Edward Snowden’s reporter-confidant Glenn Greenwald joining new, secret media company (updated)

This report was updated at 9:14 a.m. Wednesday, Oct. 16. 

Glenn Greenwald, the journalist Edward Snowden approached to reveal the inner workings of the NSA’s surveillance programs, will be leaving his position at the Guardian for a secret “dream opportunity.”

The U.K.-based Guardian paper benefited hugely from Greenwald’s investigative reporting chops when he, alongside the Washington Post‘s Laura Poitras, opened former NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s can of spying worms. Greenwald explained to Buzzfeed that he has no bad blood with his soon-to-be former publication, explaining that he has “high regard” for his fellow reporters and editors and that he is proud of their accomplishments.

“The decision to leave was not an easy one, but I was presented with a once-in-a-career dream journalistic opportunity that no journalist could possibly decline,” said Greenwald who is currently based out of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Update 10/16: Reuters reports, based on two anonymous sources, that Pierre Omidyar is the financial backer behind Greenwald’s new opportunity. Omidyar is the billionaire founder of eBay, and he’s involved in many philanthropic pursuits.

Greenwald’s fame catapulted after Snowden gave him documents about a number of U.S. surveillance and data collection programs used for national security purposes. One of these was a court order delivered to Verizon for all call metadata, and another was the huge PRISM revelation that showed the NSA working directly with tech companies to retrieve customer data.

Snowden continued feeding Greenwald files of this nature for months following these initial stories.

Greenwald would not provide details about his future journalistic home, given that the news of his departure was a leak in and of itself. He did say, however, that the company is a “very well-funded … very substantial new media outlet.” He went on to say it is a “momentous new venture.”