Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) on Tuesday called on the National Basketball Association to force Golden State Warriors part-owner Chamath Palihapitiya to sell his stake in the team after he claimed “nobody cares” about Communist China’s genocide of the Uyghurs in the country’s Xinjiang region.
“Woke CEO Chamath Palihapitiya said no one cares about the Chinese Communist Party’s mass enslavement, torture, and rape of religious minorities. He may be so callous that he doesn’t care about genocide, but the American people do,” Cotton said in a statement.
“The NBA has investigated owners and forced a sale after outrageous comments before, and it even moved the All-Star game to protest a North Carolina law saying boys and girls shouldn’t use the same bathroom. The league will prove itself greedy, spineless, and hypocritical if it doesn’t force Palihapitiya to sell his interest in the Warriors,” the lawmaker concluded.
Palihapitiya set off a firestorm this week when he declared that he did not care about the industrial-scale persecution of the Uyghurs.
Breitbart News previously reported:
During his All-In podcast interview, Palihapitiya waved off concerns about China’s ongoing genocide against the Uyghurs, saying, “Nobody cares about what’s happening to the Uyghurs.”
Palihapitiya, the CEO of Societal Capital which boasts that its call is “solving the world’s hardest problems,” shocked podcast host David Sacks when he dismissed concerns about the enslavement of millions of Chinese Uyghurs because he feels no one cares about them. Palihapitiya went on to add that he has other priorities to worry about.
In addition to being a part-owner of the Warriors and a venture capitalist, Palihapitiya is also a major donor to the Democrat Party. He donated over $1 million to Democrats in the previous election cycle, including a $250,000 check to the Biden Victory Fund.
Palihapitiya made headlines last year when he teased a potential recall challenge to California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) but ultimately did not go through with a bid.