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10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Adam Back.md
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---
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category: "Technologists"
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tags:
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- Person
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- AdamBack
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- Cryptography
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- Cypherpunks
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- Bitcoin
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- Hashcash
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- Blockstream
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alias:
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- Adam Back
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summary: "Adam Back is a British cryptographer who invented the Hashcash proof-of-work scheme cited in the Bitcoin white paper, was the first person Satoshi Nakamoto is known to have emailed, co-founded the blockchain company Blockstream, and is a recurring Satoshi candidate that he denies."
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born: 1970-07
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location: "Malta"
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created: 2026-06-20
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updated: 2026-06-20
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---
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Adam Back (born July 1970) is a British cryptographer and one of the original [[Cypherpunks]] who in 1997 devised [[Hashcash]], the proof-of-work scheme cited in the 2008 [[Bitcoin]] white paper, and who co-founded and runs the blockchain company [[Blockstream]]. He holds a PhD in computer science from the University of Exeter. He was the first of the two people [[Satoshi Nakamoto]] is known to have emailed before the white paper, and he is one of the figures most often named as a Nakamoto candidate, which he denies.[^1][^2][^3]
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### Hashcash
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Back proposed Hashcash in 1997 as a measure against email spam and denial-of-service attacks, building on the proof-of-work concept that Cynthia Dwork and Moni Naor had set out in 1992. Hashcash required a sender to compute a partial hash collision, a value whose hash begins with a set number of zero bits, before a message would be accepted; finding such a value takes a predictable amount of processor work while checking it is instant, so the cost falls on the sender and a mass spammer faces a prohibitive aggregate burden. Back circulated the scheme on the cypherpunks mailing list and published the design in a 1997 announcement and a 2002 paper, "Hashcash - A Denial of Service Counter-Measure."[^2][^4]
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The asymmetry at the center of Hashcash, work that is hard to produce and trivial to verify, became the mechanism Nakamoto used to govern coin issuance and to secure the Bitcoin ledger. The white paper cites Back's scheme directly, and Nakamoto's description of the system to the cryptography mailing list said new coins are made from "Hashcash style proof-of-work." Back's earlier cypherpunk work also included a 1998 implementation of an anonymous remailer and writing on the export-control politics of cryptography, including printing the RSA algorithm on T-shirts and other items to test the rule that classified strong cryptography as a munition.[^5][^4]
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### Contact With Satoshi Nakamoto
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The earliest known message from Satoshi Nakamoto to any named individual was an email to Back on 20 August 2008, asking how Hashcash should be cited and sending an early description of the project. Back has recounted that he pointed Nakamoto toward [[Wei Dai]]'s b-money proposal, which Nakamoto then cited after emailing Dai on 22 August 2008. Back has said he did not engage deeply with the project at the time, having seen many digital-cash schemes fail, and did not return to Bitcoin until years later.[^1][^6]
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Back co-founded Blockstream in 2014 and serves as its chief executive; the company develops Bitcoin infrastructure including the Liquid sidechain and the c-lightning implementation of the Lightning Network, and employs several core Bitcoin developers. Back is among the people Nakamoto cited by name in the white paper and one of the few still publicly active in Bitcoin.[^3][^7]
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### Satoshi Speculation
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Back has been named as a Nakamoto candidate repeatedly and has denied it each time. The case rests on his authorship of Hashcash, his place as the first person Nakamoto emailed, his British background and 1990s cypherpunk activity, and stylistic and biographical overlaps. In April 2026 a New York Times investigation by the reporter John Carreyrou named Back as the most likely candidate, citing his nationality, his cypherpunk archive, the Hashcash citation, more than a hundred matching words and phrases between his posts and Nakamoto's, his C++ and distributed-computing background, and a 2002 question he had raised about the 1933 United States gold seizure that surfaced in Bitcoin's design.[^8][^3]
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Back answered the New York Times investigation with a flat denial, telling reporters "I'm not Satoshi" and adding that his heavy posting volume on the cypherpunks lists naturally produced extensive evidence of his interests and made him an easy target for that kind of pattern-matching, which he characterized as confirmation bias. He has also said that the absence of a known creator is good for Bitcoin because it leaves the network looking like "a mathematically scarce digital commodity" rather than any individual's project. Back has consistently declined to provide cryptographic proof either way, as have the other living candidates.[^3][^9]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: "Who is Adam Back? The impact of Hashcash on Bitcoin explained," *Finst,* on his cypherpunk membership, the Hashcash invention, the Exeter PhD, and Satoshi's 2008 contact. https://finst.com/en/learn/articles/who-is-adam-back
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[^2]: "Who is Adam Back?," *Bitstamp,* on Hashcash, the 1997 origin, and his cypherpunk role. https://www.bitstamp.net/learn/people-profiles/adam-back/
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[^3]: "Latest investigation into bitcoin founder ties identity to Blockstream CEO Adam Back," *CNBC,* 8 April 2026, on Blockstream, the New York Times investigation, and Back's denial. https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/08/latest-investigation-of-bitcoin-founder-ties-identity-to-blockstream-ceo-adam-back.html
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[^4]: Back, Adam. "Hashcash - A Denial of Service Counter-Measure," 2002, on the partial-hash-collision design and the proof-of-work mechanism. http://www.hashcash.org/papers/hashcash.pdf
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[^5]: Nakamoto, Satoshi. "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System," 2008, citing Adam Back's Hashcash. https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
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[^6]: "Previously Unpublished Emails of Satoshi Nakamoto Present a New Puzzle," *CoinDesk,* 26 November 2020, on the 20 August 2008 email to Back and his pointing Nakamoto to Wei Dai. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2020/11/26/previously-unpublished-emails-of-satoshi-nakamoto-present-a-new-puzzle
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[^7]: "Adam Back on Satoshi Emails, Privacy Concerns and Bitcoin's Early Days," *Cointelegraph,* on Blockstream and his early correspondence with Nakamoto. https://cointelegraph.com/news/adam-back-on-satoshi-emails-privacy-concerns-and-bitcoins-early-days
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[^8]: "A new investigation now suggests Adam Back invented Bitcoin - but he firmly denies it," *Dallas Express,* on the New York Times case and the 1933 gold-seizure question. https://dallasexpress.com/business-markets/could-blockstream-ceo-adam-back-be-the-70-billion-man-behind-bitcoin/
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[^9]: "Adam Back Denies Being Satoshi Amid NYT Probe," *CryptoPotato,* on "I'm not Satoshi," the confirmation-bias framing, and the "mathematically scarce digital commodity" remark. https://cryptopotato.com/adam-back-denies-being-satoshi-amid-nyt-probe/
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10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Alexander Acosta.md
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---
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category: "Law Enforcement & Legal"
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tags:
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- Person
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- AlexanderAcosta
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- JeffreyEpstein
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- NonProsecutionAgreement
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- CrimeVictimsRightsAct
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- DepartmentOfJustice
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- SecretaryOfLabor
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alias:
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- Alex Acosta
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- Rene Alexander Acosta
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summary: "Alexander Acosta is the US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida who negotiated Jeffrey Epstein's 2008 non-prosecution agreement, later found by a federal judge to have violated the Crime Victims' Rights Act and by the DOJ to reflect poor judgment, and who resigned as US Secretary of Labor in July 2019."
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born: 1969-01-16
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location: "Miami, Florida (born)"
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created: 2026-06-20
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updated: 2026-06-20
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---
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Alexander Acosta (born January 16, 1969) is an American lawyer who served as United States Attorney for the [[United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida|Southern District of Florida]] from 2005 to 2009 and as United States Secretary of Labor from 2017 to 2019. As US Attorney he supervised the office that negotiated the 2008 non-prosecution agreement with [[Jeffrey Epstein|Jeffrey Epstein]], an arrangement under which Epstein pleaded guilty to state charges in Florida, served a 13-month jail term with work release, and obtained federal immunity for himself and named co-conspirators. A federal judge later ruled that prosecutors violated the [[Crime Victims' Rights Act|Crime Victims' Rights Act]] by concealing the deal from victims, and Acosta resigned as Secretary of Labor in July 2019 amid renewed scrutiny of the agreement.[^1][^2]
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### The 2008 Non-Prosecution Agreement
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Federal investigators in the Southern District of Florida identified roughly 30, and ultimately more than 30, minors whom Epstein was alleged to have sexually abused, after the Palm Beach Police Department referred the case to the FBI on concerns that the local prosecution would be too lenient. By May 2007 government lawyers had prepared an 82-page prosecution memorandum and a 53-page draft federal indictment charging Epstein with multiple federal sex offenses. Acosta decided in 2007 to negotiate with Epstein's defense team rather than seek that indictment.[^1][^3]
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The non-prosecution agreement, negotiated through 2007 and executed in stages, required Epstein to plead guilty in Palm Beach County court, which he did in June 2008, to state charges including soliciting prostitution and procuring a person under 18 for prostitution. He was sentenced to 18 months, of which he served roughly 13, under conditions that allowed extensive work release, permitting him to spend up to 16 hours a day, six or seven days a week, away from the county jail. Epstein's defense team included high-profile lawyers such as [[Alan Dershowitz|Alan Dershowitz]], [[Kenneth Starr|Kenneth Starr]], and [[Roy Black|Roy Black]], who pressed the office for concessions.[^1][^3]
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The agreement extended immunity from federal prosecution to Epstein, to four named co-conspirators, and to unnamed "potential co-conspirators," language read as shielding others who helped recruit or conceal the abuse. The terms were not disclosed to the identified victims while the deal was being finalized, and the agreement was sealed. The breadth of the immunity provisions, the sealing, and the leniency of the sentence became the basis for years of subsequent litigation and official review. The attorney [[Bradley Edwards|Bradley Edwards]], representing victims, led the legal challenge to the agreement.[^1][^4]
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### Crime Victims' Rights Act Ruling
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In the case styled Doe v. United States, No. 08-80736, brought by victims including [[Courtney Wild|Courtney Wild]] and [[Jane Doe 2|Jane Doe 2]] to enforce their rights, United States District Judge [[Kenneth Marra|Kenneth Marra]] ruled on February 21, 2019, that the government had violated the Crime Victims' Rights Act by failing to confer with the victims before entering the non-prosecution agreement. Marra wrote that "particularly problematic was the government's decision to conceal the existence of the" agreement and to "mislead the victims to believe that federal prosecution was still a possibility," finding that prosecutors had counseled the victims to have "patience" while the deal was being finalized.[^5]
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In a later ruling, Marra declined to invalidate the non-prosecution agreement itself, noting that Epstein had died and that rescission would not restore the victims' position, and he held that the victims were not entitled to monetary damages from the government under the statute. The decisions established the CVRA violation as a finding of fact while leaving the underlying agreement in place.[^6]
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The victims' broader effort to overturn the agreement ultimately failed at the appellate level. In April 2021 the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, sitting en banc, ruled in Wild's case that the CVRA's protections did not attach before the government filed formal charges, and that because no federal charges had been filed against Epstein, the statute did not give the victims a remedy to set aside the pre-charge agreement. The ruling left the CVRA finding of a conferral failure intact while denying the victims the relief they had sought.[^6]
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### DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility Report
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The Justice Department's [[Office of Professional Responsibility|Office of Professional Responsibility]] released a report on November 12, 2020, examining the conduct of Acosta and his subordinates in the Epstein matter. The report concluded that Acosta exercised "poor judgment" in resolving the federal investigation through a state plea agreement, but it did not find professional misconduct, stating that his decision to decline federal prosecution was within the scope of his authority and that there was no evidence the decision was based on corruption or other impermissible considerations.[^2][^7]
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OPR located the "poor judgment" specifically in Acosta's failure to ensure that the state would notify the federally identified victims of Epstein's plea hearing, leaving victims uninformed about the proceeding that resolved an investigation about which the office had communicated with them for months. The report described the non-prosecution agreement as "a flawed mechanism for satisfying the federal interest" that had prompted the investigation, and it documented extensive concessions made to Epstein's lawyers.[^7]
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The report also recorded internal dissent. The line prosecutor [[Ann Marie Villafana|Ann Marie Villafana]] had objected to the access granted to Epstein's defense counsel and to meeting with them, and was overruled by supervisors; a footnote recorded her belief that an email from her supervisor [[Matthew Menchel|Matthew Menchel]] was meant to "put [her] in [her] place," while Menchel described her as having a history of resisting supervisory authority. OPR declined to refer Acosta or other prosecutors for disciplinary action on professional-responsibility grounds, a conclusion that victims' advocates characterized as a whitewash.[^7]
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### Secretary of Labor and Resignation
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President [[Donald Trump|Donald Trump]] nominated Acosta as Secretary of Labor, and he was confirmed by the Senate and sworn in in April 2017, having previously chaired the National Labor Relations Board and served as dean of Florida International University's law school. The Florida agreement drew scrutiny during his 2017 confirmation but did not derail it.[^1]
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After the November 2018 Miami Herald investigation "Perversion of Justice" by [[Julie K. Brown|Julie K. Brown]] revived attention to the agreement, and after Epstein's July 2019 federal arrest in New York on new sex-trafficking charges, Acosta held a July 10, 2019, press conference defending his handling of the case, arguing that the state alternative had at least secured Epstein's registration as a sex offender and some jail time where the state had been prepared to offer less. He resigned on July 12, 2019, two days later, saying he did not want the controversy to distract from the administration's work and that it would be "selfish" to remain.[^1][^8]
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In September 2025 Acosta appeared for a closed-door deposition before the [[House Oversight Committee|House Oversight Committee]] as part of its renewed inquiry into the federal handling of the Epstein and Maxwell cases, testifying for roughly six hours; the committee released the transcript on October 17, 2025. Chairman [[James Comer|James Comer]] said Acosta had cooperated, and the committee separately sought records and testimony from other former officials.[^9]
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### Intelligence Claim
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In a July 2019 article for [[The Daily Beast|The Daily Beast]], journalist [[Vicky Ward|Vicky Ward]] reported that, according to an anonymous former senior White House official, Acosta had explained the lenient Epstein deal during his Labor Secretary vetting by saying he had been told that Epstein "belonged to intelligence" and to "leave it alone" because the matter was above his pay grade. Ward's report attributed the account to a single unnamed source, and commentators noted the source could not be independently confirmed. Ward had reported on Epstein for years and had earlier written a 2003 profile of him for Vanity Fair.[^10]
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Acosta disputed the characterization. Asked about the reporting at his July 2019 press conference, he said he would "hesitate to take this reporting as fact." Under oath to Justice Department investigators he answered "no" when asked whether he had knowledge of Epstein being an intelligence asset, and the OPR review reported that none of the subjects it interviewed believed Epstein to have been an intelligence asset.[^11][^7]
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At his September 2025 House Oversight deposition, Acosta again denied the intelligence account. Asked whether anyone had told him Epstein could not be prosecuted because he was an asset, he said "No one approached me and said that," and he stated that if there had been classified or secure information bearing on the case, established procedures would have been triggered that were never triggered. The intelligence claim remains an attributed, disputed assertion sourced to a single anonymous account rather than an established finding.[^9][^11]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: "Alex Acosta: Trump labour chief defends Jeffrey Epstein plea deal," *Al Jazeera,* July 10, 2019. https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2019/7/10/alex-acosta-trump-labour-chief-defends-jeffrey-epstein-plea-deal
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[^2]: "US Attorney Alex Acosta showed 'poor judgment' when giving Jeffrey Epstein state-based plea deal in 2008: DOJ," *ABC News,* November 12, 2020. https://abcnews.com/US/us-attorney-alex-acosta-showed-poor-judgment-giving/story?id=74178029
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[^3]: "Jeffrey Epstein 2008 plea deal: poor judgment," *Global News,* November 2020. https://globalnews.ca/news/7460232/jeffrey-epstein-2008-plea-deal-poor-judgment/
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[^4]: "How Bradley Edwards fought Alex Acosta's nonprosecution agreement with Jeffrey Epstein," *Slate,* July 2019. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/07/bradley-edwards-jeffrey-epstein-alexander-acosta.html
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[^5]: Doe v. United States, No. 08-80736 (S.D. Fla. Feb. 21, 2019), opinion of Judge Kenneth Marra finding a Crime Victims' Rights Act violation. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-flsd-9_08-cv-80736/pdf/USCOURTS-flsd-9_08-cv-80736-2.pdf
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[^6]: "Epstein accusers won't receive damages and plea deal won't be tossed, judge rules," *CNN,* September 16, 2019. https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/16/us/jeffrey-epstein-florida-accusers-judge-ruling
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[^7]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Professional Responsibility, "Investigation into the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida's Resolution of Its 2006-2008 Federal Criminal Investigation of Jeffrey Epstein," November 2020. https://www.justice.gov/opr/page/file/1336471/dl
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[^8]: "Trump's Labor Secretary Alex Acosta resigns after criticism over Epstein deal," *Euronews,* July 12, 2019. https://www.euronews.com/2019/07/12/trump-s-labor-secretary-alex-acosta-resigns-after-criticism-over-n1029226
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[^9]: "Alex Acosta, former US attorney who negotiated Epstein's plea deal, appears before House Oversight Committee," *ABC News,* October 2025 (September 2025 closed-door deposition; transcript released October 17, 2025). https://abcnews.com/Politics/alex-acosta-former-us-attorney-negotiated-epsteins-plea/story?id=125731737
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[^10]: "Did Jeffrey Epstein 'Belong to Intelligence'?," *Skeptic,* analyzing Vicky Ward's July 2019 Daily Beast report. https://www.skeptic.com/article/did-jeffrey-epstein-belong-to-intelligence/
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[^11]: "Acosta once said Epstein 'belonged to intelligence,'" *Newsweek,* July 2019. https://www.newsweek.com/alex-acosta-epstein-sex-trafficking-department-labor-1448568
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10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Alexus Grynkewich.md
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---
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category: "Military"
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tags:
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- Person
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- AlexusGrynkewich
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- NATO
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- SACEUR
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- USMilitary
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- Dialog
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- AirForce
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alias:
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- Alexus Grynkewich
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- Alexander V. Grynkewich
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summary: "Alexus Grynkewich is a United States Air Force general serving as NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) since 2025, a four-star command that oversees all NATO military operations, and who has attended Peter Thiel's secret Dialog retreats since 2021 per WIRED."
