The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has reportedly opened a financial crimes investigation into China-based American tech mogul Neville Roy Singham, who has previously described himself as a “socialist” and funded left-wing and pro-China organizations worldwide.
Fox News (Right) published a report on the investigation on June 29, relying mostly on anonymous sources. The report was immediately picked up by many mainstream sources on the right. AllSides did not find any coverage from the left or center.
Who is Neville Roy Singham?
Singham is the son of Archibald Singham, a Sri Lankan-born academic and political scientist who advocated for left-wing causes.
Singham has long admired Maoism and communism. According to New Lines Magazine (Not Rated), as a youth in Detroit, Singham was a member of the communist organization the League of Revolutionary Black Workers.
From there, he founded the IT consulting company Thoughtworks in the late 1980s, which he later sold to the London-based private equity firm Apax Partners for $785 million in 2017. In the same year, he married left-wing activist Jodie Evans and became increasingly involved in activism, though according to a Fortune (Center) report from 2008, this was always his ambition.
Though no outlets from the left and center covered Fox’s most recent report, outlets across the spectrum have reported on Singham’s financial backing of left-wing and pro-China movements for years.
Perhaps most notably, in August 2023, The New York Times (Lean Left) published the lengthy report, “A Global Web of Chinese Propaganda Leads to a U.S. Tech Mogul.”
In summary, The Times said it “unraveled a financial network that stretches from Chicago to Shanghai and uses American nonprofits to push Chinese talking points worldwide.” The result, according to The Times, is “a seemingly organic bloom of far-left groups that echo Chinese government talking points, echo one another, and are echoed in turn by the Chinese state media.”
Then, Singham denied any affiliation with the Chinese state and told The Times in an email, “I categorically deny and repudiate any suggestion that I am a member of, work for, take orders from, or follow instructions of any political party or government or their representatives. I am solely guided by my beliefs, which are my long-held personal views.”
In recent years, various reports from sources on the right have tied funding from Singham to an array of movements traditionally supported by the American left, including pro-Palestinian demonstrations, “No Kings” protests, non-interventionism in Latin America, and opposition to the construction of data centers in the US.
Notably, AllSides has recently observed a very pro-data center bias from The Wall Street Journal Opinion (Lean Right), with the outlet often framing China as the ultimate threat on the issue.
While the two outlets are editorially separate, both Fox News and The Journal are owned by the Murdoch family.
Fox News’ Report on Singham
Asra Q. Nomani of Fox News reported on June 29 that, according to “sources familiar with the matter,” a federal grand jury is investigating Singham for “alleged financial crimes.”
Nomani said the investigation was authorized by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche as the Trump administration “seeks to crack down on fraud, money laundering and other financial crimes in the multibillion-dollar nonprofit industry.”
Much of the coverage detailed a previous investigation Nomani published with Fox News in March. Summarizing her investigation, Nomani alleged that Singham “pumped $285 million from his base in Shanghai into a Goldman Sachs philanthropy fund and two shell corporations that then fed the money into a constellation of nonprofit organizations, media operations and activist groups pushing sectarian division, identity politics and support for socialist politicians.”
Nomani laid out the specific dollar totals, which nonprofits the money went to, and a few of the other organizations the money was funneled to from there. The six nonprofits named were People's Support Foundation Ltd., Justice and Education Fund Inc., People's Forum Inc., Tricontinental Ltd., CodePink Women For Peace, and Breakthrough BT Media Inc.
Notably, Breakthrough Media operates the online news outlet, Breakthrough News (Not Rated).
Media Outlets on the Right Amplify Fox News Report
Fox’s report was picked up almost immediately by several outlets on the right. AllSides found 10 outlets from the right that covered the story, with most of them doing so immediately on June 29. All of the coverage AllSides found was news coverage that relayed the details of Fox’s report.
As of July 1, AllSides did not find any coverage from the left or center.
Report — Follow the Money: DOJ Probes China-Based Billionaire Neville Roy Singham’s Funding of U.S. Leftists - Breitbart (Right)
DOJ launches grand jury probe into Marxist mogul Neville Roy Singham's funding of leftist groups - Fox News (Right)
DOJ investigating Marxist millionaire Neville Roy Singham over potential financial crimes - The New York Post (Right)
DOJ investigates Marxist mogul donor Neville Roy Singham over fraud, money laundering: report - The Post Millennial (Right)
Grand jury investigates alleged China cash behind America’s far-left - Sky News Australia (Right)
DOJ Launches Investigation Into CCP-Aligned Millionaire - Townhall (Right)
The DOJ is investigating an alleged financing network linked to Neville Roy Singham - Voz Media (Right)
China-based megadonor funding leftist activism now under DOJ investigation - Washington Examiner (Lean Right)
Report: Marxist tycoon is funding a China-backed influence campaign against AI data centers - Washington Times (Lean Right)
DOJ Grand Jury Probes Neville Roy Singham's Marxist NGO Empire: Report - ZeroHedge (Lean Right)
In addition to its original report, Fox News published a second article on June 30 highlighting support for the investigation from Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN). Notably, in April 2025, Banks requested Attorney General Pam Bondi investigate Code Pink, a nonprofit Singham has funded that was cofounded by his wife, Jodie Evans, for Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) violations.
