I personally broke this story in 2021, but Epic would not confirm or deny the details to me back then.

Weissinger just did that today on the stand. “Yes, it was our idea,” he said, confirming that Epic paid a consultant $100,000 to start the lobbying group, and that there were no other founding members.

In 2020, the “Coalition” told press that Epic Games, Spotify, Basecamp, Match Group, Tile, Blix, and Deezer were all “founding members” of the organization, but Google just asked if any of them were indeed founding members.

“If you’re referring to the incorporation, no they were not,” said Weissinger.

Here’s how my request for comment went in 2021, in case you’re curious:

But Epic would not confirm or deny whether it provided the original funding, hired a consultant to form the group, or bound that consultant to report directly to Epic, after repeated requests, and no CAF member we contacted would comment on that.