A billionaire crypto founder and the former head of the Sierra Club are bragging about running a coordinated campaign of deception and massive spending to manipulate Republican voters and punish conservatives who stand against the climate agenda.

Their biggest target? Rep. Chip Roy.

In a shocking podcast recorded at the elite climate gathering, the Prelude Climate Summit, Chris Larsen and Michael Brune, founders of the “Clean Break Fund”, laid out their subversive strategy to impose the climate change agenda on conservatives through deceptive infiltration. The idea is to break away from failed tactics such as ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) and embrace conservative-friendly messaging -such as religion- to manipulate Republicans to get on board.

The aggressive tactics on display – massive super PAC spending, deceptive attack ads, punishing opponents, and infiltrating the opposition – were not invented for climate. Chris Larsen openly admitted that they were imported directly from the crypto industry’s highly successful Fairshake super PAC, which spent hundreds of millions of dollars to turn crypto from a regulatory target into a political kingmaker in a single cycle. According to Larsen, the same bare-knuckle playbook is now being actively used by the AI industry’s on super PAC, “Leading the Future” – a group not associated with Larsen – which has raised over $100 million to punish politicians who want stronger AI regulation, particularly at the state level. Now, Larsen and Brune are openly applying these proven political warfare methods to the climate fight.

Larsen and Brune did not hide their contempt for Republicans who resist massive government climate spending. Instead, they openly celebrate tactics that mirror military operations: identifying “enemies,” dropping millions to take out opponents, engaging in “political combat” and “political warfare” and openly posing as MAGA supporters to deceive conservative voters.

“I mean, obviously that [ESG] was a total failure,” Larsen explains. He continues:

“We tried to load up the environmental stuff with a bunch of social and governance work that was like every Republican’s kind of worst nightmare…that climate was a Trojan horse to bring in all these lefty ideas and we have to stop doing that. I even think we have to stop talking about equity and sustainability,” he continued.

The scheme involves getting rid of failed tactics like ESG, while manipulating the right through existing organizations. Larsen explains:

“We’re putting a lot of resources into groups like Clear Path, the Evangelical Environmental Network. American Conservation Coalition is another group that we support.”

These organizations present themselves as conservative voices on energy and the environment, but they are not rooted in traditional conservative institutions or principles. Instead, they have spent years attempting to gain entry into Republican and evangelical circles.

Notably, this is not a new phenomenon. In 2021, the Capital Research Center (CRC) warned about what they referred to as the “Eco-Right” in an 84-page report. The CRC described them as “…those lobbying, litigation, and activist nonprofits that identify themselves as free market or broadly right-of-center and yet are attempting to rebrand environmentalism and global warming ideology as conservative values.”

With major new funding from Chris Larsen’s Clean Break Fund (and other leftist organizations such as the deep-pocketed William and Flora Hewlett Foundation [see here, here and here], the Bill Gates-linked Breakthrough Energy, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation [see here and here], and others), these groups have received a significant new lease on life and expanded resources to push climate policies inside conservative spaces.

Even as they deploy attack ads and primary challenges, Larsen and Brune openly discuss the need for more subtle, subversive messaging to pull conservatives into their orbit. Larsen explained their preferred framing:

“Number one: We talk about climate as a cost thing – cost, cost, cost.”

He also wants the climate movement to be perceived as “tough – a lot tougher than now – and able to fight these battles on equal footing.” Brune outlined their definition of victory: candidates in both parties talking about climate and energy issues in ways that are effective with their own voters – “whether they mention ‘climate’ or talk about the cost of extreme weather, accountability for major emitters, or impacts on air and water.” In practice, this means deliberately softening or disguising the agenda with rhetoric designed to make it more palatable to Republican audiences, while still advancing the same underlying policy goals.

In addition to softening up conservatives to embrace the deep-pocketed climate lobby narratives, Chris Larsen and Michael Brune’s scheme includes throwing millions into races to take down anyone who gets in their way. Part of this subterfuge includes funding establishment Republicans against their conservative opponents.

