What is David Brooks' net worth? NYT columnist's controversial project is funded by Facebook and Jeff Bezos' dad
David Brooks, well known for his work as a New York Times columnist reportedly has a "second salary" for the work he's done on 'Weave: The Social Fabric Project' for The Aspen Institute. The project is reportedly funded by Facebook and Jeff Bezos' father Miguel Bezos, among other big-time donors. However, this information was not present in the columns Brooks wrote. There is no indication as to whether it was known to the paper that Brooks had another salary coming in for Weave – a project he leads.
A report by BuzzFeed News confirmed that a Times spokesperson refused to reveal what the company knows or if they know Weave took money from Facebook. The publication revealed that back in December 2018, Facebook had "earmarked" a gift of $250,000 to the Institute for the project. It wasn't until three months later that Time readers were "introduced" to "Weavers". As per Eileen Murphy, the Times spokesperson, Brooks did not inform editors of the paper that he was writing for Facebook. “David’s editors were not aware of the blog post or panel discussion, and they are discussing with him now what additional steps he might take to make sure that his work with the Weave project doesn't create any appearance of conflicts with his Times journalism,” said Murphy.
Brooks reportedly describes this to be "people who fight social isolation by 'building community and weaving the social fabric' across the US." It is also public news that when Brooks has written about Weave quite a few times, he's also mentioned Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder, and the company's products – he had revealed nothing about how Facebook and Weave were somehow financially linked. Last Friday, Brooks had also written a blog post for the social media giant's corporate website.
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How did Facebook and Jeff Bezos' father fund Weave?
As per BuzzFeed News, Brooks reportedly started to work on Weave in May of 2018, where they received just over $1.3 million from donors such as Resnick Family Foundation, the Robert K. Steel Family Foundation and the James Schine Crown, an Aspen Institute trustee who sits on the boards of General Dynamics Corporation and JPMorgan Chase. But, Weave has a single large donation worth $300,000, which came from Amazon's Founder Jeff Bezos's father Miguel Bezos, who is also an Institute trustee. The publication further mentioned that Facebook's previously mentioned $250,000 had come before 2018 ended, but was not part of the transparency report released by the Institute who has said that Weave had not received any more money from Facebook since.
While the media and those reading the news wonder if Brooks poses to be a conflict of interest in what he's chosen to not disclose, many are also wondering how much the columnist is worth at this point?
What is David Brooks' net worth?
Brooks, who is a Canadian-born American journalist, is also a cultural and political commentator. Described to be a "moderate conservative", he is well known for his columns in The New York Times since the year 2003 and his work as a political analyst for PBS NewsHour since 2004. After growing up in the Big Apple and Pennsylvania, Brooks graduated from the University of Chicago in the year 1983 with a Bachelor of Arts in History. Britannica reveals that the columnist's media career began as a police reporter for the City News Bureau in Chicago - he later joined the Washington Times in 1984 working on editorials and film reviews. In the year 1986, Brooks joined The Wall Street Journal where he worked as an editor and film critic. Towards the end of his work with The Wall Street Journal in 1994, he was the editor of the paper's opinion page. His career moved forward by the year by this point, and in 1995 Brooks became the senior editor at The Weekly Standard before in 2003 he started writing got The New York Times, and the year after saw him working as a commentator for PBS.
Adding to his impressive skill of writing, Brooks has also written articles for big names such as The Atlantic Monthly and his other editing works include the anthology, 'Backward and Upward: The New Conservative Writing' (1996), 'Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There' (2000), 'The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement' (2011) and others. Since the news of him having a second salary is just recent news, there is no news on how much he makes on that front. But according to reports, Brook's net worth is about a whopping $20 million as of 2021.