Top Trump Billionaire Donor Responds to Reporters’ Vote to Unionize by Shutting Down Two News Outlets Without Warning

TDAmeritrade Founder Joe Ricketts Reportedly Worth Over $2 Billion – Family Owns Chicago Cubs

115 journalists on Thursday found themselves out of work and their work scrubbed from the internet after voting to unionize. Joe Ricketts, the billionaire founder of TDAmeritrade, a major discount stock brokerage house, decided to pull the plug on DNAInfo, an award-winning local news organization that has done excellent work, and Gothamist, a set of sites devoted to urban markets including New York City (Gothamist), LAist (Los Angeles), DCist (Washington, DC), and Chicagoist (Chicago.)

Ricketts has donated at the very least one million dollars support to Donald Trump’s election efforts. He has also donated to a pro-Trump Super PAC that is not required to disclose its donors or donation amounts. Ricketts sits on the board of the Chicago Cubs – which he and his family own.

Now, when readers visit any of the sites, they are greeted with just a note from Ricketts, saying he shut down the publications because “businesses need to be economically successful if they are to endure.” It is not known if he attempted to sell the company, and it appears he did not alert the reporters and editors that he was shuttering the sites and their work would no longer be accessible. 

“I’m hopeful that in time, someone will crack the code on a business that can support exceptional neighborhood storytelling for I believe telling those stories remains essential,” Ricketts wrote.

Christopher Robbins, the now-former city editor at Gothamist and DNAinfo, posted these tweets:

One well-known journalist, Jamelle Bouie of Slate and CBS News, offered this commentary:

And this now-former DNAInfo reporter shared his thoughts:

Employees at the publications, according to The New York Times, “are getting three months of paid ‘administrative leave’ at their full salaries, plus four weeks of severance, DNAinfo said.”

Many on social media are outraged:

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