Posing as MAGA to Destroy Chip Roy

Chris Larsen explained that their prime target is Texas Congressman Chip Roy, who Larsen referred to as “the biggest enemy for solar in Congress”. The actions taken against Chip Roy were foreshadowed by co-host Jigar Shah on the same podcast in March. Shah declared “…we’re going to make sure that Chip Roy never has a life in politics again.”

Larsen and his allies funded the group Invest in Tomorrow Coalition PAC to run aggressive attack ads in the Texas Republican primary.

Crucially, these ads contained zero mention of climate change. Instead, they attacked Chip Roy from a fake MAGA perspective. Larsen embraced the deliberate deception:

“If this is political warfare, you talk about what works. You talk about what’s going to take out that person. So that’s what we’re trying to do here as well… These are MAGA voters… Chip Roy was the biggest enemy for solar in Congress in the last year. There has to be a consequence to that.”

Watch the damning clip, which features an advertisement funded by the subversive PAC:

The ad attacked Roy for not being loyal enough to Trump and MAGA, despite Roy’s long conservative record and the fact that he authored the SAVE America Act, which President Trump has made his signature election integrity legislation. This is classic deception: left-aligned big money pretending to be grassroots conservatives to deceive Trump supporters into defeating one of their own.

Michael Brune demanded more of this aggression. He asked the podcast audience directly:

“What kind of political catastrophe are you waiting for? What would it take for you to actually engage in political fights?”

Brune revealed that solar developers approached them to launch these attacks after Roy led efforts against IRA incentives:

“And so when we were approached by a number of solar developers to say, ‘we’ve got to at least mount a campaign against the biggest architect of all [Chip Roy] of the roll backs for clean energy incentives. There has to be some consequence.’ We couldn’t say no to that because there has to be some consequence.

The Invest in Tomorrow Coalition PAC posted an image of an illuminated billboard gloating over Chip Roy’s loss in the Texas Primary. A website is displayed, which leads to $40.00 tumblers and other merchandise.

The same X account posted an obnoxious message taking credit for Chip Roy’s loss:

These “political warfare” tactics appear to be the preferred new direction for the climate lobby, who has already raped the American taxpayer through the Inflation Reduction Act.

Democrat strategist Chris Moyer stated:

“The industry can’t waste another moment in building political power and understanding how to play hardball, how to instill fear, so that anyone who thinks of crossing them when it comes to an important vote thinks twice and knows that there will be political repercussions if they do.”

Peter Davidson, CEO of Aligned Climate Capital “launched the Invest in Tomorrow Coalition PAC”. He has been vocal against the Freedom Caucus for working to sunset the tax credits.

The ‘Red Roots’ of the ‘Green New Scam’

It is clear to see how Chip Roy was a threat to the Inflation Reduction Act gravy train. “The Inflation Reduction Act, better known as the Green New Scam, is providing massive unlimited subsidies to billion dollar corporations and Chinese manufacturers to the detriment of American energy freedom and dominance,” Rep. Roy stated.

Not only was Chip Roy against the IRA from the beginning, he has vocally called for it to be repealed:

“It [the IRA] is responsible for building ineffective, unattractive, and unwanted energy projects enriching paper investors over the objections of the people living in Texas communities I represent. These subsidies need to go away immediately. If Republicans want to unleash American energy dominance and support the President’s energy agenda, we have no choice but to fully – and immediately – repeal the Green New Scam.”

In explaining why Chip Roy is a target, Michael Brune explained:

“There has to be a consequence to the vote against the IRA a couple years ago.”

Larsen and Brune’s fierce defense of the IRA is deeply revealing. It embodies exactly the kind of old-school climate politics they claim to be making a “clean break” from. In the end, the only thing that truly matters to them is tactical effectiveness. They speak of building coalitions with the right, while simultaneously funding aggressive political attacks against conservatives who oppose the IRA.

