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JANE MAYER: Out in California at a resort, there were some of the wealthiest conservatives in America who had gotten together to deal with what they regarded as a catastrophe, which was the election of Obama. And they were organized by Charles Koch, who is one of the two brothers known these days as the Koch brothers, who owns Koch Industry, which is the second-largest private company in America.

INSKEEP: Mayer says that in that meeting, multiple billionaires discussed how to use their money to offset the election results. Jane Mayer's book is called "Dark Money: The Hidden History Of The Billionaires Behind The Rise Of The Radical Right." Charles and David Koch are at the center of her story, big Republican donors who are not always fans of Republicans.

MAYER: People think that the Kochs are going to just line up straight behind the Republican Party. It's not so. They have a very distinct and interesting worldview. Charles Koch in particular, much more so than David Koch, is an ideological true believer in some of the most hard-line libertarian philosophy that you can come across in American politics. It's kind of - marks the far right poll, in some ways, of American politics. And he wants the Republican Party to go where he is.

INSKEEP: Critics of the Koch brothers will argue that they are spending lots of money in the political process to create a political and regulatory environment that's good for their business interests, that it's all about making more money for them. Charles Koch, if you were to talk to him, would argue that he's actually just arguing for his beliefs and sometimes even argues for beliefs that would be bad for his business, like saying that subsidies that is companies get are bad. Having investigated him, which do you think it is? What's his motivation?

MAYER: You know, I don't see it as an either/or situation. His feeling is, to put it in a sort of virtuous way that he thinks of it, he's a job creator. He's a creative force in the economy and that the free market is what makes America great. And so he sees this - anything that's good for Koch Industries is really good for America. And so that includes policies that are very controversial, at least in the eyes of liberals.