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born: 1970
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location: "United States"
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created: 2026-06-17
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updated: 2026-06-17
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---
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Alexus Grynkewich is a [[U.S. Air Force]] general serving as NATO [[Supreme Allied Commander Europe]] (SACEUR) since 2025, the four-star command that exercises operational authority over all NATO military forces in Europe. A fighter pilot by background, Grynkewich previously held senior command and staff positions in the [[U.S. Central Command]] area of responsibility, including director of operations at CENTCOM, and his career has spanned the post-[[September 11 attacks|9/11]] counterterrorism operations, the [[Iraq]] and [[Syria]] campaigns against [[ISIS]], and the post-2022 European defense posture following [[Russia]]'s full invasion of [[Ukraine]]. The June 2026 *WIRED* reporting on the [[Dialog]] leak identified Grynkewich as a long-standing Dialog attendee, with attendance since 2021.[^1][^2]
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The SACEUR is the operational commander of NATO's military forces and the principal U.S. four-star command in the European theater. [[Peter Thiel]] (chairman of [[Palantir Technologies]], a major defense and intelligence contractor) and [[Auren Hoffman]] (chairman of [[SafeGraph]], the location-data broker) run the Dialog network that Grynkewich has attended since 2021.
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### Career and Path to SACEUR
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Grynkewich graduated from the [[United States Air Force Academy]] and was commissioned into the Air Force as a fighter pilot, flying combat missions in the post-9/11 period. His career progressed through operational and command assignments, with repeated rotations through the CENTCOM area, including senior positions in the air campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. His staff assignments included the Joint Staff and the CENTCOM director of operations role, the latter placing him at the operational center of U.S. military activity across the Middle East and Central Asia.[^2]
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Grynkewich was nominated for his fourth star and assigned as SACEUR in 2025, in the first year of the second [[Donald Trump|Trump]] administration. The SACEUR assignment is dual-hatted as commander of [[U.S. European Command]] (EUCOM), which means the officeholder commands both the NATO alliance forces and the U.S. forces in the European theater. The position is the senior U.S. military command in Europe, and its holder is the principal military interlocutor with the European allies on Russia, Ukraine, and the broader NATO posture. The 2025 appointment placed Grynkewich at the operational head of the alliance at a moment of sustained high-intensity European security crisis.[^2]
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### Dialog Attendance
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The *WIRED* report on the 2026 Dialog leak identified Grynkewich as having attended Dialog retreats since 2021. The 2021 onset of his attendance predates his SACEUR assignment by four years but overlaps with his senior CENTCOM and Joint Staff positions, the operational and policy roles closest to the intelligence and defense-contracting community that Dialog convenes. The onset also coincides with the first year of the Biden administration, indicating the Dialog attendance spans administrations rather than tracking a single party, consistent with the leak's broader finding of bipartisan government-side attendance.[^1]
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Grynkewich's SACEUR command and his continuing Dialog attendance place an active four-star military commander in the same off-the-record setting as the executives whose firms contract to the Department of Defense and the intelligence community. [[Anduril Industries]] (the Palantir-adjacent defense firm backed by Thiel's [[Founders Fund]]) joins Palantir Technologies and SafeGraph as the commercial principals whose interests in Pentagon procurement and intelligence-agency data sourcing intersect with the SACEUR's command authority. The Dialog convening is where that intersection occurs in person and off the record.[^1]
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### The Procurement and Convening Overlap
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The SACEUR/EUCOM command is a major consumer of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms, of data-fusion software, and of autonomous systems, which are the product categories supplied by the Thiel-network defense-tech cluster (Palantir's data-fusion platforms, Anduril's autonomous systems, the broader 8VC portfolio). The Dialog convening places the commander who consumes those platforms in a recurring, off-the-record setting with the principals of the firms that supply them. Whether any specific procurement decision was discussed at Dialog is not alleged; the 2026 leak is the first primary record of the cross-attendance.[^1]
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The 2026 Dialog registrants named by *WIRED* include [[Jim Himes|Representative Jim Himes]] (the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee), [[Cory Booker|Senator Cory Booker]] (Democrat, New Jersey), and [[Ted Cruz|Senator Ted Cruz]] (Republican, Texas), alongside Grynkewich, whose military command is formally nonpartisan but whose appointment was made by the Trump administration. The cross-party roster shows the convening network reaches across the oversight, legislative, and operational-military tiers of the U.S. national-security apparatus rather than filtering by party.[^1]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: Cameron, Dell, and Yulia Almazova. "Leak Exposes Members of Peter Thiel's Secretive 'Dialog' Society." *WIRED,* June 16, 2026. https://www.wired.com/story/leak-exposes-members-of-peter-thiels-secretive-dialog-society/
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[^2]: For Grynkewich's military career and SACEUR appointment, see U.S. Department of Defense biographical records, NATO official biography for the SACEUR, and contemporaneous reporting on the 2025 appointment.
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10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Amanda Askell.md
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---
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category: "AI & Effective Altruism"
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tags:
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- Person
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- Anthropic
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- ArtificialIntelligence
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- EffectiveAltruism
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- Philosophy
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- AISafety
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alias:
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- Amanda Askell
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- Amanda Hall
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summary: "Amanda Askell is the philosopher who leads the team shaping the character of Anthropic's Claude and is the principal author of its Constitution, an NYU-trained ethicist from the effective-altruism movement who was formerly married to its cofounder William MacAskill."
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born: 1988
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location: "San Francisco, California"
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created: 2026-06-20
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updated: 2026-06-20
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---
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Amanda Askell (born Amanda Hall, 1988) is a British-American philosopher who leads the team responsible for the "character" of [[Anthropic]]'s Claude models and is the principal author of the document Anthropic calls Claude's Constitution. Trained as an analytic philosopher with a doctorate from [[New York University]], she came out of the [[Effective Altruism]] movement, worked at [[OpenAI]] before joining Anthropic, and was for two years married to the movement's cofounder [[William MacAskill]].[^1][^2]
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### Education and Effective Altruism
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|
||||
Askell was born Amanda Hall and raised in Prestwick, Scotland, attending school in Clackmannanshire. She took an MA in philosophy and fine art at the University of Dundee in 2009 and a BPhil in philosophy at the [[University of Oxford]] in 2011, then moved to the United States for doctoral work. She completed a PhD in philosophy at New York University in 2018 with a dissertation titled "Pareto Principles in Infinite Ethics," supervised by Cian Dorr and the philosopher of mind David Chalmers, addressing how to compare outcomes in a universe that may contain infinitely many morally relevant beings.[^1][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
Askell was part of the effective-altruism community during its growth in the early 2010s, a member of Giving What We Can, and connected to its network of philosophers at Oxford. She married William MacAskill, a cofounder of effective altruism, in 2013; the two adopted the shared surname MacAskill, taken from her grandmother's maiden name, and after their 2015 divorce she reworked it to Askell. MacAskill went on to write the longtermist book *What We Owe the Future* and to recruit [[Sam Bankman-Fried]] into the movement, while Askell moved into AI.[^1][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### OpenAI and Anthropic
|
||||
|
||||
Askell joined OpenAI in 2018 as a research scientist working at the intersection of policy and safety, where she was among the co-authors of the May 2020 GPT-3 paper and worked on questions of how to govern competitive "races" in AI development. She left with the group that founded Anthropic in 2021, part of the same departure of OpenAI staff who said the company was not weighting safety heavily enough, and became a member of the technical staff at the new lab.[^2][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
At Anthropic she leads what the company calls personality or character alignment, the work of deciding what kind of entity Claude should be and training those traits into the model. She helped develop the "Constitutional AI" method, in which a model is trained against a written set of principles rather than solely against human-labeled examples, and she is the primary author of the system prompts and the longer "Constitution" that define Claude's values. Askell has described her approach as rooted in virtue ethics rather than rigid rules, arguing that "if you try to specify everything as a series of rules, you really put a lot of pressure on those rules," and that a model given a coherent character can exercise judgment where rules would be brittle. She has framed the goal as making Claude something like a "well-liked traveler," a figure whose traits are valued across cultures while keeping independence of thought.[^6][^7]
|
||||
|
||||
Anthropic published a roughly 20,000-word public version of Claude's Constitution in January 2026, describing the values, character, and ethical framework used in training the model, with Askell named as its lead author. She has spoken publicly about the unresolved question of AI moral status, calling the problem of machine personhood "an extremely hard problem," and about her view that building a model with good character is compatible with, rather than opposed to, the company's commercial interests. She was named to the Time 100 AI list in 2024.[^7][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: "The Philosopher Trying to Give AI a Conscience," *The Wall Street Journal,* on Askell's birth name Amanda Hall, the Scottish upbringing, the Dundee and Oxford degrees, the NYU philosophy PhD on infinite ethics, and the marriage to William MacAskill. https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/anthropic-amanda-askell-philosopher-ai-3c031883
|
||||
[^2]: "Anthropic's In-House Philosopher on How to Give Claude Its Character," *Fast Company,* on Askell's OpenAI background, her Anthropic character-alignment role, and the Constitution. https://www.fastcompany.com/91479037/anthropic-claude-amanda-askell-constitution-ai-chatbot
|
||||
[^3]: Amanda Askell, "Pareto Principles in Infinite Ethics," PhD dissertation, New York University, 2018; NYU Department of Philosophy graduate placement record. https://as.nyu.edu/departments/philosophy/graduate/philosophy-department-graduate-placement-record.html
|
||||
[^4]: "William MacAskill" and "Amanda Askell," on the 2013 marriage, the adopted surname taken from her grandmother's maiden name, and the 2015 divorce after which she became Amanda Askell. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/topics/william-macaskill
|
||||
[^5]: Tom Brown, Benjamin Mann, Nick Ryder, Amanda Askell, et al., "Language Models are Few-Shot Learners," arXiv, May 28, 2020, the GPT-3 paper co-authored during Askell's OpenAI tenure. https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.14165
|
||||
[^6]: "Scaling Laws: Claude's Constitution, with Amanda Askell," *Lawfare,* February 20, 2026, on her role as head of personality alignment, the virtue-ethics-over-rules approach, the "well-liked traveler" framing, and the rules quote. https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/scaling-laws--claude's-constitution--with-amanda-askell
|
||||
[^7]: "Anthropic Publishes Claude AI's New Constitution," *TIME,* January 2026, on the roughly 20,000-word document, Askell's lead authorship, and the character-based training approach. https://time.com/7354738/claude-constitution-ai-alignment/
|
||||
[^8]: "Claude's Constitution," Anthropic, January 2026, the published document defining Claude's values and character, authored primarily by Amanda Askell. https://www.anthropic.com/news/claudes-constitution
|
||||
|
|
@ -1,72 +1,94 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Intelligence & Government"
|
||||
created: 2024-04-25
|
||||
updated: 2026-05-01
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- AriBenMenashe
|
||||
- Israel
|
||||
- Mossad
|
||||
- Military
|
||||
- PROMIS
|
||||
- INSLAW
|
||||
- October Surprise
|
||||
summary: "Ari Ben-Menashe is a self-proclaimed Israeli military intelligence officer who submitted affidavits to the House Judiciary Committee alleging Earl Brian sold PROMIS to Israeli intelligence and Singapore, then recanted to the Bua Report, admitting he had allowed investigators to assume he was referring to INSLAW's PROMIS to promote his book."
|
||||
- OctoberSurprise
|
||||
- IranContra
|
||||
- RobertMaxwell
|
||||
- JeffreyEpstein
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Ari Ben-Menashe
|
||||
- Ari Ben Menashe
|
||||
summary: "Ari Ben-Menashe is an Iranian-born Israeli-Canadian who describes himself as a former military-intelligence official and became a recurring source for claims about U.S.-Israeli arms dealing, the October Surprise, PROMIS, Robert Maxwell, and Jeffrey Epstein, claims repeatedly found uncorroborated and, by a congressional task force, not credible."