The IRA was largely modeled off of socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)’s “Green New Deal”, and was imposed upon the American people in 2022 through a party line vote.

The radical left was immediately on board. For example, the Communist Party USA celebrated the Green New Deal, and America’s largest Marxist organization, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) pushed hard for the Green New Deal and even had a national-level campaign that spanned all DSA chapters called the Green New Deal Campaign Commission.

In an article at the Epoch Times titled “The Red Roots of the ‘Green New Deal'”, author Trevor Loudon goes into further detail about the radical organizations that pushed the legislation.

In the wake of its passage, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer raved about the IRA, referring to it as “the biggest climate action in American History…which will reduce American greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030”.

Former President Joe Biden declared it “the most ambitious climate action in history.” The U.S. Climate Alliance, co-chaired by Governors Kathy Hochul, Jay Inslee, and Gavin Newsom, praised the “historic legislation with urgently needed investments to combat the global climate crisis.”

The Plot to Intervene in Republican Primaries

During the discussion, Larsen and Brune reveal their scheme to intervene heavily in Republican primaries to replace resistant conservatives with more compliant ones. Larsen explicitly tied this strategy to gerrymandering, noting that because of heavily drawn safe Republican districts, general elections are often non-competitive. The real battle therefore takes place in the GOP primaries.

He explained:

“This is going to become more important with all the gerrymandering. There’s going to be more and more districts as we all know that just aren’t competitive unless you just say ‘okay well I’m just going to be playing in Republican primaries.’ There’s gonna be like a Chip Roy and there’s gonna maybe be a Romney type person, right? Let’s get behind the person who’s all in for low-cost energy of all kinds.”

Rather than trying to win over the broader electorate, they intend to use their financial firepower to purge conservative hardliners like Chip Roy in primaries and install friendlier, more moderate Republicans who will support the climate agenda.

Some of the potential targets are Reps. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) and Nancy Mace (R-S.C.). The PAC is also supporting Republicans who are willing to protect the massive taxpayer subsidies and tax credits for solar, wind, and other preferred technologies. For example, they are supporting Republican Iowa Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, the Chair of the not-so-conservative “Conservative Climate Caucus” who is friendly to their agenda. These subversive actors are not playing games, with the PAC claiming that “supporters have pledged at least $15 million ahead of the midterm elections.”

But this primary-focused purge strategy is only one part of their long-term plan.

Michael Brune made one of the most revealing statements of the entire conversation:

“This Trump bullying on climate is coming to an end soon. So hyperscalers should think where they want to be in the future.”

Hyperscalers is the term used for giant tech companies such as Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta, and OpenAI that operate enormous data centers and consume vast amounts of electricity to power artificial intelligence. Brune is warning that the current political reality under Trump is merely a temporary inconvenience.

Once that window closes, the climate lobby expects to regain power, and Big Tech companies had better be on the right side of the fight. It was a thinly veiled threat: play ball with us now, or face the consequences when we return to dominance. This perfectly captures the arrogant mindset behind the entire operation: conservative resistance is not a legitimate political choice, it is simply a phase to be waited out and then punished.

Notably, the discussion between Larsen and Brune contains zero reference to the morality or ethics of their tactics. They do not debate whether it is right or wrong to drop talk of “equity,” “sustainability,” or ESG, to run deceptive MAGA-style attack ads against conservatives, or to pour tens of millions into primaries to punish Republicans. Instead, every point is evaluated solely on effectiveness: Does this approach help build coalitions with Republicans? Does it win elections? Will it force the climate agenda forward despite conservative resistance? Their focus is purely strategic: how to most efficiently overcome opposition and jam their vision through using whatever messaging, funding, and political warfare tactics prove most successful.

In the end, deep-pocketed climate interests are spending tens of millions to deceive GOP voters, eliminate their opponents, and compel conservatives to embrace the climate agenda through infiltration and political warfare.