Origin Stories

80% of the actual story here is that Adam Jentleson hitched his wagon to Fetterman, that didn't work out, so he reinvented himself as "guy who was on the left who fights the left" to get rich people to drop bags of money on his doorstep. The other 20% is, of course, this:

The way Democrats have handled the issue of transgender rights is especially resonant for Jentleson. In 2021, his spouse, the writer Benny Peterson, came out as nonbinary. Jentleson and Peterson tried to make it work, but last year, after Peterson decided to transition, the couple split up. The pair co-parent two children and still vacation together as a family, but they now live in separate houses on the same street. Amid these personal developments, Jentleson has publicly urged Democrats to recalibrate their position on trans rights, particularly as they relate to sports and to gender-transition care for children

Admittedly a bit more of a life event than Yglesias being asked to clean up after himself in the Vox break room, but still very Elon Musk antitrans politics-as-revenge.

It doesn't really matter if people's shit politics are in good faith, but it is the case that fake think tanks pushing the 370th flavor of centrism don't get money dumped on them if the people who run them aren't for sale.