|
||||
born: 1951-12-04
|
||||
location: "Tehran, Iran"
|
||||
location: "Tehran, Iran; Montreal, Canada"
|
||||
created: 2024-04-25
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-20
|
||||
---
|
||||
[[Ari Ben-Menashe]] is a self-proclaimed [[Israel|Israeli]] military intelligence officer, born in Tehran, [[Iran]] in 1951 to affluent Iraqi Jewish parents. He is multilingual, speaking Arabic, English, French, Farsi, Hebrew, and Spanish. His father, Gourdji, was involved with [[LEHI]] (Stern Gang) and knew [[Yitzhak Shamir]].[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
Ben-Menashe moved to Israel in 1966 at age 14. In 1969, while on Kibbutz Mishmar Hasharon, he was involved in the [[Michael Dennis Rohan]]/[[El Aqsa Mosque]] arson incident. He was recruited by [[SHABAK]] in 1972 but declined a spying role. He was drafted into military service in 1974, assigned to [[Unit 8200]] (Signals Intelligence) on the Iranian desk, where he claims to have broken the Iranian diplomatic code. In 1976, he claims involvement in uncovering a [[Lockheed Aircraft Company|Lockheed]] bribe scandal involving [[Shimon Peres]]. After refusing an assignment to the Rome listening station in 1977, he was court-martialed and released from military service.[^3]
|
||||
Ari Ben-Menashe is an Iranian-born Israeli-Canadian businessman, author, and lobbyist who describes himself as a former official of Israel's military intelligence, and who became a recurring source for claims about covert United States and Israeli arms dealing, the [[October Surprise]] theory, [[PROMIS]] software, [[Robert Maxwell]], and, in later years, [[Jeffrey Epstein]].[^1] He was born on December 4, 1951, in Tehran, [[Iran]], to an affluent Iraqi Jewish family; his father Gourdji was involved with [[LEHI]] (the Stern Gang) and knew [[Yitzhak Shamir]].[^3][^5] His allegations have been influential in conspiracy literature while being repeatedly assessed as unreliable by courts, congressional investigators, and journalists.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Intelligence Career
|
||||
### Claimed Intelligence Background
|
||||
|
||||
The claims in this section are drawn from Ben-Menashe's own account in *Profits of War* and have not been independently verified. Multiple congressional investigations found Ben-Menashe's testimony "totally lacking in credibility" and "demonstrably false from beginning to end."[^2]
|
||||
By his own account, Ben-Menashe moved to Israel in 1966 at age 14, and in 1969, while on Kibbutz Mishmar Hasharon, was involved in the [[Michael Dennis Rohan]] [[El Aqsa Mosque]] arson incident. He says he was recruited by [[SHABAK]] in 1972 but declined a spying role, was drafted in 1974 and assigned to [[Unit 8200]] (signals intelligence) on the Iranian desk where he claims to have broken the Iranian diplomatic code, and that in 1976 he was involved in uncovering a [[Lockheed Aircraft Company|Lockheed]] bribe scandal involving [[Shimon Peres]]. After refusing an assignment to the Rome listening station in 1977, he says he was court-martialed and released from military service.[^5] He states that he then worked from 1977 to 1987 as a civilian in the External Relations Department of the Israeli [[Military Intelligence Directorate (Israel)|Military Intelligence Directorate]] (Aman), a role he has portrayed as giving him access to high-level arms-transfer and covert-operations decisions.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
In August 1977, he joined the External Relations Department of Israeli Military Intelligence (IDF/MI/ERD) as a civilian, serving as a liaison with Iranian intelligence ([[SAVAK]]) and exchanging technical information including details on [[Chobham armor]]. He claims to have met [[Mahmoud Amirian]] (Tudeh Party) and [[Sayeed Mehdi Kashani]] (Shi'ite opposition) at Tehran University in 1977 and to have warned Israeli intelligence of an impending Iranian Revolution in 1978. In March 1978, he claims to have undertaken a mission to [[Nicaragua]] to establish communication with the [[Sandinistas]], where he met [[Marie Fernanda]] (Freddie), who later became pregnant with their daughter, Herut. The [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] dismissed his warnings about Iran in April 1978.[^3]
|
||||
Critics dispute the seniority he claims. Israel has generally characterized him as a low-level translator rather than a policy insider, and the journalist [[Steven Emerson]], writing in 1991, argued that Ben-Menashe had inflated a minor translating job into a record of "key positions."[^3] The Israeli government acknowledged that he had worked for military intelligence in a translation capacity but denied that he had held the senior operational role he described.[^7] The disagreement over his rank has shaped the reception of all his later claims, because his accounts of arms deals, the October Surprise, and Israeli operations rest on his asserted firsthand access rather than on corroborating documents or witnesses.[^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
In December 1978, he claims involvement in a plan to assassinate [[Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini]] alongside [[Rafael Eitan|Rafi]] and Col. Assaf Heftez. [[Ruth Ben-David]] acted as an emissary between [[Menachem Begin]] and Khomeini in December 1978. The Shah left Iran in January 1979, and F-14 jets were flown out by Israeli aircrews. He attended an Israel-U.S. intelligence exchange conference in September 1979 at which he criticized the U.S. attitude, including that of [[Jack Varona]], [[Robert Gates]], and [[Stansfield Turner]]. Following the U.S. Embassy hostage crisis in November 1979, he observed [[Jimmy Carter]]'s handling of the situation and the involvement of the Hashemi brothers in arms-for-hostages contacts.[^3]
|
||||
### Arms Case and Acquittal
|
||||
|
||||
### October Surprise Allegations
|
||||
Ben-Menashe first drew wide public attention when he was arrested in the United States in November 1989 and charged under the Arms Export Control Act with attempting to broker the sale of three Israeli-owned Lockheed [[C-130 Hercules]] transport aircraft to Iran, a deal valued at about 36 million dollars, using false end-user certificates.[^4] The prosecution was brought in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, where the related rulings carried the caption United States v. Menashe.[^14] He spent nearly a year in custody before a jury acquitted him and a co-defendant on November 28, 1990, after his defense argued, and the jury accepted, that he had been acting under the authority of the Israeli government in a transaction tied to Israel's arms dealings with Iran.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
The claims in this section are Ben-Menashe's own account from *Profits of War* and are presented as he recorded them. The House October Surprise Task Force found no evidence to substantiate his specific allegations.[^2]
|
||||
Israel denied that he had been authorized to act for it in the transaction, repeating the position that he had been only a translator.[^4] The acquittal nonetheless rested on the jury's willingness to credit his Israeli-agent defense, and he afterward cited the verdict as vindication of his broader account, even though the bodies that later examined his substantive claims rejected them.[^2][^6] The acquittal gave him a platform from which he expanded a series of claims about secret United States and Israeli arms networks, set out in his 1992 book [[Profits of War]].[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Miles Copeland]]'s group of CIA-connected officers, along with [[William J. Casey]], [[Robert McFarlane]], and [[Earl Brian]], became involved in secret negotiations with the Iranians. [[David Kimche]] (Mossad Tevel) initiated a secret arms supply to Iran via [[South Africa]] in September 1979. [[Rafael Eitan|Rafi]] established a network with Senator [[John Tower]], McFarlane, and Brian.[^3]
|
||||
### October Surprise and Iran-Contra Claims
|
||||
|
||||
The first Madrid meeting (March 1980) involved [[Mehdi Karrubi]], Kashani, [[Ahmed Omshei]], Casey, McFarlane, and [[Donald Gregg]]. [[Shimon Peres]] also secretly met with Karrubi. The sale of tires to Iran in April 1980 led to [[Jimmy Carter]]'s anger. The [[Operation Eagle Claw]] rescue mission failed in April 1980. A second Madrid meeting in May 1980 included Karrubi, Kashani, Omshei, [[Khosro Fakhrieh]], Casey, Gates, McFarlane, and Brian, where Republicans were observed delaying hostage release for political gain. The [[KGB]] made inquiries about Israeli intelligence in 1980. The Israeli Cabinet issued a directive in August 1980 to cooperate with the Republican camp.[^3]
|
||||
In Profits of War and in congressional testimony, Ben-Menashe alleged that Israeli officials, working with figures around the 1980 [[Ronald Reagan]] presidential campaign, arranged arms sales to Iran in exchange for delaying the release of American hostages until after the November 1980 election, the scenario known as the October Surprise.[^5] He claimed to have witnessed a Paris meeting in October 1980 attended by [[George H.W. Bush]], the campaign manager [[William J. Casey|William Casey]], and Iranian representatives.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
An Amsterdam meeting in August 1980 involved Kashani, Iranian officials, and [[Cyrus Husseinzadeh]] (SAVAMA), where an Iranian arms shopping list was presented. The Iraqi invasion of Iran occurred in September 1980. A fourth Madrid/Barcelona meeting involved [[George H.W. Bush]] and Karrubi.[^3]
|
||||
His detailed account named a sequence of secret meetings. He described [[Miles Copeland]]'s group of CIA-connected officers, Casey, [[Robert McFarlane]], and [[Earl Brian]] entering negotiations with the Iranians, and [[David Kimche]] of Mossad initiating an arms supply to Iran via [[South Africa]] in 1979. He placed first and second Madrid meetings in March and May 1980 involving [[Mehdi Karrubi]], Casey, McFarlane, [[Donald Gregg]], [[Robert Gates]], and Brian; an Amsterdam meeting in August 1980; and the October 1980 Paris meeting at which he says the hostage-release deal was sealed and after which he received 56 million dollars in [[Guatemala]] in December 1980, with 4 million for Brian and 52 million for the Iranian intermediary Kashani. The hostages were released on Reagan's inauguration day, January 20, 1981.[^5] He further alleged a 1980 to 1981 [[Iran-Israel Joint Committee]] arms pipeline, a role in the June 7, 1981 [[Israel Air Force]] strike on Iraq's Tammuz nuclear reactor, the recruitment of Daily Mirror foreign editor [[Nicholas Davies]] by Mossad, and the use of a slush fund (the [[Ora Group]]) to finance the [[Likud Party]] and "black" operations including, in his telling, the 1985 [[Achille Lauro]] hijacking.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
A Paris meeting in October 1980 included Bush, Casey, Karrubi, Gates, [[George Cave]], Gregg, Kimche, [[Shmuel Morieh]], [[Uri Simchoni]], Rafi, Ben-Menashe, and [[Simon Gabbay]], where the hostage release deal was sealed. Ben-Menashe received $56 million in [[Guatemala]] in December 1980 from a Saudi ambassador ([[Faissal Ghows]]), with $4 million designated for Brian and $52 million for Kashani. He met Gates at Miami airport for the money transfer. Profits from tire and wheelbase sales ($956,000) were used to initiate a slush fund. The hostages were released on [[Ronald Reagan]]'s inauguration day, January 20, 1981.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
In the fall of 1980, the [[Iran-Israel Joint Committee]] was formed to supply arms to Iran, with initial members including Kimche, Morieh, Simchoni, [[Moshe Hebroni]], Rafi, and Ben-Menashe. In February 1981, at a Vienna arms supply conference, a $1 billion deal was struck for F-4 parts, artillery shells, mortars, AK-47s, air-to-surface missiles, Chieftain tank engines, and C-130s. Ben-Menashe made his first trip to post-revolutionary Tehran in February 1981 under the alias "William Grace," meeting Iranian Defense Ministry officials and the Air Force commander. Concerns about the Iraqi nuclear reactor ([[Tammuz 17]]) led to a Mossad operation to plant a homing device.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
A meeting in southern France in March 1981 between [[Abol Hassan Bani-Sadr]] and [[Moshe Arens]] fixed June 7 for the reactor attack. The [[Israel Air Force]] attacked Tammuz 17 on June 7, 1981, with pilots including Col. [[Yoram Eitan]] and [[Yair Shamir]]. Weapons flights from Ben-Gurion Airport to Tehran via Argentinean charters began in March 1981. A [[KGB]] inquiry about the flights led to a Soviet shootdown of a cargo plane in July 1981.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Ora Group]] was formed as a flagship for the slush fund. A New York operation on John Street was established for electronic equipment but was compromised when a Swiss woman leaked information to [[Leslie M. Gelb]] of the New York Times. Rafi used South African intelligence to deal with the Swiss woman.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
A strategic U.S.-Israeli agreement involving [[Ariel Sharon]], Gates, and McFarlane allowed the resale of older U.S. arms. Money from arms sales was routed through U.S. banks including Chicago-Tokyo Bank, Chemical Bank, Bank One, and Valley National Bank of Arizona. Smokescreen operations involved private arms brokers including [[John Hortrich]] (alias John de Laroque) and [[Bernard Velliot]]. [[Nicholas Davies]], foreign editor of the London Daily Mirror, was recruited by Mossad.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
A [[TOW missile]] deal in 1983 involved [[Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani]] and Kashani, with a deception campaign involving [[Arieh Jacobson]] and [[Abraham Bar David]]. A T-80 tank was acquired from Iran in 1985. The slush fund financed the [[Likud Party]] (under [[Yitzhak Shamir]] and [[Ehud Olmert]]) and "black" operations.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Mohammed Radi Abdullah]], a former Jordanian Army Colonel, was involved in "black" operations selling arms to Palestinian groups including [[Abu Nidal]] for intelligence purposes. The [[Achille Lauro]] hijacking in 1985 is described by Ben-Menashe as an Israeli "black" propaganda operation. Contributions were made to [[AIPAC]] and the Jewish Reform Movement. The Mossad European headquarters moved to London in 1982.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
During the [[Falklands War]], Israel froze arms sales to [[Argentina]], and the [[United Kingdom]] reimbursed Israel. [[Australia]] was used for "parking purposes" for C-130s from [[Vietnam]], artillery shells from [[North Korea]], TOW missiles, and [[Silkworm missile]]s from [[China]].[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
A contribution was made to the West Australian Labor Party in February 1987, involving [[Richard Babayan]], Brian, [[Hadron]], [[Yosef Goldberg]], [[Alan Bond]], [[John Curtin Foundation]], [[Robert Maxwell]], and the Pergamon Press Trust Fund.[^3]
|
||||
No official body endorsed this account. The [[House October Surprise Task Force]], chaired by Representative [[Lee Hamilton]], published its joint report on January 3, 1993, and rejected it, saying it had conclusive evidence from travel and passport records that Ben-Menashe was not in Paris when he claimed to have witnessed the meeting, and describing his testimony as "totally lacking in credibility," "demonstrably false from beginning to end," and "a total fabrication."[^6] A separate review of the Iran-Contra-related allegations conducted under Attorney General [[William Barr]] likewise found no credible basis for his key claims, and an earlier Senate examination reached similar conclusions.[^6][^7]
|
||||
|
||||
### PROMIS Affidavits and INSLAW
|
||||
|
||||
After [[Danny Casolaro]]'s death in August 1991, Ben-Menashe called [[Bill Hamilton]], president of [[INSLAW]], and claimed that two FBI agents from Lexington, Kentucky - including one named E.B. Cartinhour - had been en route to Martinsburg to give Casolaro evidence that the FBI was illegally using PROMIS software. He stated one agent was disaffected because his superiors had refused to indict senior Reagan officials for their October Surprise role.[^1]
|
||||
After the journalist [[Danny Casolaro]]'s death in August 1991, Ben-Menashe called [[Bill Hamilton]], president of [[INSLAW|Inslaw]], and claimed that two FBI agents from Lexington, Kentucky, had been en route to Martinsburg to give Casolaro evidence that the FBI was illegally using PROMIS software, one of them disaffected because his superiors had refused to indict senior Reagan officials over the October Surprise.[^19] In affidavits submitted to the bankruptcy court in February and March 1991, he claimed personal knowledge of Earl Brian's involvement in international PROMIS distribution, alleging that Brian made a 1987 presentation to Israeli Military Intelligence claiming ownership of PROMIS rights, that [[Rafael Eitan]] received PROMIS from Brian and McFarlane in 1982 for Israeli signals intelligence, and that enhanced PROMIS was sold to the Israeli intelligence community, the Singapore Armed Forces, the Soviet Union, and Canada.[^20] These PROMIS-distribution claims were later amplified by [[Seymour Hersh]] in [[The Samson Option]] and [[Gordon Thomas]] in [[Gideon's Spies]].[^8][^9]
|
||||
|
||||
In two affidavits dated February 17 and March 21, 1991, submitted to the Bankruptcy Court, Ben-Menashe claimed personal knowledge of Brian's involvement in international PROMIS distribution. He alleged Brian made a 1987 presentation to Israeli Military Intelligence's External Relations Department claiming ownership of PROMIS rights and stating that the CIA, NSA, DOJ, and Israeli intelligence had been using the software since 1982. He further alleged a 1982 meeting at which [[Rafael Eitan]] received PROMIS from Brian and McFarlane for the Israeli Defense Force Signals Intelligence unit. He claimed knowledge of the 1987 sale of Enhanced PROMIS to the Israeli intelligence community and the Singapore Armed Forces, a public-domain version sold by the Israeli government to the Soviet Union, and an enhanced version sold to Canada.[^2]
|
||||