Conservative Targeting of Singham
Banks isn’t the only notable Republican to have called for a DOJ investigation in regards to FARA on Singham. Back in August 2023, just a few days after the aforementioned New York Times report, then-Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) requested that the Biden Justice Department do the same. The news was reported by The Washington Free Beacon (Right), which described Rubio then as “one of the top China hawks in Congress.”
Rubio is also notably of Cuban descent and has expressed great disdain for the country’s communist government. More recently, as Secretary of State, in early June, he placed sanctions on Cuban groups with ties to Singham.
According to Fox News, about a week and a half earlier in May, President Trump’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of Defense (DOD) “joined a widening interagency investigation into a network of nonprofit groups funded by” Singham.
Beyond these political measures, Singham has become a target for conservative media in recent years, with coverage having escalated in recent months.
Fox News has been at the forefront, led by Nomani’s reporting, publishing the most coverage of Singham.
On March 30, James Freeman of The Wall Street Journal Opinion dissected Nomani’s reporting in an opinion about the funding behind “No Kings” protests and wrote, “For some reason other major media outlets seem to have lost interest lately in tracking this vast funding machine.”
Jay Rogers (Lean Right) published a similar opinion in The Hill (Center) the next day, April 1.
On June 1, Stu Smith of City Journal (Right) said Congress should investigate Singham further, and cited 2025 letters from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to DOJ head Pam Bondi requesting investigations of Singham for FARA violations. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform also sent Singham a letter saying it was “investigating [his] reported funding of various extremist entities in the United States.”
A week later, Chris Bray of The Federalist (Right) described Singham as a “pro-China rich guy” facing “growing scrutiny over far-left activism” in his headline. Bray also referenced Nomani’s Fox News reporting.
From the left, at the end of May, online commentator Hasan Piker (Left) said on a livestream that he believed federal officials were targeting Singham. He said, “I think that ultimately the target is probably Singham and his operation from PSL to ANSWER Coalition to CodePink — like anything that he has ever financed.”
He went on to say, “It’s like totally f***ing ridiculous to try and stop the political advocacy of an American citizen.” And later added, “Not sure how much money he has now, but he's been a funding vehicle for a lot of political movements in the country, like a lot of activism, and they hate that s---, so they're trying to jam them up. They're trying to hit him on anything and everything they possibly can. That's it, that's the goal here. That's the broader goal.”
Nomani of Fox News covered Piker’s comments in a news article, but spun the headline around his naming of Singham as a top left-wing financier. Nomani framed Piker’s comments as “the first public acknowledgment from a figure inside the far-left network that organizations in the Singham network are operating with an explicitly political agenda.”
AllSides Analysis of Media Coverage on the Neville Roy Singham Saga
Considering the amount of money Singham has mobilized in favor of left-wing causes over the past decade, it’s understandable why media outlets on the right routinely make a bogeyman of him.
With his clear pro-China bias and alleged financing of pro-Palestinian movements, it also makes sense why outlets like The Wall Street Journal Opinion and The Times of Israel (Center) have published critical coverage of Singham. As many AllSides readers and attuned observers probably know by now, there are often nuances at play on major issues that transcend the domestic American right-to-left spectrum.
As Freeman of The Journal’s Editorial Board has pointed out, despite the major report from The New York Times in 2023, media from the left and center seem to have lost interest in Singham’s dealings over the past year or two, as Republican and conservative interest has escalated.
This escalation in recent months appears to be spearheaded by Fox News and its reporter Asra Q. Nomani, which appear to be effectively functioning together as the Republicans’ route to the general public with new developments.
It’s possible that outlets from the left and center have ignored Nomani’s reporting in recent months because of its heavy reliance on anonymous sourcing. Though it could also be story choice bias due to the story’s political nature – that it doesn’t quite fit in with the agenda many liberal outlets are trying to push since President Trump has reassumed the presidency. How outlets of different biases report when their “side” is in office and what stories they focus on, can be very telling of how committed to being balanced an outlet may or may not be.
Nonetheless, the lopsided coverage on this Fox News report is yet another example of why Americans should consume a balanced variety of news sources across the spectrum to see the full picture on any given issue.
For those who consume ample conservative media, the story was so big on June 29 that it couldn’t be missed. For those who consume mostly the major mainstream liberal outlets that dominate the front page of Google News, it’s likely they don’t even know the investigation – which is obviously political in nature and against their “side” – is going on.
Andy Gorel is the Managing Editor of AllSides. He has a Center bias.
This piece was reviewed by Julie Mastrine, Director of Communications and Bias Services (Lean Right), and Emily Allen, Education Experience Manager & News Editor (Left).
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