“My theory of change is you need people to perceive you as powerful. The perception actually matters more than anything. The metaphor I use is you have to be a lion and not a gazelle. Plenty of gazelles out there, and they have a wonderful life as gazelles, but no one Fs with the lions.”
Volts · Climate & Energy · October 2026
Context
Matzzie helps run a super PAC backed by clean-energy investors that targets members of Congress who voted against the industry. He explains why the group picked noisy, public races: past political spending by the industry was quiet, and he wants lawmakers to see it as powerful.
Transcript
Thanks, David. Happy to be here.
…a little pun. Also, the initials of the investment tax credit, which was killed in the aforementioned bill. That's a little Easter egg, a delightful little Easter egg. Tell me quickly the origin story of the ITC PAC. You were not a founder. It came to you already extant. So tell us how it started.
…several months. Because what we wanted at the end of the year was a bunch of reporters to remember that we had done this. And we wanted chiefs of staff and the Congress to remember that we had done this, members of Congress to remember that we'd done this. And, you know, too often, there have been political investments made by the industry in the past, but often it's been quiet, whispering. And my theory of change is you need people to perceive you as powerful. The perception actually matters more than anything. The metaphor I use is you have to be a lion and not a gazelle. Plenty of gazelles out there, and they have a wonderful life as gazelles, but no one Fs with the lions. That's really the plan we put together in the spring was to identify a bunch of races that would help us narrate a story of our ability to invest and defeat members of Congress.
I mean, usually when people come to this, I mean, I've seen a million of these in my lifetime. Usually people are like, we need to tell our story better. They come up with some public relations campaign or some sort of campaign, some sort of lobbying group, some sort of, you know, let's tell our…
Here's what to think about: is often people are telling, they want to tell a story about their issue. We're telling a story about us as an industry, a group of investors, a group of entrepreneurs, about us as people. Are we safe or dangerous? Right. Are we strong or weak? That is the kind of…
I heard on, you were on Suncast and you referred to mythic power. Mythic
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