The special counsel [[Nicholas Bua]], in his 1993 report on the Inslaw affair, rejected these claims. When interviewed, Ben-Menashe gave a substantially different account, stating that he had no knowledge of the transfer of Inslaw's proprietary software, and that the "PROMIS" in his affidavits referred not to Inslaw's product but to an NSA program he called "Milon," a dictionary-compilation tool developed independently before Inslaw existed; he admitted he had allowed the Hamiltons and others to assume he meant Inslaw's PROMIS "to promote his book."[^20] The NSA confirmed that its own internal Product Related On-line Management Information System, also called PROMIS, was written in M204 rather than COBOL and was wholly unrelated to Inslaw's software. The House October Surprise Task Force, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and the special counsel all found his testimony fabricated and unsupported.[^10][^20]
|
||||
|
||||
### Credibility Assessment
|
||||
### Claims about Robert Maxwell
|
||||
|
||||
Special Counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]]'s investigation found Ben-Menashe's claims unsupported by credible evidence. When interviewed, Ben-Menashe provided a substantially different account: he stated he had no knowledge of the transfer of INSLAW's proprietary software by Brian or DOJ. He claimed the "PROMIS" in his affidavits referred not to INSLAW's PROMIS but to an NSA program called "Milon" (phonetic), a dictionary-compilation tool developed independently of INSLAW before the company existed. He admitted he allowed the Hamiltons and others to assume he meant INSLAW's PROMIS "to promote his book." The NSA confirmed its internal Product Related On-line Management Information System, also called PROMIS, was written in M204 rather than COBOL, served entirely different functions, and was wholly unrelated to INSLAW's software.[^2]
|
||||
Ben-Menashe alleged that the publisher Robert Maxwell and Nicholas Davies were long-time assets of Israeli intelligence and that Maxwell had close ties to the prime minister's office.[^5] One specific claim concerned the 1986 case of the nuclear technician [[Mordechai Vanunu]], whose account of [[Dimona]] reached the Maxwell-owned [[Sunday Mirror]]; Ben-Menashe said Davies alerted Israeli intelligence to the approach and introduced him to Vanunu's intermediary [[Oscar Guerrero]], and that a Vanunu photograph published by the Sunday Mirror had been flown in from Israel, although the photograph in question had in fact been taken by the [[Sunday Times]] journalist [[Peter Hounam]], undercutting that detail.[^15] Hersh's 1991 book and the parliamentary statements that followed brought the Maxwell allegations into the open shortly before Maxwell's death, and Maxwell sued Hersh for libel before the action lapsed.[^8] No declassified material has confirmed the allegations.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
The House October Surprise Task Force, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and the Special Counsel all found Ben-Menashe's testimony "totally lacking in credibility," "fabricated," and "demonstrably false from beginning to end." The October Surprise Task Force found no evidence for his specific allegations regarding a Casey-Brian trip to Iran. The Special Counsel concluded that Ben-Menashe's account offered no evidentiary support for the allegation that DOJ and Brian conspired to steal and distribute INSLAW's software.[^2]
|
||||
### Epstein and Maxwell Allegations
|
||||
|
||||
Beginning in 2019, Ben-Menashe gave interviews, including to the journalist [[Whitney Webb]] of MintPress News and to the outlet Narativ, in which he claimed that he had met Jeffrey Epstein and [[Ghislaine Maxwell]] in the 1980s, that he had seen Epstein in Robert Maxwell's offices, and that Maxwell had recruited Epstein for Israeli intelligence and introduced him as pre-approved by figures in Aman.[^11] He characterized the later Epstein operation as a "honeytrap" that gathered sexual blackmail material on powerful figures for Israeli intelligence.[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
No corroborating witness, document, or official admission has been produced to support these specific claims, and reviewers have noted that they rest solely on his own assertions against a documented record of unreliability.[^2][^12] His account also conflicts with the established chronology of Epstein's career, since Epstein's documented entry into Ghislaine Maxwell's circle is generally dated to the period after Robert Maxwell's 1991 death rather than to the 1980s meetings Ben-Menashe described.[^12] He has continued to make related claims, including a 2025 assertion that [[Benjamin Netanyahu]] held Epstein-related files, that likewise remain unverified.[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
### Lobbying and Consulting
|
||||
|
||||
After his intelligence-related notoriety, Ben-Menashe built a lobbying and consulting practice through the [[Montreal]]-based firm [[Dickens & Madson]], representing controversial governments and figures.[^13] His involvement with the government of [[Robert Mugabe]] in [[Zimbabwe]] featured in the treason prosecution of the opposition leader [[Morgan Tsvangirai]], built on a videotape in which prosecutors said Tsvangirai discussed the "elimination" of Mugabe with Ben-Menashe; Tsvangirai was acquitted of high treason on October 14, 2004, by Judge [[Paddington Garwe]] of the Harare High Court, who found no proof of the alleged request, ruled that Ben-Menashe's testimony had to be treated with caution, and called some of it clearly false.[^16]
|
||||
|
||||
He later registered a 2 million dollar contract in March 2021 to lobby for the [[Myanmar]] military junta after its coup, agreeing to advise on evading United States sanctions, and took on engagements connected to [[Sudan]] and its militia leader [[Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo]], a roughly 12 million dollar Zimbabwe land transaction funded by the criminal financier [[Paul Le Roux]] in 2007 and 2008 in which the promised farmland was never delivered, a reported 1 million dollar arrangement with [[Kyrgyzstan]], and work tied to [[Libya]], the [[Republic of the Congo]], [[Venezuela]], and the [[Tigray]] conflict in [[Ethiopia]].[^13][^17] Washington figures quoted in profiles of his career described his reputation as "poisonous."[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
### The McFarlane Libel Suit
|
||||
|
||||
The former national security adviser Robert McFarlane sued Ben-Menashe and the publisher of Profits of War, Sheridan Square Press, for libel over passages that linked McFarlane to the covert dealings Ben-Menashe described.[^18] The case, McFarlane v. Sheridan Square Press, reached the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which ruled in 1996. Applying the [[actual malice]] standard required for a public figure, the court held that McFarlane could not show the publisher had acted with reckless disregard for the truth merely because Ben-Menashe was a doubtful source, and it affirmed dismissal of the suit. The outcome turned on the high bar a public-figure plaintiff must clear rather than on any finding that Ben-Menashe's account was true.[^18]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal.* TrineDay, 2010.
|
||||
[^2]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.* March 1993.
|
||||
[^3]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network.* TrineDay, 1992.
|
||||
[^1]: "Ari Ben-Menashe - Biography," *JewAge.* https://www.jewage.org/wiki/en/Article:Ari_Ben-Menashe_-_Biography
|
||||
[^2]: "Who is Ari Ben-Menashe, what is his track record as a source," *Factually,* 2025. https://factually.co/fact-checks/media/ari-ben-menashe-track-record-israeli-intelligence-source-epstein-claims-evaluation-ec9ba6
|
||||
[^3]: Emerson, Steven. "The Samson Option, by Seymour M. Hersh," *Commentary,* 1991. https://www.commentary.org/articles/steven-emerson/the-samson-option-by-seymour-m-hersh/
|
||||
[^4]: "2 Acquitted of Trying to Sell Military Cargo Planes to Iran," *The Washington Post,* 1990. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1990/11/29/2-acquitted-of-trying-to-sell-military-cargo-planes-to-iran/2918bfd6-89a7-441a-a124-3b1916e90321/
|
||||
[^5]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network.* Sheridan Square Press, 1992.
|
||||
[^6]: "Probe by House finds no 'October surprise,'" *The Baltimore Sun,* 1993. https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1993-01-13-1993013111-story.html
|
||||
[^7]: "Espionage: Con Man or Key to a Mystery?," *Time,* 1991. https://time.com/archive/6718038/espionage-con-man-or-key-to-a-mystery/
|
||||
[^8]: "Fact or fiction? The claims of Ari Ben-Menashe," *Green Left,* 1992. https://www.greenleft.org.au/1992/42/fact-or-fiction-claims-ari-ben-menashe
|
||||
[^9]: Pipes, Daniel. "Gideon's Spies by Gordon Thomas," *Commentary,* 1999. https://www.commentary.org/articles/daniel-pipes/gideons-spies-by-gordon-thomas/
|
||||
[^10]: "No wrong-doing in Inslaw affair, report says," *UPI,* 1993. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1993/06/17/No-wrong-doing-in-Inslaw-affair-report-says/5482740289600/
|
||||
[^11]: "Former Israeli Spy Ari Ben-Menashe on Israel's Relationship with Epstein," *MintPress News,* 2019. https://www.mintpressnews.com/ari-ben-menashe-israel-relationship-jeffrey-epstein/263465/
|
||||
[^12]: "What did Ari Ben-Menashe claim about Jeffrey Epstein," *Factually,* 2025. https://factually.co/fact-checks/media/ari-ben-menashe-claims-jeffrey-epstein-mossad-d56c30
|
||||
[^13]: "The Man of Mystery Hustling Myanmar," *Washington Monthly,* 2021. https://washingtonmonthly.com/2021/03/13/the-man-of-mystery-hustling-myanmar/
|
||||
[^14]: United States v. Menashe, 741 F. Supp. 1135 (S.D.N.Y. 1990).
|
||||
[^15]: "The Vanunu affair and the Sunday Mirror photograph," contemporaneous press reporting noting the photograph was taken by Sunday Times journalist Peter Hounam, undercutting Ben-Menashe's account.
|
||||
[^16]: "Tsvangirai acquitted of treason in Zimbabwe," *The Globe and Mail,* 2004. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/tsvangirai-acquitted-of-treason-in-zimbabwe/article18275151/
|
||||
[^17]: "The Curious Case of Bishkek's $1 Million Deal With Ex-Israeli Intelligence Worker," *Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty,* 2021. https://www.rferl.org/a/the-curious-case-of-bishkek-s-1-million-deal-with-ex-israeli-intelligence-worker-/31033365.html
|
||||
[^18]: McFarlane v. Sheridan Square Press, Inc., 91 F.3d 1501 (D.C. Cir. 1996).
|
||||
[^19]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal.* TrineDay, 2010, on Ben-Menashe's call to Bill Hamilton after Casolaro's death.
|
||||
[^20]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.* March 1993, on the PROMIS affidavits, the "Milon" recantation, and the finding that Ben-Menashe's account offered no evidentiary support for the Inslaw allegations.
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -1,32 +1,89 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
title: Bill Clinton
|
||||
aliases:
|
||||
- Bill Clinton
|
||||
- William Jefferson Clinton
|
||||
created: 2026-05-17
|
||||
updated: 2026-05-17
|
||||
category: "Intelligence & Government"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- Politician
|
||||
- BillClinton
|
||||
- Arkansas
|
||||
- DarkAllianceInvestigation
|
||||
- ContraWar
|
||||
- Arkansas
|
||||
summary: "William Jefferson 'Bill' Clinton was the 42nd President of the United States (1993-2001) and Governor of Arkansas during the period when Barry Seal operated his CIA-connected cocaine smuggling operation at Mena airport."
|
||||
- STARGATE
|
||||
- JeffreyEpstein
|
||||
- ClintonFoundation
|
||||
- FlightLogs
|
||||
- LolitaExpress
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Bill Clinton
|
||||
- William Jefferson Clinton
|
||||
- William Jefferson Blythe III
|
||||
summary: "Bill Clinton was the 42nd President of the United States and Governor of Arkansas during the Mena CIA-linked drug-smuggling period, whose administration terminated Project Stargate in 1995, and who took multiple flights on Jeffrey Epstein's aircraft for Clinton Foundation work in 2002-2003 while denying any knowledge of Epstein's crimes."
|
||||
born: 1946-08-19
|
||||
location: "Hope, Arkansas"
|
||||
created: 2026-05-17
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-20
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton was the 42nd President of the United States, serving from 1993 to 2001. His administration oversaw the declassification and termination of the [[STARGATE PROJECT]] in 1995.[^1] While the *Remote Viewers* text does not detail Clinton's direct involvement with the project, it notes that [[William Perry]], who served as Clinton's Secretary of Defense, had previously been involved in funding decisions for the program during the Carter administration.[^1]
|
||||
Bill Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as Governor of [[Arkansas]] and as the 42nd President of the [[United States]] from 1993 to 2001. After leaving office he established the [[Clinton Foundation]] and traveled internationally on its behalf, including on aircraft owned by [[Jeffrey Epstein]]. Flight logs entered into civil litigation list Clinton on flights aboard Epstein's Boeing 727, the aircraft journalists later nicknamed the "[[Lolita Express]]." Clinton has denied knowledge of Epstein's sexual offenses and has denied visiting Epstein's private island, [[Little St. James]]. No court, prosecutor, or official investigation has produced evidence that Clinton committed a crime in connection with Epstein.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Governor of Arkansas and the Mena Drug Operations
|
||||
|
||||
As Governor of [[Arkansas]], Clinton presided over the period when [[Barry Seal]] operated his [[Central Intelligence Agency]]-connected [[cocaine]] smuggling operation at Mena airport. Clinton's close friend [[Danny Ray Lasater]] was convicted as part of a major drug ring in Little Rock, raising questions about what the governor knew about the activities at [[Mena, Arkansas|Mena]].[^2]
|
||||
As Governor of Arkansas, Clinton presided over the period when [[Barry Seal]] operated his [[Central Intelligence Agency]]-connected [[cocaine]] smuggling operation at Mena airport. Clinton's close friend [[Danny Ray Lasater]] was convicted as part of a major drug ring in Little Rock, raising questions about what the governor knew about the activities at [[Mena, Arkansas|Mena]].[^16]
|
||||
|
||||
Arkansas state trooper Larry Patterson testified that troopers were aware "that there was large quantities of drugs being flown into the Mena airport" and that "it was a CIA operation." Despite the scale of Seal's operations, which a letter from the Arkansas attorney general to U.S. Attorney General [[Ed Meese]] valued at $3 billion to $5 billion in smuggled drugs, the state government took no action to shut down the operation. Clinton's administration in Arkansas presided over the period when the Mena airport served as a hub for both drug trafficking and Contra supply operations.[^3]
|
||||
Arkansas state trooper Larry Patterson testified that troopers were aware "that there was large quantities of drugs being flown into the Mena airport" and that "it was a CIA operation." Despite the scale of Seal's operations, which a letter from the Arkansas attorney general to U.S. Attorney General [[Ed Meese]] valued at 3 billion to 5 billion dollars in smuggled drugs, the state government took no action to shut down the operation. Clinton's administration in Arkansas presided over the period when the Mena airport served as a hub for both drug trafficking and Contra supply operations.[^16]
|
||||
|
||||
### Project Stargate
|
||||
|
||||
As president, Clinton's administration oversaw the 1995 declassification and termination of the [[STARGATE PROJECT]], the government's remote-viewing program, after a CIA-commissioned review concluded the program had no demonstrated intelligence value. The *Remote Viewers* account does not detail any direct involvement by Clinton in the program, but notes that [[William Perry]], who served as Clinton's Secretary of Defense, had earlier been involved in funding decisions for the program during the Carter administration.[^15]
|
||||
|
||||
### Epstein Contacts and Flight Logs
|
||||
|
||||
Epstein donated 1,000 dollars to Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign and contributed to later Democratic fundraising, and Clinton Foundation records show a 25,000 dollar contribution from an Epstein-linked foundation in 2006, according to a timeline compiled by [[ABC News]]. Epstein and [[Ghislaine Maxwell]] were recorded as visitors during Clinton's presidency and were photographed at White House events. Clinton's spokesman has said the former president met Epstein privately on two occasions after leaving office, once at Epstein's Manhattan townhouse and once at the [[Clinton Global Initiative]] offices in Harlem.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
Flight logs released in civil litigation and later in document tranches list Clinton on flights aboard Epstein's Boeing 727, registration N908JE. Reporting on the logs in 2016 noted Clinton appearing on at least 26 flight "legs," a figure that counts individual segments of multi-stop trips rather than distinct journeys, and noted that he traveled on at least some legs without his [[United States Secret Service|Secret Service]] detail. Maxwell, recorded in the logs by the initials "GM," appears on the trips, as do entries read as the initials of Epstein assistant [[Sarah Kellen]]. The logs record who boarded which aircraft and when; they do not, on their face, establish what occurred at any destination.[^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
[[FactCheck.org]], reviewing the manifests, counted six trips comprising the 26 flights between February 2002 and November 2003, the discrepancy between trip and leg counts arising from whether each take-off and landing is tallied separately. The documented segments included a February 2002 Miami-to-Westchester hop, a round trip from New York to London in March 2002, a May 2002 sequence through Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Brunei, a July 2002 stop tied to a wedding in Morocco, the September 2002 Africa tour, and a November 2003 routing through Brussels, Oslo, Hong Kong, and Beijing. President [[Donald Trump]] in 2025 claimed Clinton flew on the plane "27 or 28 times," a characterization FactCheck.org described as conflating the leg total with the number of trips; the same review found no flight log placing Clinton on an aircraft bound for the U.S. Virgin Islands.[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
