Yeltsin had managed to enlist Russia's emerging business elite to work in his campaign, including those who ran media corporations. This included Vladimir Gusinsky, owner of Most Bank, Independent Television and NTV. NTV which had, prior to the campaign, been critical towards Yeltsin's actions in Chechnya, changed the tone of their coverage. Igor Malashenko, Gusinsky's appointed head of NTV, even joined the Yeltsin campaign and led its media relations in a rather visible conflict-of-interest. In early 1996, Gusinsky and his political rival Boris Berezovsky (chairman of the Board of ORT) decided that they would put aside their differences in order to work together to support the reelection Boris Yeltsin. By mid-1996, Yeltsin had recruited a team of a handful of financial and media oligarchs to bankroll the Yeltsin campaign and guarantee favorable media coverage the president on national television and in leading newspapers. In return, Yeltsin's presidential administration allowed well-connected Russian business leaders to acquire majority stakes in some of Russia's most valuable state-owned assets.