Time

In the last few years, McCourt has turned his focus to social media, which he says has deeply exacerbated many of the world’s problems. “The economy, inflation, abortion, immigration, democracy: If you step away from all those issues, what drives viewpoints and opinions and perspectives on them is social media,” he says. “It’s going to be very, very hard to solve these big, important societal issues if we can’t have a coherent conversation about them. And our current use of social media currently is not designed to optimize for truth or a shared set of facts.”

McCourt has already committed $150 million of his own money to Project Liberty, and says that ultimately “billions of dollars” will be needed for the effort to effect lasting change. In an interview, he declared his intention to spend 90% of his working time on Project Liberty and 10% on McCourt Global, as opposed to the other way around. “This is a big shift in my focus, but it demonstrates the importance of Project Liberty to me,” he says.