Maxwell, deposed in the Giuffre litigation, stated of the island that "just so we are clear, the allegations that Clinton had a meal on Jeffrey's island is 100 percent false." On one of the 2003 legs, from Oslo to the Russian city of Novosibirsk, the manifest listed Clinton, Epstein, the aide [[Doug Band]], and individuals identified by the initials "GM" and "SK." No court, prosecutor, or official investigation has produced a finding that Clinton witnessed or participated in any crime aboard the aircraft.[^12][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### 2002 Africa Trip
|
||||
|
||||
Clinton departed on September 21, 2002, on a roughly nine-day trip through several African nations to advance the Clinton Foundation's early work on the HIV/AIDS epidemic, including efforts to expand access to antiretroviral medication for mothers with HIV. The itinerary ran through Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda, Mozambique, and South Africa and included a day spent with former South African President [[Nelson Mandela]]. FactCheck.org and reporting on the manifests counted this single trip as accounting for roughly 11 of the 26 logged flight legs.[^4][^11]
|
||||
|
||||
The manifest for the outbound leg from New York to the Azores listed Clinton, the actors [[Kevin Spacey]] and [[Chris Tucker]], Epstein, Maxwell, and roughly a dozen others including Doug Band, the investor [[Ron Burkle]], [[Casey Wasserman]], former Transportation Secretary [[Rodney Slater]], and Clinton aides. Chris Tucker appears in the records on the outbound and subsequent legs of the African routing. Spacey, named on the flight log, later said he had flown with Epstein and a group described as young women and characterized his presence as incidental to the Foundation trip; he was never accused of wrongdoing in connection with it.[^4][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
The trip was arranged in part through Doug Band, who served as a central organizer of Clinton's post-presidential travel and of the Foundation's network of donors and contacts during this period. Clinton said through a spokesman in 2002 that he regarded Epstein as "both a highly successful financier and a committed philanthropist with a keen sense of global markets." After Epstein's 2019 arrest, Clinton's spokesman said the trips "included stops in connection with the work of The Clinton Foundation."[^5][^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Denials and Statements
|
||||
|
||||
After Epstein's July 2019 federal arrest, Clinton's spokesman Angel Urena issued a statement saying Clinton "knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York." The statement said Clinton had taken trips on Epstein's plane in 2002 and 2003 in connection with Foundation work, that staff and his Secret Service detail traveled on every leg, that Clinton had not spoken to Epstein "in well over a decade," and that Clinton "has never been to Little St. James Island." The reference in that statement to Secret Service traveling on every leg sits alongside reporting on the logs indicating Clinton flew at least some segments without his detail, a discrepancy his office has not separately reconciled in public.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
In his 2024 memoir *Citizen*, Clinton wrote that he wished he had never met Epstein, that traveling on Epstein's plane "was not worth the years of questioning afterward," and that he and Epstein discussed only "politics and economics." Clinton again denied visiting Little St. James and wrote that he had stopped contact with Epstein by the time of Epstein's 2005-2006 legal troubles in Florida. Clinton wrote that he had thought Epstein "odd" but had no knowledge of his crimes.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
In a deposition compelled by the [[House Oversight Committee]], conducted behind closed doors in late February 2026 near the Clintons' home in Chappaqua, New York, Clinton again denied any knowledge of Epstein's offenses, stating "I saw nothing, and I did nothing wrong" and "I saw nothing that ever gave me pause." It was the first time a former president had been compelled to testify before a congressional panel. In his opening remarks Clinton objected to the committee's separate deposition of his wife [[Hillary Clinton]], saying she "had nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein" and "has no memory of even meeting him." Hillary Clinton was deposed and said she had no information relevant to the inquiry. Video of both depositions was released in early March 2026. Neither has been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.[^13][^14]
|
||||
|
||||
### References in Unsealed and Released Documents
|
||||
|
||||
Documents unsealed in January 2024 in the defamation case [[Giuffre v. Maxwell]] included deposition testimony from [[Johanna Sjoberg]], given in 2015, in which she testified that Epstein had once said "Clinton likes them young," which she clarified referred to "girls." Sjoberg attributed the remark to Epstein as something he said and not as a statement of her own knowledge about Clinton, and said she understood Epstein to have had "dealings" with him. The same filings referenced a 2011 account in which [[Virginia Giuffre]] said she had seen Clinton on Epstein's island; Giuffre later said she did not witness a helicopter flight she had earlier described, and she made no allegation of wrongdoing by Clinton. Reporting on the January 2024 release noted that the documents did not implicate any previously unnamed person and contained no accusation of a crime by Clinton. A judge in the Maxwell litigation had previously denied a request to depose Clinton.[^7][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
Materials released in 2025 by the House Oversight Committee and the [[United States Department of Justice|Department of Justice]] included flight records, estate documents, and a "birthday book" assembled by Maxwell for Epstein's 50th birthday in 2003. The committee made the contents public in September 2025, and the panel released more than 33,000 pages from the Justice Department on September 2, 2025. The book contained an entry attributed to Clinton, the wording of which, as released by the committee, included the line "It's reassuring isn't it, to have lasted as long, across all the years of learning and knowing, adventures and [illegible], and also to have your childlike curiosity, the drive to make a difference and the solace of friends," signed "Bill Clinton." Outlets reporting on the documents noted that the materials did not implicate Clinton in any crime.[^9][^10]
|
||||
|
||||
On December 19, 2025, in accordance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which set that date as the deadline for Attorney General [[Pam Bondi]] to publish the unclassified federal records, the Justice Department released several hundred thousand documents, many heavily redacted. Across the 2025 and 2026 releases, totaling more than 60,000 pages by late 2025, no document established a criminal allegation against Clinton, and reporting consistently noted that his name appeared in connection with the flight logs, social contacts, and the birthday book rather than any accusation by a survivor.[^10][^14]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Schnabel, Jim. *Remote Viewers*. Dell, 1997.
|
||||
[^2]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 7: "Something happened to Ivan"
|
||||
[^3]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 7: "Something happened to Ivan"
|
||||
[^1]: "Timeline: Bill Clinton's interactions with Jeffrey Epstein," *ABC News,* 2025. https://abcnews.com/US/timeline-bill-clintons-interactions-jeffrey-epstein/story?id=130567229
|
||||
[^2]: "Flight logs show Bill Clinton flew on sex offender's jet much more than previously known," *Fox News,* 2016. https://www.foxnews.com/us/flight-logs-show-bill-clinton-flew-on-sex-offenders-jet-much-more-than-previously-known
|
||||
[^3]: "Report: Bill Clinton Flew on Disgraced Donor's Jet 26 Times," *Roll Call,* 2016. https://rollcall.com/2016/05/13/report-bill-clinton-flew-on-disgraced-donors-jet-26-times/
|
||||
[^4]: "How well did Bill Clinton know Jeffrey Epstein?," *ABC News,* 2025. https://abcnews.com/Politics/bill-clinton-jeffrey-epstein/story?id=127629827
|
||||
[^5]: "Kevin Spacey admits to flying with Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Clinton and a group of young girls," *AOL,* 2025. https://www.aol.com/kevin-spacey-admits-flying-jeffrey-195850925.html
|
||||
[^6]: "Bill Clinton denies visiting Epstein island in new memoir and wishes he 'had never met him'," *Fox News,* 2024. https://www.foxnews.com/us/bill-clinton-denies-visiting-epstein-island-new-memoir-wishes-he-had-never-met-him
|
||||
[^7]: "The Biggest Names from Jeffrey Epstein's Unsealed Documents," *Time,* 2024. https://time.com/6552063/jeffrey-epsteins-unsealed-court-documents/
|
||||
[^8]: Giuffre v. Maxwell, No. 15-cv-07433 (S.D.N.Y.), unsealed exhibits, January 2024. https://www.justice.gov/multimedia/Court%20Records/Giuffre%20v.%20Maxwell,%20No.%20115-cv-07433%20(S.D.N.Y.%202015)/
|
||||
[^9]: "Bill Clinton letter in Epstein 'birthday book' among new files released by House Oversight Committee," *Fox News,* 2025. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bill-clinton-letter-epstein-birthday-book-among-new-files-released-house-oversight-committee.amp
|
||||
[^10]: "Epstein files totaling more than 60,000 pages have already been released this year. Here's what we've seen so far," *CBS News,* 2025. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/epstein-files-released-2025-so-far/
|
||||
[^11]: "The Epstein Connections Fueling Conspiracy Theories," *FactCheck.org,* 2019, counting six trips and 26 flights, February 2002 to November 2003. https://www.factcheck.org/2019/08/the-epstein-connections-fueling-conspiracy-theories/
|
||||
[^12]: "The Biggest Names from Jeffrey Epstein's Unsealed Documents," *Time,* 2024, on the Maxwell deposition statement about the island. https://time.com/6552063/jeffrey-epsteins-unsealed-court-documents/
|
||||
[^13]: "Bill Clinton defends himself at House deposition on Epstein: 'I saw nothing, and I did nothing wrong,'" *CBS News,* 2026. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bill-clinton-epstein-house-oversight-committee-deposition/
|
||||
[^14]: "Videos of Clinton depositions in Epstein investigation released," *The Washington Post,* 2026. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/03/02/bill-hillary-clinton-deposition-videos/
|
||||
[^15]: Schnabel, Jim. *Remote Viewers: The Secret History of America's Psychic Spies.* Dell, 1997, on the 1995 declassification and termination of the Stargate remote-viewing program and William Perry's earlier funding role.
|
||||
[^16]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998, chapter 7, on the Mena airport operations, Barry Seal, Danny Ray Lasater, and the Arkansas trooper testimony.
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
48
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Cory Booker.md
Normal file
48
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Cory Booker.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,48 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Political Figure"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- CoryBooker
|
||||
- DemocraticParty
|
||||
- NewJersey
|
||||
- Senate
|
||||
- SiliconValley
|
||||
- Waywire
|
||||
- Dialog
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Cory Anthony Booker
|
||||
- Senator Cory Booker
|
||||
summary: "Cory Booker is a U.S. Senator from New Jersey whose name appeared on the leaked 2026 roster of Peter Thiel's Dialog society and whose political rise was financed in part by Silicon Valley figures including Eric Schmidt, who backed his 2012 video startup Waywire."
|
||||
born: 1969-04-27
|
||||
location: "Washington, D.C. (born); Newark, New Jersey (political base)"
|
||||
created: 2026-06-20
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-20
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Cory Anthony Booker (born April 27, 1969, in [[Washington, D.C.]]) is an American politician who served as mayor of [[Newark]], [[New Jersey]], from 2006 to 2013 and has been a U.S. Senator from New Jersey since 2013. In June 2026 Booker was named by *WIRED* among the figures surfaced in the leak of [[Dialog]], the invitation-only society cofounded by [[Peter Thiel]] and [[Auren Hoffman]]. His political career has been entwined with [[Silicon Valley]] money since his Newark mayoralty, most visibly through the 2012 video startup [[Waywire]], whose backers included former [[Google]] chairman [[Eric Schmidt]].[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Education and Newark Mayoralty
|
||||
|
||||
Booker earned bachelor's and master's degrees from [[Stanford University]], won a [[Rhodes Scholarship]] to [[Oxford University]], and graduated from [[Yale Law School]]. He moved to Newark and won a seat on the city council before being elected mayor in 2006, holding the office until he entered the Senate. His mayoralty cultivated a national donor and media profile unusual for a mid-sized-city mayor, including a much-publicized relationship with technology-industry philanthropists; in 2010 he secured a 100 million dollar gift from [[Mark Zuckerberg]] for the Newark public schools, announced on the [[Oprah Winfrey]] program.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
In October 2013 Booker won a special election to fill the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by the death of [[Frank Lautenberg]], and he has been reelected to full terms since. In the Senate he has aligned with the [[Democratic Party]] establishment while maintaining the Silicon Valley fundraising base he built as mayor, drawing campaign contributions from technology executives and venture capitalists including [[Marc Andreessen]] and [[Reid Hoffman]].[^1][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Waywire and the Silicon Valley Backers
|
||||
|
||||
In 2012 Booker cofounded Waywire, a video-sharing and curation startup, with Nathan Richardson, formerly of Gilt City, and Sarah Ross. The venture raised roughly 1.75 million dollars in seed funding from a roster of backers that included Eric Schmidt, [[LinkedIn]] chief executive [[Jeff Weiner]], Oprah Winfrey, and the talent manager [[Troy Carter]]. The site launched publicly in April 2013, while Booker was simultaneously mayor of Newark and a declared Senate candidate.[^2][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
A New York Times investigation by Nicholas Confessore, published August 7, 2013, reported that Booker held an equity stake in Waywire that his disclosure filings valued at between one million and five million dollars, and that several of the startup's investors had also donated to his Senate campaign. The reporting drew conflict-of-interest scrutiny because the same Silicon Valley figures financing his commercial venture were financing his political one. Amid the controversy, the company's underage profile of a media executive's teenage son drew criticism, and Waywire was sold to Magnify.net in October 2013; Booker pledged to give his proceeds from the stake to charity.[^2][^4][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
### The 2026 Dialog Leak
|
||||
|
||||
The June 16, 2026 *WIRED* report identified Booker on the Dialog roster as "Senator (D-NJ)," listing him among the sitting U.S. senators of both parties surfaced when the hacktivist [[maia arson crimew|crimew]] located a member directory in the source code of Dialog's website and a separate source provided the publication with the 222-name registration list for the society's August 2026 retreat near [[Dublin]]. *WIRED* placed Booker alongside fellow senator [[Ted Cruz]] and Colorado governor [[Jared Polis]] among the political figures on the list.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
Dialog was cofounded by Thiel and Auren Hoffman, the data broker behind [[SafeGraph]] and [[LiveRamp]]. The roster listed Booker among the society's technology, finance, and political registrants.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Cameron, Dell, and Yulia Almazova. "Leak Exposes Members of Peter Thiel's Secretive 'Dialog' Society." *WIRED,* June 16, 2026. https://www.wired.com/story/leak-exposes-members-of-peter-thiels-secretive-dialog-society/
|
||||
[^2]: "Examining Cory Booker's Tech Ties." *Inc.,* 2013. https://www.inc.com/christine-lagorio/examining-cory-bookers-tech-ties.html
|
||||
[^3]: "About Cory." Office of U.S. Senator Cory Booker. https://www.booker.senate.gov/about-cory
|
||||
[^4]: Confessore, Nicholas. "Cory Booker, in Senate Race, Stresses Ties to Web Start-Ups." *New York Times,* August 7, 2013. Summarized in "Cory Booker's Silicon Valley cash." *Columbia Journalism Review,* 2013. https://www.cjr.org/the_audit/nyts_excellent_booker_startup.php
|
||||
[^5]: "Cory Booker's Role In Startup Waywire Is Shady, Unsurprisingly." *The New Republic,* 2013. https://newrepublic.com/article/114197/cory-bookers-role-startup-waywire-shady-unsurprisingly
|
||||
49
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Daniela Amodei.md
Normal file
49
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Daniela Amodei.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Technologists"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- Anthropic
|
||||
- ArtificialIntelligence
|
||||
- EffectiveAltruism
|
||||
- OpenAI
|
||||
- OpenPhilanthropy
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Daniela Amodei
|
||||
summary: "Daniela Amodei is the cofounder and president of Anthropic, who ran operations and people functions at Stripe and OpenAI before starting the company with her brother Dario, and who is married to Open Philanthropy cofounder Holden Karnofsky."
