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Pirate Wires was founded in 2020 by Mike Solana, conservative political commentator and vice-president of Founders Fund during the COVID-19 pandemic. Pirate Wires was initially a newsletter and a podcast before its website was created. The newsletter was funded by Founders Fund and Peter Thiel, it later hired several editors, expanding into a full media company. Over 100,000 people had subscribed to paid newsletter of Pirate Wires. The publications of Pirate Wires usually report on politics, tech, and culture. They either consist of interviews with high-profile tech figures, op-eds by Mike Solana or his editorial team, tech-related news and political articles about San Francisco that criticize left-wing policies. An article from October 2024 written by Christopher Beam of The Atlantic speculated that Pirate Wires may be overly influenced by Silicon Valley funding, while founder Mike Solana maintained that the company is fully independent.[2]
Pirate Wires traces its roots to Solana's podcast named Problematic that he started in March 2020, he started writing newsletter shortly after the podcast's founding. Solana said that he called the newsletter "Pirate Wires" because it reminded him of various subjects including internet piracy and pirate radio.[2]Pirate Wires has a Substack newsletter that had thousands of followers and existed before the creation of the website. The subscription to Pirate Wires costs $20 a month,[3] or $120/year.[4] Some reports claim that Pirate Wires is a right-wing news website[5], whereas other say that the site is more libertarian.[6] Their content has been considered popular among tech-right readers.[7] Repotedly, the reason behind Solana's launch of Pirate Wires in 2020 was his desire to counter "draconian political censorship" and media's negative coverage of tech.[8]
Reporting
Pirate Wires reports in positive tone about tech-related subjects, for example, one of its article's headlines read: "Palmer Luckey Saves the World" and "We Need to Be Living Forever". Pirate Wires wrote an article about Anthony Fauci in which he was described as "[overseeing] one of the greatest erosions of institutional trust in American history". The company has published a number of articles about San Francisco's politics which criticize the city's left-to-far-left politicians. It has also published stories reporting on George Soros as well as others covering Joe Biden.[3] In June 2024, Pirate Wires reported on Twitter that a new meme coin named “Trump Coin” was created, there was no evidence of the currency's existence, and the post was tagged with a Twitter community note calling it "fake news". The note was removed shortly after but there was still no evidence of the coin's existence leading to confusion and speculations among readers,[9][10] they included theories about Pirate Wires' Twitter account being hacked.[11]Pirate Wires report in December 2024 claimed that employees of Kalshi were secretly paying social media personalities to accuse Shayne Coplan, CEO of Polymarket, of commiting crimes. The report disclosed that Pirate Wires has a conflict of interest with Polymarket, revealing the company of being Pirate Wires'sadvertiser.[12]
Pirate Wires had also published eight stories about Wikipedia since August 2025, calling it a “top-down social activism and advocacy machine” in one of its articles.[7] On October 2024, Pirate Wires had reportedly investigated Wikipedia's editors and published an article with their findings.[13] The article documented a "coordinated campaign" made by 40 Wikipedia editors it called the "Gang of 40" which worked to "delegitimize Israel" and "present radical Islamist groups in a favorable light". Elon Musk posted the article on social media with a caption: "Wikipedia is controlled by far-Left activists".[14]The Jerusalem Post cited the article and blamed Tech for Palestine for the campaign.[15] In a similar report, Pirate Wires alleged that pro-palestinian users had organized a “terrorist network" on Reddit that manipulated various subreddits, like r/PublicFreakout, to promote its ideology. Reddit administrator "Worstnerd" launched an investigation in response. A few weeks later, he said he had found no evidence of manipulation on the scale claimed by Pirate Wires.[16]
Reception
The Atlantic called the publication a "must-read among Silicon Valley’s anti-woke crowd".[2]Pirate Wires was described by Trae Stephens, one of Founders Fund's associates, as "techno-optimistic" publication that reads like "being inside Solana's brain".[3]UnHerd Magazine called Pirate Wires a "MAGA-adjacent website".[17]Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, said that Pirate Wires gives people a "really good insight into MAGA thinking in the Silicon Valley, people who are supporting Donald Trump".[18]Politico Magazine said Pirate Wires is a "libertarian-leaning" news outlet.[6] An op-ed by Cas Piancey, reacting to Pirate Wires' “Trump Coin” report, described it as a "techno-optimist blog" that does "thoughtless" journalism.[19]Business Insider called Pirate Wires a "bloggy anti-woke site", and the The Guardian called it a "conservative newsletter".[8][20]
References
↑ "Writers". Pirate Wires. Retrieved September 14, 2025.
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