STAT+: Meet the billionaire media mogul who’s taking on the food industry

WASHINGTON — The idea for Todd Wagner’s new advocacy organization FoodFight USA, he says, came to him after visiting George Clooney in Lake Como. He’s recruited Morgan Freeman, who is “obviously” a friend. He personally lobbied Arnold Schwarzenegger and current California Gov. Gavin Newsom to support food makers’ nightmare scenario — a first-in-the-nation law banning certain food additives in the state, which was signed into law last year.

Wagner is best known for his co-ownership of Magnolia Pictures alongside his longtime business partner Mark Cuban. But now, he told STAT in an extended interview, he’s dedicating himself to fighting food makers and their industrial creations, ultra-processed foods.

“I want people angry,” said Wagner, who is worth an estimated $1.9 billion. “This is an indictment of the food companies that have tainted our food supply, and now we wake up 50, 60 years later with a nation that is unhealthy.”

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