|
||||
born: 1987
|
||||
location: "San Francisco, California"
|
||||
created: 2026-06-20
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-20
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Daniela Amodei (born 1987) is an American technology executive who cofounded and serves as president of [[Anthropic]], where she runs the company's operations, hiring, finance, legal, and policy functions. The younger sister of chief executive [[Dario Amodei]], she built operations and people organizations at Stripe and [[OpenAI]] before the siblings left OpenAI to start the company in 2021. She is married to [[Holden Karnofsky]], cofounder of [[Open Philanthropy]], an early Anthropic funder from the [[Effective Altruism]] movement.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Background and Early Career
|
||||
|
||||
Amodei was born in San Francisco, four years after her brother, to an Italian-American father and a Jewish-American mother. She took a bachelor's degree in English literature with a politics minor from the University of California, Santa Cruz, graduating in 2009, and began her career outside technology, including work as a congressional campaign staffer and at a global-health nonprofit. She joined the payments company Stripe as an early employee around 2013, where she worked in risk and operations and grew teams as the company scaled.[^1][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
In 2018 Amodei moved to OpenAI, where she held senior operations and people roles and became vice president of safety and policy, overseeing the organization's recruiting, human resources, and parts of its policy and safety work during the period her brother led research. Profiles describe her as having run the "people" and operational side of OpenAI while Dario ran the technical side, the division of labor the two later reproduced at their own company.[^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Anthropic
|
||||
|
||||
When Dario and a group of OpenAI colleagues resigned in late 2020 over disagreements about the company's direction and safety posture, Daniela left with them, and the siblings incorporated Anthropic in early 2021 as a public-benefit corporation. As president she owns the non-research surface of the company: finance, legal, human resources, communications, policy, and the operational scaling of a firm that grew from a few dozen people to thousands within a few years. She and Dario were jointly named to the inaugural Time 100 AI list in 2023, and the firm's rising valuation made her one of the wealthiest self-made women in technology, with Forbes estimating her stake in the billions of dollars.[^1][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
Anthropic drew much of its early capital from the effective-altruism world. Open Philanthropy, cofounded by her husband, was an early funder; in 2022 [[Sam Bankman-Fried]] invested roughly 500 million dollars through [[Alameda Research]] months before [[FTX]] collapsed; and later rounds drew Amazon and Google. Both Amodeis have publicly distanced themselves from the effective-altruism label even as critics noted the density of the ties, and Dario has said the company kept Bankman-Fried off the board and limited him to non-voting shares.[^2][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
### Governance and the Long-Term Benefit Trust
|
||||
|
||||
Amodei oversaw the construction of Anthropic's unusual governance, the Long-Term Benefit Trust, formally established in September 2023 and holding a special class of stock that lets a body of trustees insulated from shareholders elect and remove a growing share of the board over time, an arrangement intended to weight safety over investor returns. The structure echoed the nonprofit-control design that produced OpenAI's 2023 board crisis, and as president she manages the relationship between that trust, the board, and the company's commercial investors.[^6][^7]
|
||||
|
||||
Amodei married Holden Karnofsky in August 2017 in a ceremony its guests later described as effective-altruism themed, and the two had earlier lived in a shared house with figures from the [[Rationalist Community]] and the early effective-altruism scene, in which Karnofsky and Dario were among the housemates. Karnofsky co-led Open Philanthropy, the largest sustained funder of AI-safety work, before taking a leave to focus on AI strategy and joining Anthropic in January 2025 to work on the company's responsible-scaling and safety policies. He had previously held an OpenAI board seat tied to a 2017 Open Philanthropy grant, which he resigned in 2021 after his wife cofounded the competing lab.[^8][^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: "Daniela Amodei," *Bloomberg* executive profile, and "Dario and Daniela Amodei," *TIME* 100 AI 2023, on the 1987 San Francisco birth, the UC Santa Cruz literature degree, the Stripe and OpenAI background, and the Anthropic presidency. https://time.com/collections/time100-ai/6309047/daniela-and-dario-amodei/
|
||||
[^2]: "Who Funds the AI Safety Watchdogs," Inside The Black Box, on Daniela Amodei's OpenAI safety-and-policy role, the marriage to Karnofsky, and Open Philanthropy as an Anthropic funder. https://itbb.substack.com/p/who-funds-the-watchdogs
|
||||
[^3]: "Daniela Amodei: Helpful, Honest, Harmless AI," Stanford eCorner / STVP podcast, on her Stripe risk-and-operations work, her OpenAI operations and people roles, and the operational scope of her Anthropic presidency. https://stvp.stanford.edu/podcasts/daniela-amodei-anthropic-helpful-honest-harmless-ai
|
||||
[^4]: "Anthropic co-founders become billionaires after massive funding round," *Bloomberg,* March 4, 2025, on the founders' wealth following Anthropic's valuation increase. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-04/anthropic-co-founders-become-billionaires-after-massive-funding-round
|
||||
[^5]: "FTX estate selling majority stake in AI startup Anthropic for $884 million, with bulk going to UAE," *CNBC,* March 25, 2024, on the 2022 Bankman-Fried investment via Alameda Research and the later Amazon and Google rounds. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/25/ftx-estate-sells-majority-stake-in-startup-anthropic-for-884-million.html
|
||||
[^6]: "The Long-Term Benefit Trust," Anthropic, September 2023, on the special Class T shares and the trustees' authority to elect and remove directors. https://www.anthropic.com/news/the-long-term-benefit-trust
|
||||
[^7]: "Anthropic, OpenAI's biggest rival, has a weird structure too," *Slate,* December 2023, on the Long-Term Benefit Trust and the parallel to OpenAI's nonprofit-control crisis. https://slate.com/technology/2023/12/anthropic-openai-board-trust-effective-altruism.html
|
||||
[^8]: "Karnofsky and Daniela Amodei married in an effective-altruism-theme ceremony," widely circulated account of the August 2017 wedding; "Holden Karnofsky," on the marriage and the shared rationalist-scene household with Dario Amodei. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/53Gc35vDLK2u5nBxP/anthropic-is-not-being-consistently-candid-about-their
|
||||
[^9]: "Anthropic Hired President Daniela Amodei's Husband to Work on Its AI Safety Plan," *Fortune,* February 13, 2025, on Karnofsky's January 2025 move to Anthropic, his Open Philanthropy leadership, and his earlier OpenAI board seat resigned in 2021. https://www.fortune.com/2025/02/13/anthropic-hired-president-daniela-amodei-husband-ai-safety-responsible-scaling
|
||||
48
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Dario Amodei.md
Normal file
48
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Dario Amodei.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,48 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Technologists"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- Anthropic
|
||||
- ArtificialIntelligence
|
||||
- AISafety
|
||||
- EffectiveAltruism
|
||||
- OpenAI
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Dario Amodei
|
||||
summary: "Dario Amodei is the cofounder and chief executive of Anthropic, a physicist and computational neuroscientist who led GPT-2 and GPT-3 as OpenAI's vice president of research before leaving in 2020 with a group of colleagues to build a rival AI lab."
|
||||
born: 1983
|
||||
location: "San Francisco, California"
|
||||
created: 2026-06-20
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-20
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Dario Amodei (born 1983) is an American AI researcher and entrepreneur who cofounded and serves as chief executive of [[Anthropic]]. Trained as a physicist and computational neuroscientist, he led the development of GPT-2 and GPT-3 as vice president of research at [[OpenAI]], then left in late 2020 with his sister [[Daniela Amodei]] and a group of OpenAI colleagues to found a competing lab built around the thesis that advanced AI should be developed under strict safety constraints. He emerged from the [[Effective Altruism]] milieu, took the Giving What We Can pledge, and is the author of the October 2024 essay "Machines of Loving Grace."[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Education and Early Career
|
||||
|
||||
Amodei was born in San Francisco to Riccardo Amodei, an Italian-American leather craftsman from Tuscany, and Elena Engel, a Jewish-American library project manager from Chicago. He attended Lowell High School, began his undergraduate study in physics at Caltech, and transferred to [[Stanford University]], where he took a bachelor's degree in physics in 2006. He completed a PhD in biophysics at [[Princeton University]] in 2011 as a Hertz Foundation Fellow, with a thesis titled "Network-Scale Electrophysiology: Measuring and Understanding the Collective Behavior of Neural Circuits" supervised by Michael Berry and William Bialek, and won the Hertz thesis prize. He then did postdoctoral work at the Stanford University School of Medicine.[^1][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
His move into machine learning ran through industry research labs. He worked at the Chinese search company Baidu from November 2014 to October 2015 under Andrew Ng, where his work on the relationship between model performance, data, and compute contributed to the empirical "scaling laws" that later became central to his worldview, and then at Google Brain as a senior research scientist. In 2016 he joined OpenAI, where over the next four years he rose to vice president of research and helped pioneer reinforcement learning from human feedback, the alignment technique that underpins modern conversational models.[^1][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### OpenAI and the Departure
|
||||
|
||||
At OpenAI, Amodei directed the team that built the GPT-2 and GPT-3 language models, the latter consuming a reported 50 to 60 percent of the company's compute and tens of millions of dollars to train. He also ran the safety team and co-authored the 2020 "Scaling Laws for Neural Language Models" paper, which formalized the observation that model capability grows predictably with size, data, and compute. That empirical result became the foundation of his conviction that simply scaling up models would keep producing more powerful systems, a thesis he carried into Anthropic.[^3][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
A faction around Amodei came into conflict with OpenAI's leadership over the direction of the company, the pace of commercialization, and the 2019 [[Microsoft]] investment and capped-profit restructuring. One colleague later described the period as one in which roughly half the team's time went to arguing internal disagreements rather than research. In December 2020 Amodei resigned, and over the following months he and a group of senior OpenAI staff, including his sister Daniela, departed to start their own lab; the company has been described as founded by seven former OpenAI employees, with the broader founding cohort including [[Jared Kaplan]], [[Jack Clark]], [[Chris Olah]], Tom Brown, Sam McCandlish, and Ben Mann.[^1][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Anthropic and the Scaling Thesis
|
||||
|
||||
Amodei incorporated Anthropic in early 2021 as a public-benefit corporation, with Daniela as president, and the two raised money from funders tied to effective altruism, including [[Open Philanthropy]], whose cofounder [[Holden Karnofsky]] is married to Daniela. In 2022 the company took a roughly 500-million-dollar investment from [[Sam Bankman-Fried]] through [[Alameda Research]] months before the [[FTX]] collapse, and later raised tens of billions from [[Amazon (company)|Amazon]] and Google. Amodei has positioned Anthropic publicly as the safety-conscious frontier lab, championing a "Responsible Scaling Policy" of capability thresholds even as the company competes directly at the frontier.[^2][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
Amodei is a prominent voice on both AI risk and AI optimism. In October 2024 he published "Machines of Loving Grace," a roughly 14,000-word essay arguing that "powerful AI," which he likens to "a country of geniuses in a datacenter," could compress decades of progress in biology, neuroscience, economic development, governance, and the meaning of work into five to ten years; he opened it by stating that "most people are underestimating just how radical the upside of AI could be, just as I think most people are underestimating how bad the risks could be." He has separately warned that AI could eliminate a large share of entry-level white-collar jobs, testified and written on the danger of authoritarian misuse, and argued for export controls to keep advanced chips from China. Forbes estimated his net worth at roughly 15.5 billion dollars in mid-2026 as Anthropic's valuation climbed.[^6][^7][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Steven Levy, "How Anthropic's Dario Amodei Is Building the AI of the Future," *Wired,* and contemporaneous profiles, on the 1983 San Francisco birth, parents Riccardo Amodei and Elena Engel, Lowell High School, Caltech and Stanford physics, the Princeton biophysics PhD, and the Baidu, Google Brain, and OpenAI career. https://www.wired.com/story/anthropic-dario-amodei-ai/
|
||||
[^2]: "Anthropic, OpenAI's biggest rival, has a weird structure too," *Slate,* December 2023, on Anthropic's effective-altruism origins, the public-benefit incorporation, and the founding by former OpenAI researchers. https://slate.com/technology/2023/12/anthropic-openai-board-trust-effective-altruism.html
|
||||
[^3]: Dario Amodei et al., "Scaling Laws for Neural Language Models," arXiv, January 2020; Hertz Foundation fellow and thesis-prize records, on the Princeton PhD and the scaling-laws work. https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.08361
|
||||
[^4]: Alex Kantrowitz, "The Making of Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei," on the GPT-2 and GPT-3 leadership, the compute share for GPT-3, the internal OpenAI conflict, and the December 2020 departure with colleagues to found Anthropic. https://kantrowitz.medium.com/the-making-of-anthropic-ceo-dario-amodei-449777529dd6
|
||||
[^5]: "FTX estate selling majority stake in AI startup Anthropic for $884 million, with bulk going to UAE," *CNBC,* March 25, 2024, on the 2022 Bankman-Fried investment via Alameda Research and Anthropic's later valuations. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/25/ftx-estate-sells-majority-stake-in-startup-anthropic-for-884-million.html
|
||||
[^6]: Dario Amodei, "Machines of Loving Grace," darioamodei.com, October 2024, on the "country of geniuses in a datacenter" framing, the five-to-ten-year timeline, and the opening claim about underestimating upside and risk. https://www.darioamodei.com/essay/machines-of-loving-grace
|
||||
[^7]: "Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warns AI could wipe out half of entry-level white-collar jobs," contemporaneous press coverage of his Axios interview, 2025. https://www.axios.com/2025/05/28/ai-jobs-white-collar-unemployment-anthropic
|
||||
[^8]: "Dario Amodei," *Forbes* profile and real-time net-worth listing, on the mid-2026 net-worth estimate as Anthropic's valuation rose. https://www.forbes.com/profile/dario-amodei/
|
||||
68
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/David Chaum.md
Normal file
68
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/David Chaum.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,68 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Technologists"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- DavidChaum
|
||||
- Cryptography
|
||||
- DigitalCash
|
||||
- DigiCash
|
||||
- Privacy
|
||||
- Cryptocurrency
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- David Lee Chaum
|
||||
- David Chaum
|
||||
summary: "David Chaum is the American cryptographer who invented anonymous digital cash, devised the mix network and the blind signature, wrote a 1982 dissertation that anticipated the blockchain, and built the DigiCash eCash system whose 1998 bankruptcy left the cypherpunks to pursue trustless money."
