He's putting up a ton of advertising $$$$, and gets fawning brain-dead interviews in primetime. ----Maybe the networks have been "bought."
Favorable publicity may be a big part of the reason for his little project. Most people of a certain age have a vaguely distasteful memory of Pickens as a Gordon Gekko corporate raider-type from the eighties. Among other things, I thingk he’s in full legacy mode and wants to buy his way into heaven.