Chris Pavlovski, the CEO of the Canadian video-sharing platform Rumble, has made wildly popular podcaster Joe Rogan an offer of $100 million to move from Spotify.
The Rumble chief posted the offer letter to the company’s Twitter account Monday.
“We stand with you, your guests and your legion of fans in desire for real conversation. … How about you bring all your shows to Rumble, both new and old, with no censorship, for $100 million bucks over four years?” he wrote. “This is our chance to save the world. And yes, this is totally legit.”
Rumble is billed as an ‘anti-cancel culture’ platform and was launched as an alternative to YouTube in 2013.
Dan Bongino, Stephen Crowder and Steve Bannon are amongst those with shows hosted by the platform. Rumble recently made headlines by striking a deal with Truth Social, the social media app being launched by former President Donald Trump.
The offer to Rogan follows criticism of Spotify for pulling roughly 70 episodes of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast from its platform amidst controversy about the podcaster interviewing guests critical of Covid lockdowns and vaccines.
However, the Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said in the past week that Spotify would not cancel Rogan.
“I want to make one point very clear — I do not believe that silencing Joe is the answer,” Ek wrote in an email to Spotify staff. “We should have clear lines around content and take action when they are crossed, but canceling voices is a slippery slope. … While some might want us to pursue a different path, I believe that more speech on more issues can be highly effective in improving the status quo and enhancing the conversation altogether,” he said.
Rumble has received backing from billionaire Peter Thiel and Hillbilly Elegy author and GOP Senate candidate J.D. Vance.
Today Thiel also announced he was leaving the board of Meta, Facebook’s parent company, with rumours that he intends to work with Republicans who support “the agenda of former president Donald Trump”.