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The Tor Project will keep its technical work with Mullvad VPN, but has paused joint promotions after a co-founder’s personal political donation sparked community concerns.
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The donation in question came from Mullvad co-founder Daniel Berntsson, not from the company itself.
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Users online have raised questions about free speech and whether privacy groups let politics shape their partnerships.
The Tor Project has confirmed it will keep working with Mullvad VPN on a technical level. However, it will pause all joint promotions and co-branding activities with the VPN provider. The move follows backlash over a political donation made by one of Mullvad’s co-founders.
The privacy nonprofit published its statement on October 9, 2026. It explained that the review came after concerns were raised by members of the Tor community. The organization looked at staff surveys, spoke with board members, and ran a financial analysis before making its call.
Tor Project Reviews Mullvad Ties After Political Donation Surfaces
The donation at the center of the controversy came from Daniel Berntsson, a Mullvad co-founder. He gave five million Swedish kronor to the Örebro Party, a Swedish political group, in 2025. Both Berntsson and Mullvad have been clear: this was a personal donation, not a company payment. Mullvad as a business did not make the contribution.
Still, the move caused friction inside the Tor community. Members questioned whether the organization should maintain a visible partnership with Mullvad in the wake of the news. The Tor Project chose not to cut ties entirely. Instead, it drew a clear line between the two sides of the relationship. Technical collaboration stays. Public promotion stops, for now.
How the Browser Work Fits in, and What Changes Now
The Tor Project’s statement explained why the technical side of the partnership matters. Working with Mullvad has helped improve the code inside Tor Browser. It has made the browser easier to maintain and easier for outside experts to check and audit.
The collaboration has also helped developers collect feedback from a wider group of users. It has let the team test features that could eventually improve Tor Browser for everyone. Those benefits, the organization said, made a full break difficult to justify on technical grounds alone.
Partnerships can also take different forms across the cybersecurity landscape, including links between cybercrime forums and ransomware operators, as reported in BreachForums’ announcement of a partnership with the ransomware group The Gentlemen.
But the Tor Project also acknowledged the damage the controversy has caused. Carrying on with the partnership risks losing the trust of community members who disagree with the call. The organization did not dismiss that concern.
On the promotional side, the Tor Project has paused co-branding and joint marketing with Mullvad. It has also gone back and updated how it describes Mullvad Browser on its own platforms. It removed or reworded language that suggested the two groups shared the same values or that Tor gave Mullvad a broad endorsement.
The organization was direct about its core position. Its mission covers privacy, anonymity, freedom of expression, and access to information. At the same time, the statement included a pointed line on speech: according to the Tor Project, not all speech fits equally well with that mission, even as the organization defends free expression. That framing has become one of the more debated parts of the announcement.
Online Users Push Back on the Tor Project’s Stance
The statement drew a quick response on social media. Some users pushed back on how the Tor Project described its position on free speech.
One account on X, @PikaSim_esim, shared the Tor Project’s post and challenged its reasoning. The user wrote that, in their view, the organization only treats speech as free and protected when it agrees with what is being said.
Another X user, @OxBw27B18Xt0Ilz, asked a sharper question. The account questioned when the Tor Project became a privacy tool built only for people on the political left.
These are individual opinions posted on social media. They do not independently prove that the Tor Project has restricted access to its tools based on anyone’s political views. The organization’s October 9 statement does not say anything of that kind either.
What the statement does show is that the controversy has put the Tor Project under pressure from multiple directions. Community members who raised the initial concerns want the organization to take a clear position. Critics of the response feel the organization has moved too far into political territory.
The bigger issue here goes beyond this one partnership. Privacy groups often rely on donations and technical partnerships to keep their tools running. When a partner’s personal actions attract controversy, these organizations face hard questions. Where do personal conduct and company ties begin and end? How much should a contributor’s private choices affect a public partnership?
For now, the Tor Project has answered by drawing a line between the work and the promotion. The technical collaboration with Mullvad continues. The joint public face of that partnership does not, at least not while the controversy remains fresh. Whether this approach rebuilds trust with those who objected remains to be seen.
