Progressive YouTuber Savagely Tears Apart Taylor Lorenz’s Report on ‘Dark Money Group’ Funding Dem Influencers

Progressive YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen released a scathing rebuke to Taylor Lorenz’s Wired article, which was published this week and alleged that a “dark money group” he’s affiliated with is paying for and controlling left-leaning content online.

“At the risk of giving an internet troll more attention, I want to address a piece that Taylor Lorenz wrote yesterday for Wired,” began Tyler Cohen on Friday, before reading from the article titled, “A Dark Money Group Is Secretly Funding High-Profile Democratic Influencers.”

“‘An initiative aimed at boosting Democrats online offers influencers up to $8,000 a month to push the party line. All they have to do is keep it secret and agree to restrictions on their content.’ Literally nothing in this statement is true,” Tyler Cohen said, adding:

The article is about Chorus, which is a nonprofit that I helped found to build up a creator ecosystem, which everybody says they want, but fewer are doing. So here’s what Chorus is. It is a scholarship program to teach creators how to grow their accounts, foster engagement, launch their own shows, and become profitable on their own. It’s an incubator program to build the pro-democracy ecosystem.

Influencers and creators have never been more important when it comes to how Americans are consuming their news. The right has been doing this for years, and the left needs to catch up. That’s why we’re doing this with Chorus. So let’s talk about what Chorus is and what it’s not.

Chorus does not pay creators for content, does not tell them what to say, it does not control who they talk to or work with, and there is absolutely nothing in the contract that could even be reasonably interpreted to say that we do. Period. Full stop.

I don’t know a single creator who would willfully sign up for a program that would tell them what they can or can’t say. That’s not what this program is. We pay people to show up to workshops and technical trainings to optimize their content online. For example, we’ve got trainings on how to package content for YouTube, trainings on how to optimize audience retention for Instagram and TikTok, trainings on how to form an LLC.

Again, there are zero restrictions on their content.

After continuing to discuss what Chorus does, Tyler Cohen took apart some more claims in the article.

“There’s the implication in the article that this is some arm of the DNC, or the Democratic Party. We have literally nothing to do with the DNC. I spend zero minutes of my day thinking about the DNC. The creators do not toe any party line. How could we? There isn’t a party line!” he said.

He went on to address Lorenz personally and claimed that she is actually funded by some of the same donors who fund Chorus. He added:

Creators are absolutely allowed to speak out against the Democrats, and in fact, plenty do. And frankly, Chorus creators should and do criticize Democrats when they suck. And quite often, they do suck. I’ve seen posts saying that this is AIPAC funded, which couldn’t be further from the truth. I’d venture to guess that most Chorus creators, myself included on both YouTube and Substack, have spoken out against the atrocities in Gaza.

Lorenz says that the 16-30 Fund is, quote, “a powerful liberal dark money group.” 16-30 Fund is our fiscal sponsor. One of the largest documented donors to 16-30 Fund is the same person funding Omidyar’s Reporters in Residence program, which Taylor Lorenz herself is a part of.

And guess what her monthly stipend is? $8,000 per month. So she’s criticizing an entity that is funded by someone that she is currently taking money from. I guess it’s okay when Taylor Lorenz gets paid, but no one else.

He went on to address some of Lorenz’s comments in recent months, which have included wild attacks on Democratic Party leaders.

“There are people like Taylor Lorenz who are desperate to tear the left apart, and in fact, it becomes clear who her efforts help when you hear stuff like this,” Tyler Cohen said before showing a clip of Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson discussing Lorenz.

“Genuinely, I kind of like Taylor Lorenz because I know that she actually believes what she says,” Owens said.  Carlson replied, “I totally agree.”

“So, yeah, I generally don’t align myself with friends of Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens,” Tyler Cohen concluded.

Wired has since also added an editor’s note to Lorenz’s article, which explained some changes to the text:

Update: 8/28/2025, 7:00 PM EDT: Following the publication of this article, Graham Wilson of the Elias Law Group, whose participation in a Zoom call was reported upon, and who did not respond to WIRED’s pre-publication email requesting comment, reached out to WIRED on several points. These include whether members of the cohort can publicly talk about working with Chorus, and Chorus’s connection to Good Influence, both of which WIRED has clarified. We have also included comment from Wilson regarding Chorus placing “restrictions” on content, and whether V Spehar was included in any Chorus materials.

UPDATE: Lorenz claims that Omidyar’s Reporters in Residence program is not funded by 16-30 as Tyler Cohen claims, citing a statement from the organization.

Watch the full clip above.