|
||||
born: 1955
|
||||
location: "United States"
|
||||
created: 2026-06-20
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-20
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
David Lee Chaum (born 1955) is an American cryptographer who founded the field of anonymous digital cash and privacy-preserving cryptography. In a series of papers beginning in 1981 he introduced the mix network for untraceable communication, the blind signature for untraceable payment, and the dining cryptographers protocol for unconditional sender anonymity, and his 1982 doctoral dissertation set out a system that anticipated much of the later blockchain. Through his company [[DigiCash]] he built [[eCash]], the first working electronic-money system, which depended on a bank as a trusted issuer and went bankrupt in 1998. The [[Cypherpunks]] built directly on his work, and the trustless designs that became [[Bitcoin]] were in part an effort to remove the central issuer his system required.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Mix Networks and the Dining Cryptographers
|
||||
|
||||
Chaum earned a doctorate in computer science from the [[University of California, Berkeley]], and taught there and at [[New York University]] before moving his research to the [[Netherlands]]. His 1981 paper "Untraceable Electronic Mail, Return Addresses, and Digital Pseudonyms," published in Communications of the ACM, introduced the mix network, a chain of relay servers each of which receives a batch of encrypted messages, decrypts one layer, shuffles the order, and forwards them, so that no single relay and no outside observer can link a message entering the chain to one leaving it. The design is the conceptual ancestor of later anonymity systems including the onion-routing network Tor.[^3][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
In 1988 Chaum published "The Dining Cryptographers Problem: Unconditional Sender and Recipient Untraceability" in the Journal of Cryptology, which posed a puzzle: three cryptographers at dinner want to learn whether one of them paid the bill or whether their employer did, without revealing which of them paid. The protocol he derived, in which each participant shares a secret coin flip with a neighbor and announces the parity, lets the group compute whether any member sent a message while hiding which one did, with anonymity that holds even against an adversary with unlimited computing power. The construction, known as a DC-net, became a foundation of research into anonymous communication.[^5][^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Blind Signatures
|
||||
|
||||
Chaum presented "Blind Signatures for Untraceable Payments" at the CRYPTO '82 conference, published in the proceedings in 1983, building on the idea he had set out in his 1982 dissertation. A blind signature lets a signer certify a message without seeing its contents. In Chaum's payment scheme a customer generates a digital banknote with a serial number, multiplies it by a random blinding factor so the bank cannot read it, and sends the blinded value to the bank; the bank signs it and debits the customer's account, the customer divides out the blinding factor to recover a valid signed note, and when a merchant later deposits that note the bank sees its serial number for the first time and cannot connect it to the withdrawal.[^2][^7]
|
||||
|
||||
The result was electronic money that was anonymous like physical cash yet unforgeable like a bank-signed instrument, since the bank's signature could not be reproduced without its private key and any attempt to spend the same note twice could be detected at deposit. The blind signature solved the central problem that had blocked anonymous digital payment, and it became the cryptographic core of every system Chaum built afterward. His 1985 paper "Security Without Identification: Transaction Systems to Make Big Brother Obsolete" extended the approach into a broader scheme of pseudonymous credentials.[^2][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### The 1982 Dissertation
|
||||
|
||||
Chaum's Berkeley dissertation, "Computer Systems Established, Maintained, and Trusted by Mutually Suspicious Groups," completed in 1982, described how a group of parties who do not trust one another could jointly operate a record-keeping system whose integrity none of them could subvert. The design specified a data structure in which entries were chained together by cryptographic references and replicated across the participants, so that the history could be audited and could not be altered after the fact without detection, and it included the code to implement the protocol.[^9][^10]
|
||||
|
||||
Commentators who later compared the dissertation to the 2008 Bitcoin white paper observed that it contained most of the structural elements of a blockchain, including a chained, tamper-evident ledger maintained by a set of mutually distrustful participants, and that the principal element it lacked was proof-of-work, the mechanism by which an open, permissionless network reaches consensus without a fixed membership. The Satoshi Nakamoto Institute republished the dissertation in its library as an antecedent of the blockchain.[^9][^10]
|
||||
|
||||
### DigiCash and eCash
|
||||
|
||||
Chaum founded DigiCash in [[Amsterdam]] in 1990, after his cryptographic group at the CWI research center, to commercialize anonymous electronic cash. Its product, eCash, used Chaum's blind signatures to issue digital coins that a customer withdrew from a participating bank, stored on a personal computer, and spent at merchants, with the bank unable to trace where its issued coins were spent. DigiCash also ran a free trial currency called CyberBucks. In October 1994 the company demonstrated the first live payment over the World Wide Web.[^1][^11]
|
||||
|
||||
Adoption never reached the scale the system needed. The Mark Twain Bank of St. Louis became the first licensee to offer eCash in 1995, followed in 1996 and afterward by [[Deutsche Bank]], [[Credit Suisse]], [[Bank Austria]], and a handful of others, but by 1998 the Mark Twain program had signed only about 300 merchants and 5,000 users. Reported negotiations with larger partners fell through, including a Visa investment and a Microsoft proposal to bundle eCash with Windows 95 over which Chaum and [[Bill Gates]] reportedly could not agree on terms. DigiCash filed for bankruptcy in November 1998. Chaum told Forbes the following year, "It was hard to get enough merchants to accept it, so that you could get enough consumers to use it, or vice versa."[^1][^12]
|
||||
|
||||
eCash differed fundamentally from the cryptocurrencies that followed. A customer's payment was anonymous, but a bank had to issue every coin, validate it, and maintain the account ledger, so the system could not operate without a trusted central institution and could be shut down by removing that institution. The proof-of-work currencies that the cypherpunks went on to design, beginning with [[Adam Back]]'s [[Hashcash]], [[Wei Dai]]'s b-money, and [[Hal Finney]]'s reusable proof-of-work and culminating in [[Satoshi Nakamoto]]'s Bitcoin, replaced Chaum's trusted issuer with an open network that mints and validates its own units, removing the single point of control that had defined eCash.[^13][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Later Work
|
||||
|
||||
After DigiCash, Chaum continued to work on cryptographic systems, concentrating heavily on verifiable election technology. He designed end-to-end verifiable voting schemes including Punchscan and the in-person system Scantegrity, which was used in a binding municipal election in Takoma Park, Maryland, in 2009. In the cryptocurrency era he returned to digital money with the Elixxir and Praxxis projects and the xx network, and he proposed eCash-style privacy designs for central bank digital currencies, work in which his original blind-signature approach reappeared decades after DigiCash.[^14][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: "The Genesis Files: How David Chaum's eCash Spawned a Cypherpunk Dream," *Bitcoin Magazine,* April 2018, on Chaum's biography, DigiCash founded 1990 in Amsterdam, eCash, the Mark Twain and Deutsche Bank licensees, the Visa and Microsoft talks, and the 1998 bankruptcy. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/genesis-files-how-david-chaums-ecash-spawned-cypherpunk-dream
|
||||
[^2]: Chaum, David. "Blind Signatures for Untraceable Payments," *Advances in Cryptology: Proceedings of CRYPTO '82,* Springer, 1983, pp. 199-203, on the blind-signature payment scheme. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4757-0602-4_18
|
||||
[^3]: Chaum, David. "Untraceable Electronic Mail, Return Addresses, and Digital Pseudonyms," *Communications of the ACM,* vol. 24, no. 2, February 1981, on the mix network. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/358549.358563
|
||||
[^4]: "David Lee Chaum: The Pioneer of Digital Anonymity," *GNcrypto,* on the Berkeley doctorate, the mix network as ancestor of Tor, and his later election and currency work. https://www.gncrypto.news/news/david-lee-chaum-the-pioneer-of-digital-anonymity/
|
||||
[^5]: Chaum, David. "The Dining Cryptographers Problem: Unconditional Sender and Recipient Untraceability," *Journal of Cryptology,* vol. 1, no. 1, 1988, pp. 65-75. https://chaum.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/chaum-dc.pdf
|
||||
[^6]: "The Dining Cryptographers Problem," *Futility Closet,* on the 1988 protocol and DC-nets. https://www.futilitycloset.com/2018/10/03/the-dining-cryptographers-problem/
|
||||
[^7]: "Blind Signatures for Untraceable Payments," *Springer Nature Link,* citation record for the CRYPTO '82 paper published 1983. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4757-0602-4_18
|
||||
[^8]: Chaum, David. "Security Without Identification: Transaction Systems to Make Big Brother Obsolete," *Communications of the ACM,* vol. 28, no. 10, October 1985, on pseudonymous credentials. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/4372.4373
|
||||
[^9]: Chaum, David. "Computer Systems Established, Maintained, and Trusted by Mutually Suspicious Groups," University of California, Berkeley, June 1982, on the chained, replicated, tamper-evident record maintained by mutually distrustful parties. https://nakamotoinstitute.org/library/computer-systems-by-mutually-suspicious-groups/
|
||||
[^10]: "Computer Systems Established, Maintained, and Trusted by Mutually Suspicious Groups," Satoshi Nakamoto Institute library entry, characterizing the 1982 dissertation as containing the elements of a blockchain except proof-of-work. https://nakamotoinstitute.org/library/computer-systems-by-mutually-suspicious-groups/
|
||||
[^11]: "DigiCash Idea Finds New Life in More Flexible eCash," *American Banker,* on the eCash system, the bank trials, and the demonstration of web payment. https://www.americanbanker.com/news/digicash-idea-finds-new-life-in-more-flexible-ecash
|
||||
[^12]: "'82: The Birth of Digital Cash," Till Antonio Mahler, *blockwhat?,* on the Mark Twain Bank, the limited adoption figures, the Microsoft and Visa negotiations, and the November 1998 bankruptcy. https://medium.com/blockwhat/82-the-birth-of-digital-cash-ea08b53379d8
|
||||
[^13]: "The Extropian Roots of Bitcoin," *CCN,* on the digital-cash precursors that removed the trusted issuer. https://www.ccn.com/extropian-roots-bitcoin/
|
||||
[^14]: "Understanding David Chaum: Pioneer of Digital Privacy and Cryptography," *CoinStats,* on Scantegrity, the Takoma Park election, and the xx network. https://coinstats.app/news/0e7c5927f0be24286a2140761b3fb115289bd6e241174487562250ab1aef2645_Understanding-David-Chaum-Pioneer-of-Digital-Privacy-and-Cryptography/
|
||||
44
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Denise George.md
Normal file
44
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Denise George.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Law Enforcement & Legal"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- JeffreyEpstein
|
||||
- VirginIslands
|
||||
- JPMorganChase
|
||||
- GovernmentCapture
|
||||
- AttorneyGeneral
|
||||
- SouthernTrust
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Denise N. George
|
||||
- Denise George-Counts
|
||||
summary: "Denise George was the U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General who sued Jeffrey Epstein's estate and JPMorgan Chase, and who was fired by the governor days after filing the JPMorgan suit."
|
||||
location: "U.S. Virgin Islands"
|
||||
created: 2026-06-20
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-20
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Denise George was the seventeenth Attorney General of the [[U.S. Virgin Islands]], serving from 2019 to 2023. [[Albert Bryan|Governor Albert Bryan Jr.]] nominated her in March 2019, and she took office in May, weeks before [[Jeffrey Epstein|Jeffrey Epstein's]] July 2019 federal arrest. She brought the territory's January 2020 civil enforcement suit against Epstein's estate and its December 2022 suit against [[JPMorgan Chase]]. Bryan fired her on December 31, 2022, four days after the JPMorgan filing, a sequence that raised questions about whether the litigation prompted her removal.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Litigation Against the Epstein Estate
|
||||
|
||||
George filed the territory's case against Epstein's estate on January 15, 2020, in the Superior Court of the Virgin Islands, under the Criminally Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the territory's racketeering statute. The complaint alleged that Epstein created a network of shell companies, charitable organizations, and individuals that participated in a decades-long pattern of trafficking and sexual abuse of girls and young women at his Virgin Islands properties. She later amended the action to add the estate co-executors [[Darren Indyke]] and [[Richard Kahn]], [[Southern Trust Company]], and other Epstein-created entities as co-defendants.[^3][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
The case settled on December 1, 2022. The estate agreed to pay the territory more than 105 million dollars in cash, to return roughly 80 million dollars in tax benefits the territory said Southern Trust Company had obtained fraudulently under the [[Economic Development Commission]] program, and to give the territory half the proceeds of the sale of [[Little St. James]]. George stated that the settlement restored the faith of the people of the Virgin Islands that its laws would be enforced against those who break them. In January 2023 the financier [[Leon Black]] agreed to pay the territory 62.5 million dollars to resolve potential Epstein-related claims.[^4][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
### Suit Against JPMorgan Chase and Firing
|
||||
|
||||
George filed the territory's suit against JPMorgan Chase on December 27, 2022 in federal court in Manhattan, alleging that the bank knowingly facilitated, sustained, and concealed Epstein's trafficking and benefited financially from the relationship. The complaint invoked the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act, the territory's Criminally Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, and the Virgin Islands consumer-protection statute, and the territory later sought 190 million dollars from the bank. The case settled in September 2023, with JPMorgan paying 75 million dollars to the Virgin Islands and 290 million dollars to Epstein's victims.[^1][^6]
|
||||
|
||||
Governor Bryan fired George on December 31, 2022, four days after the JPMorgan filing and roughly four weeks after the estate settlement closed. Bryan said the firing was unrelated to the suit, but acknowledged that George had filed the action against the largest U.S. bank without first informing him, and stated that he could not have an attorney general launching lawsuits he did not know about. Bloomberg's disclosure of the filing preceded the dismissal. Bryan appointed the assistant attorney general Carol Thomas-Jacobs to serve in the role on an acting basis.[^2][^7]
|
||||
|
||||
George later said she felt pressure to resolve the matters quickly and to avoid being part of a cover-up, telling Fortune in November 2023 that her bar license and her integrity were more important to her than the position, and that she would lose her job rather than be part of a conspiracy to conceal anything. The timing of the firing relative to the JPMorgan suit was raised again when the Justice Department's later Epstein file releases renewed attention on her account that she had felt threatened during the litigation.[^1][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
[^1]: "Attorney general going after Jeffrey Epstein's estate says she was fired for her dogged pursuit." *Fortune,* November 17, 2023. https://fortune.com/2023/11/17/jeffrey-epstein-us-virgin-islands-jpmorgan-attorney-general-investigation-fired/
|
||||
[^2]: "Virgin Islands prosecutor fired after accusing JPMorgan of aiding Epstein's sex trafficking ring." *The Washington Times,* January 3, 2023. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/jan/3/virgin-islands-prosecutor-fired-after-accusing-jpm/
|
||||
[^3]: Government of the United States Virgin Islands v. Estate of Jeffrey E. Epstein, No. ST-20-CV-14 (V.I. Super. Ct., filed January 15, 2020), brought under the Criminally Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, 14 V.I.C. sections 600 to 614.
|
||||
[^4]: "U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Settles Sex Trafficking Case Against Estate of Jeffrey Epstein and Co-Defendants for Over $105 Million." *Government of the U.S. Virgin Islands Department of Justice,* December 1, 2022. https://usvidoj.com/u-s-virgin-islands-attorney-general-settles-sex-trafficking-case-against-estate-of-jeffrey-epstein-and-co-defendants-for-over-105-million/
|
||||
[^5]: "Financier and MoMA Trustee Leon Black Agrees to Pay $62.5 Million to Settle Jeffrey Epstein-Related Claims in the Virgin Islands." *Artnet News,* 2023. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/leon-black-62-million-settlement-with-virgin-islands-epstein-claims-2341599
|
||||
[^6]: "US Virgin Islands sue JPMorgan Chase over handling of Jeffrey Epstein accounts." *JURIST,* December 30, 2022. https://www.jurist.org/news/2022/12/us-virgin-islands-sue-jp-morgan-over-handling-of-jeffery-epstein-accounts/ ; Government of the United States Virgin Islands v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., No. 1:22-cv-10904 (S.D.N.Y. 2022).
|
||||
[^7]: "USVI Attorney General Denise N. George fired." *Virgin Islands News Online,* January 2023. https://www.virginislandsnewsonline.com/en/news/usvi-attorney-general-denise-n-george-fired/
|
||||
[^8]: "DOJ Epstein File Dump Revives Former USVI AG's Claim She Felt Threatened After Suing Epstein's Estate." *Los Angeles Magazine,* 2025. https://lamag.com/crimeinla/doj-epstein-file-dump-revives-former-usvi-ags-claim-she-felt-threatened-after-suing-epsteins-estate/
|
||||
61
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Ehud Barak.md
Normal file
61
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Ehud Barak.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,61 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Intelligence & Government"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- EhudBarak
|
||||
- Israel
|
||||
- IDF
|
||||
- JeffreyEpstein
|
||||
- Palantir
|
||||
- Carbyne
|
||||
- Intelligence
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Ehud Barak
|
||||
summary: "Ehud Barak is an Israeli former prime minister, defense minister, and military intelligence chief whose documented years-long relationship with Jeffrey Epstein included Epstein brokering an introduction to Peter Thiel over Palantir, an April 2014 email proposing a Thiel meeting, and a 2015 arrangement through which Epstein quietly invested approximately one million dollars in the Israeli surveillance-tech startup Carbyne."
