this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2026
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Daniel Berntsson, founder of Mullvad, gave a personal donation of 5 million SEK (roughly 450,000€) in 2025 to Örebropartiet. This enormous donation accounted for 72% of the party’s revenue in 2025.

How does this affect Mullvad’s legitimacy as a company advocating for a free and open internet, while also funding a political party whose agenda seem to contradict these values? The official party website (in Swedish) can be found via the link below.

https://orebropartiet.se/om-oss/

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[–] TiredTiger@lemmy.ml 19 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Apparently they've now posted a response:

We also live these values by being tolerant in our daily work. Everyone is welcome to collaborate with Mullvad if they share these narrow core values. As employees, contractors, customers, suppliers, lobbyists, campaign partners or whatever it might be. No matter what their other opinions are and no matter whether the founders or anyone else in Mullvad dislike them. The founders themselves fundamentally disagree on several important issues.

In context, this seems...tone-deaf. "It's okay! Immigrants are welcome to work for Mullvad even if the founders 'dislike' them." Yikes.

It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission, in the same way that someone's opinions on animal rights, taxes or public healthcare policy isn't.

I would argue that those three things aren't even all on the same level, and that's without even addressing the fucking fascism of 're-migration' policies.

That said, if you no longer want to be a Mullvad customer for philosophical reasons, we think it's important to honor that, and will gladly refund you.

Unless you were smart enough to pay anonymously, in which case you're welcome to doxx yourself, I guess.

[–] JillSteinsPuckeredAnus@lemmy.world 5 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

the comments are a nazi cesspool. guess I wont be renewing

[–] TiredTiger@lemmy.ml 1 points 12 hours ago

Yeah, I was pretty disgusted as well. If I was on the fence before, that definitely clinched it for me. I only wish I hadn't renewed recently.