In February 2021, a Mormon film producer named Jeffrey Harmon returned home to Provo, Utah, raving about an exclusive gathering he’d just attended in Austin, Tex. He’d been invited by an old friend, Stephen Oskoui, who ran Austin-based venture capital firm Gigafund alongside Luke Nosek, a founding partner of Founders Fund and a member of the famed PayPal mafia.
According to sources close to Harmon, the event was attended by a who’s who of tech elites, including Oskoui, Nosek and, most memorably, Elon Musk. At the gathering, Harmon had the chance to speak to Musk and Oskoui about VidAngel, the film company founded with three of his brothers that would soon become rebranded Angel Studios.
Later that year, Oskoui and Nosek’s Gigafund led a $47 million funding round to support Angel Studios in its efforts to upend Hollywood with religious programming and other “stories that amplify light.” This summer, the fruits of that investment appeared: Angel Studios released the blockbuster film about child sex trafficking “Sound of Freedom,” which has surpassed $210 million in global box office numbers and become a rallying point for Christian conservatives and the far right.
