Summary Of Dark Money By Jane Mayer

“Dark Money,” is written by Jane Mayer who has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1995. Jane Mayer is well known, not only for the amazing job she did on Dark Money, but also for her book, “The Dark Side: The Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals.” Furthermore, she has received a plethora of awards pertaining to her literary writings and is well renowned in her field. Dark Money begins by introducing the Koch family, a hyper liberal, very anti-communist, and incredibly wealthy family. The Koch family came about their wealth through the willingness of family patriarch, Fred Chase Koch, to assist the U.S.S.R. in developing the country's oil, building their refineries, and essentially fueling the war campaigns

At a young age Charles and David Koch, primarily Charles, had already decided that they wanted ultimate control of their father's company and would do virtually anything to attain it. Furthermore, with already corrupted family values Charles and David drove a wedge between themselves and their two other brothers, Frederick and Bill. In fact, Mayer articulates a source revealed that, “Charles and David tried to force their older brother Frederick, who they believed was gay, to relinquish his claim to a share of the family company, or else they threatened to expose his private life to their father.” (Mayer, 47) This was the beginning of the end for Charles and Frederick's relationship, and the start of the Koch brothers’ term oil, as in 1980, “Bill, with the assistance from Fred, attempted to wrest control of the company from Charles, who ran it with an ‘iron hand,’...” ( This resulted in the firing of their brother Bill by the company's board and paved the way for Charles and David to buy out their brothers share in the company. Moreover, in 1983 Charles and David succeeded in acquiring the entirety of their brothers shares for approximately 1.1 billion dollars. However, Bill and Fred entered years of battle in court with their brothers under the belief that their brothers undersold the company to them when buying their shares. The main focus for this was The Pine Bend Refinery which was the company's single largest producer of crude oil. Consequently, Frederick, “...Refused to speak to Charles for the rest of his life,” and took Bill decades to gradually rebuild his relationship with his brothers. In fact, Mayer goes on to mention that, “Charles went to great lengths to ensure that neither his brothers nor anyone else could challenge his personal control of the family