization dedicated to effective altruism — the philosophy of using evidence and reason to determine the most effective ways to improve the world. Open Philanthropy has given hundreds of millions to causes like pandemic preparedness, AI safety, farm animal welfare, and criminal justice reform. His political giving, while substantial ($40 million in 2024, $100 million career), is remarkably low on the quid pro quo scale. He doesn't run companies that depend on government contracts. He doesn't lobby for deregulation. His portfolio doesn't benefit from the candidates he funds in any obvious way. He gives to Future Forward PAC and Democratic candidates because he genuinely believes progressive governance produces better outcomes — a position informed by his effective altruist framework. This makes Moskovitz unusual: most mega-donors, whether they admit it or not, are buying access, influence, or regulatory outcomes. Moskovitz appears to be buying policy — specifically, policies around pandemic preparedness, AI safety, and climate change that he believes will improve long-term human welfare. His Open Philanthropy grants have funded biosecurity research, AI alignment labs, and global health interventions. The contradictions are modest but real. His wealth derives from Facebook/Meta, a company facing massive regulatory scrutiny. His effective altruist philosophy was damaged by association with Sam Bankman-Fried, who claimed to be an effective altruist while committing fraud at FTX. And Open Philanthropy's enormous grants to academic researchers and policy groups give it influence over the intellectual landscape in ways that raise questions about philanthropic power. But in a political landscape dominated by donors seeking tax breaks, government contracts, and deregulation, Moskovitz stands out as something rare: a billionaire who appears to be spending his money on what he actually believes in, rather than what will make him richer.