|
||||
born: 1942-02-12
|
||||
location: "Mishmar HaSharon, Mandatory Palestine (born)"
|
||||
created: 2026-06-18
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-18
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Ehud Barak (born Ehud Brog, February 12, 1942, at [[Mishmar HaSharon|Mishmar HaSharon]], [[Mandatory Palestine]]) is an Israeli military and political leader who served as the fourteenth [[Prime Minister of Israel]] (1999-2001), [[Minister of Defense]] (2007-2013), and chief of the General Staff of the [[Israel Defense Forces]] (1991-1995). Barak's career spans the command of the [[Sayeret Matkal|Sayeret Matkal]] special forces unit (including the documented [[Operation Spring of Youth|1973 Spring of Youth]] operation), the military intelligence directorate ([[Aman|Aman]]), the IDF chief-of-staff tenure, the prime ministership, and the defense ministry under [[Ehud Olmert|Ehud Olmert]] and [[Benjamin Netanyahu|Benjamin Netanyahu]]. Barak's documented relationship with [[Jeffrey Epstein]] ran from the early 2000s through 2016 and included Epstein brokering an introduction to [[Peter Thiel]] over [[Palantir Technologies|Palantir]] and an arrangement through which Epstein quietly invested approximately one million dollars in the Israeli surveillance-tech startup [[Carbyne|Carbyne]] in 2015.[^1][^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Sayeret Matkal, Aman, and IDF Command Career
|
||||
|
||||
Barak's military career established his intelligence-community standing. He was commissioned into the Sayeret Matkal general-staff reconnaissance unit in the 1960s and commanded the unit through the operations of the 1970s, including [[Operation Isotope|Operation Isotope]] (the 1972 [[Sabena Airlines|Sabena Flight 571]] rescue) and Operation Spring of Youth (the 1973 [[Beirut|Beirut]] operation targeting the [[Black September|Black September]] leadership, in which Barak led the ground team disguised as a woman). Barak rose to head the military intelligence directorate (Aman) and then served as chief of the General Staff of the IDF from 1991 to 1995, covering the [[Oslo Accords|Oslo Accords]] period and the [[Yitzhak Rabin|Rabin]] assassination aftermath.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
The intelligence-community background underlies the subsequent Epstein and Thiel relationships. Barak's Aman tenure and his Sayeret Matkal command placed him at the center of the Israeli intelligence network, and his post-military and post-political career maintained the relationships with the Israeli intelligence and defense-technology sectors that Epstein and Thiel's pitches engaged.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Prime Ministership and the Political Career
|
||||
|
||||
Barak entered politics after the military career and served as Prime Minister from 1999 to 2001. His tenure covered the [[2000 Camp David Summit|2000 Camp David Summit]] with [[Yasser Arafat|Yasser Arafat]] and [[Bill Clinton|Bill Clinton]], at which Barak offered concessions on [[Jerusalem|Jerusalem]] and the [[West Bank|West Bank]] that Arafat rejected, leading to the collapse of the Oslo process. The summit's failure was followed by the outbreak of the [[Second Intifada|Second Intifada]] in September 2000, which ended the negotiated-track framework for Israeli-Palestinian relations.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
In May 2000, Barak ordered the unilateral Israeli withdrawal from southern [[Lebanon|Lebanon]], ending the 22-year occupation that had begun under [[Menachem Begin|Menachem Begin]] in 1978. The withdrawal was completed rapidly and produced the documented assessment among Israeli security analysts that the retreat under fire had emboldened [[Hezbollah|Hezbollah]] and established the precedent that armed resistance could force Israeli territorial withdrawals. Barak lost the February 2001 special election to [[Ariel Sharon|Ariel Sharon]] and went into political opposition and the private sector.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
Barak returned as defense minister under Ehud Olmert from 2007 and continued in the role under Netanyahu through 2013. The defense-ministry tenure covered [[Operation Cast Lead|Operation Cast Lead]] (the 2008-09 Gaza war), the documented expansion of Israel's cyber-intelligence capabilities in the 2010s, the [[Stuxnet|Stuxnet]] operation against Iranian nuclear facilities (attributed to a joint U.S.-Israeli effort), and the broader growth of the Israeli surveillance-technology export sector documented on the [[NSO Group|NSO Group]] and Carbyne pages.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Epstein Relationship and the Introduction
|
||||
|
||||
[[Shimon Peres|Shimon Peres]] introduced Barak to Epstein in 2002, and the relationship continued through 2016. Barak was photographed entering the Epstein Manhattan residence on multiple occasions, and the [[Epstein Files|Epstein calendars]] document the recurring meetings. The Jacobin reporting (March 2026) and the [[Reason|Reason]] piece on Epstein's spy-industry connections (August 2025) document the substantive content: Epstein attempted to broker an introduction between Barak and Peter Thiel over Palantir, and an April 2014 Epstein email to Barak (documented in the the Epstein Files Transparency Act releases releases) reads "I have Peter Thiel on the 19th in NY, if you like." A DOJ-released audio recording surfaced in which Epstein suggests to Barak that he reach out to Thiel.[^2][^3][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
Barak subsequently described Thiel and Epstein as "owners" of a venture fund, a claim a Thiel spokesman has denied. The discrepancy is unresolved in the public record. Thiel is named over 2,200 times in the Epstein files per Al Jazeera reporting, and the volume of the Thiel-Epstein correspondence, combined with the Barak introduction, documents a sustained effort by Epstein to connect the Israeli-intelligence principal (Barak) with the commercial-surveillance-infrastructure principal (Thiel/Palantir). Epstein's promotional framing of Palantir to Barak ran alongside Barak's own subsequent relationships with Israeli surveillance-tech firms.[^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Carbyne Investment
|
||||
|
||||
In 2015, Barak helped Epstein quietly invest approximately one million dollars in the Israeli police and emergency-response technology startup [[Reporty|Reporty]], which subsequently renamed itself Carbyne. The investment was arranged through Barak, and [[Forbes|Forbes]] reported that it could have grown to be worth up to one hundred million dollars. Carbyne develops 911-emergency-communication and surveillance technology, including systems that integrate smartphone location, video, and incident data into emergency-response platforms. The technology has documented surveillance applications beyond the emergency-response function, and the Reason reporting characterizes the Carbyne investment as part of Epstein's broader effort to enter the surveillance-technology industry in the post-2008-conviction period.[^2][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
Through the Carbyne investment, Epstein moved from social-network brokerage to direct commercial investment in surveillance technology, and Barak was the channel through which the investment was arranged. The Reason reporting documents that Epstein and Barak marketed Israeli surveillance technology internationally, including to [[Nigeria]], with technology that had reportedly been tested on Palestinians. The international marketing extended the Barak-Epstein surveillance-tech relationship into the documented export context.[^2][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Palantir-Israel Expansion
|
||||
|
||||
Palantir subsequently became a significant technology partner in Israel's military and intelligence efforts. The documented Jacobin reporting (March 2026) traces the Epstein-Barak-Thiel triangle to the subsequent Israeli procurement of Palantir platforms, though the causal chain from the 2014 introduction to the procurement outcome is not documented in primary form. The Israeli intelligence and defense-technology sector's documented adoption of Palantir data-fusion platforms, and the broader Thiel-network interest in the Israeli cyber-intelligence sector (including the [[Unit 8200|Unit 8200]] alumni network that staffs much of the Israeli cyber-security industry), is the commercial-institutional context in which the Epstein-brokered introduction is situated.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
The parapolitical question of whether the 2014 Epstein-brokered Barak-Thiel introduction was the originating channel for the subsequent Palantir-Israel relationship is not documented in the primary sources currently available. What is documented is that Epstein repeatedly and specifically pitched Palantir to Barak over the 2014-2016 period, that Barak and Thiel were connected through the introduction, and that Palantir subsequently expanded its Israeli-government business. The intermediate steps remain an open thread.[^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: For Barak's military and political career, see the official Israeli government records and the contemporaneous biographical coverage of the Sayeret Matkal command, the Aman tenure, the IDF chief-of-staff period, the prime ministership, and the defense-ministry tenures.
|
||||
[^2]: "Inside Jeffrey Epstein's spy industry connections." *Reason,* August 27, 2025. https://reason.com/2025/08/27/inside-jeffrey-epsteins-spy-industry-connections/
|
||||
[^3]: "Peter Thiel and Jeffrey Epstein Had a Yearslong Relationship." *Jacobin,* March 2026. https://jacobin.com/2026/03/thiel-epstein-barak-ai-israel
|
||||
[^4]: Tommy Carstensen Epstein Files index, "Ehud Barak," cross-referencing the EFTA releases including the April 2014 email. https://tommycarstensen.com/epstein/people/ehud-barak.html
|
||||
[^5]: "Former Israeli Politician Helped Epstein Quietly Invest $1 Million In [Carbyne]." *Forbes,* 2020.
|
||||
39
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Felix Bauckholt.md
Normal file
39
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Felix Bauckholt.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,39 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Extremism & Violent Networks"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- Zizians
|
||||
- Rationalism
|
||||
- QuantitativeFinance
|
||||
- Violence
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Ophelia Bauckholt
|
||||
summary: "Felix 'Ophelia' Bauckholt was a German national and elite quantitative trader, a former informatics-olympiad gold medalist and Tower Research Capital trader, who became part of the Zizian group and was shot dead in the January 2025 Vermont shootout that killed Border Patrol agent David Maland."
|
||||
died: 2025-01-20
|
||||
location: "Jersey City, New Jersey"
|
||||
created: 2026-06-19
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-19
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Felix Bauckholt, who used the name "Ophelia," was a German national and quantitative trader who became part of the [[The Zizians|Zizian]] group and was killed in the January 20, 2025 shootout in [[Coventry]], [[Vermont]], in which U.S. Border Patrol agent [[David Maland]] also died. Bauckholt's trajectory from elite mathematics competition to a half-million-dollar Wall Street trading job to a fatal roadside gunfight made the case one of the most widely reported entries into the [[Rationalist Community]]-adjacent cult.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Mathematics and Trading Career
|
||||
|
||||
Bauckholt represented Germany at the [[International Olympiad in Informatics]], a high-school programming competition, winning a gold medal in 2014 and a bronze in 2015, then left Germany on a scholarship to study pure mathematics at the [[University of Waterloo]] in Canada, graduating in 2019. While still in college Bauckholt interned at [[Jane Street Capital]], an elite quantitative trading firm in New York, and after graduating with honors took a job as a quantitative trader at [[Tower Research Capital]]. By early 2023 Bauckholt was earning more than half a million dollars a year and living in [[Jersey City]], [[New Jersey]], on an H-1B visa.[^1][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
The Tower Research role sat at the high end of the quantitative-trading market that the Olympiad and Waterloo pipeline feeds, where firms recruit competition medalists directly into algorithmic trading. The H-1B status tied Bauckholt's lawful presence in the United States to that employment, so the eventual drift away from Wall Street and into the LaSota network also loosened the immigration footing that the job had supplied. Colleagues recalled an exceptional technical mind, and the contrast between the trajectory and the roadside death in Vermont became the hook for much of the early coverage.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Zizian Network and Death
|
||||
|
||||
Bauckholt's Jersey City apartment became a gathering place for a circle of friends, most of them highly educated transgender women who shared a preoccupation with the dangers of artificial intelligence, the same network that formed around [[Jack LaSota]]. By mid-2023 Bauckholt had rented half a duplex in Chapel Hill, [[North Carolina]], and [[Teresa Youngblut]] later took a place nearby, putting the two in the same East Coast cluster of members in the months before the shooting. The firearms the pair carried into Vermont had been bought by [[Michelle Zajko]], the person of interest in the Pennsylvania killing of her parents, according to prosecutors.[^2][^4][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
On January 20, 2025, Bauckholt was traveling with Youngblut when Border Patrol agents stopped their vehicle on Interstate 91 in Coventry near the Canadian border. The stop followed several days of surveillance prompted by a Lyndonville hotel employee who reported the pair around January 14 for wearing all-black tactical gear and a holstered firearm. According to the FBI affidavit, Youngblut fired first with a .40-caliber Glock 23 and Bauckholt attempted to draw a weapon before agents shot and killed Bauckholt; Maland died of his wounds and Youngblut was wounded and later charged with his murder. A search of the vehicle recovered multiple firearms, hollow-point rounds, a ballistic helmet, night-vision goggles, and handheld radios.[^4][^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: "Felix Bauckholt: The quant trader on an H1B visa killed by border police," *eFinancialCareers,* 2025. https://www.efinancialcareers.com/news/felix-bauckholt
|
||||
[^2]: "How did a German math genius get drawn into a 'cult' accused in coast-to-coast killings?" *NBC News,* 2025. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/german-math-genius-get-drawn-cult-accused-coast-coast-killings-rcna189309
|
||||
[^3]: "Suspect shot and killed in Vermont Border Patrol encounter was German national math/computer whiz," *Vermont Daily Chronicle,* January 23, 2025. https://vermontdailychronicle.com/suspect-shot-and-killed-in-vermont-border-patrol-encounter-was-german-national-math-computer-whiz-source/
|
||||
[^4]: "A timeline of activities of a cultlike group tied to the killing of a Border Patrol agent," Associated Press via PBS NewsHour, 2025; on the Chapel Hill duplex, the marriage license, and the timeline of the East Coast cluster. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/a-timeline-of-cultlike-zizian-group-tied-to-killing-of-a-border-patrol-agent-in-vermont
|
||||
[^5]: "Woman charged in killing of Border Patrol agent was in contact with Pennsylvania homicide suspect: prosecutors," CBS News Philadelphia, 2025, on the firearms purchased by Michelle Zajko. https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/teresa-youngblut-david-maland-pennsylvania-suspect/
|
||||
[^6]: "Court Docs Provide New Details on Border Patrol Shooting," *Seven Days,* January 2025, on the Lyndonville surveillance, the Glock 23, and the gear recovered. https://www.sevendaysvt.com/news/court-docs-provide-new-details-on-border-patrol-shooting-42735984/
|
||||
57
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Francis Galton.md
Normal file
57
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Francis Galton.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,57 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Scientists & Researchers"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- Eugenics
|
||||
- Statistics
|
||||
- Biometrics
|
||||
- HumanBiodiversity
|
||||
- Hereditarianism
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Francis Galton
|
||||
- Sir Francis Galton
|
||||
summary: "Francis Galton was the Victorian polymath and half-cousin of Charles Darwin who coined the words eugenics and nature versus nurture, founded biometrics and the statistical concepts of correlation and regression to the mean, pioneered fingerprint identification and composite photography, and endowed the chair of eugenics at University College London."
|
||||
born: 1822-02-16
|
||||
died: 1911-01-17
|
||||
location: "Birmingham, England; London, England"
|
||||
created: 2026-06-20
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-20
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Francis Galton (February 16, 1822 to January 17, 1911) was an English polymath who founded the [[Eugenics|eugenics]] movement, coining the word "eugenics" in 1883, and who in the course of arguing that human ability is inherited created much of modern statistics, including the concepts of correlation and regression. He was the half-cousin of Charles Darwin, sharing the grandfather Erasmus Darwin, and read Darwin's *On the Origin of Species* (1859) as a license to extend natural selection to the deliberate breeding of human beings. He pioneered fingerprint identification, composite photography, and anthropometric testing, founded the field of biometrics, introduced the phrase "nature versus nurture," and on his death left his estate to the University of London to endow a professorship of eugenics. He was knighted in 1909.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Hereditary Genius and the Hereditarian Program
|
||||
|
||||
Galton's central conviction, that mental and moral capacity is fixed by heredity rather than shaped by circumstance, was set out in *Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry into Its Laws and Consequences* (1869). The book tabulated the relatives of judges, statesmen, scientists, poets, and other eminent men, found that distinction clustered in families, and concluded that "genius," meaning exceptionally high and inborn ability, ran in bloodlines the way physical traits did. Galton dismissed the rival explanation, that eminent families pass on advantages of wealth, education, and connection, and treated the statistical clustering of achievement as direct evidence of inherited mental power. He drew the policy inference openly, proposing that the human stock could be improved by encouraging the able to marry early and reproduce.[^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
In *English Men of Science: Their Nature and Nurture* (1874) Galton introduced the antithesis "nature versus nurture" as a compact label for the question of whether inborn endowment or upbringing accounts for human differences, and he leaned consistently toward nature. He developed the twin study as a method for separating the two influences, comparing pairs raised together and apart, and read the results as confirmation of heredity's dominance. The same hereditarian premise, that differences in ability are innate, was shared by the twentieth-century [[Human Biodiversity|race-and-intelligence]] researchers funded by the [[Pioneer Fund]].[^2][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Coining Eugenics
|
||||
|
||||
Galton coined "eugenics" in *Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development* (1883), building the word from the Greek roots meaning "good in birth" or "well born." He defined it as the science of improving human hereditary qualities through selective reproduction, encouraging the propagation of the "fit" (positive eugenics) and discouraging that of the "unfit" (negative eugenics). The 1883 volume gathered some forty essays on the measurement of human faculties, including mental imagery, association, and sensory acuity, and presented the new science as the practical application of his hereditarian findings.[^1][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
Galton promoted eugenics as a secular faith for the educated classes, writing that it should be introduced into the national conscience "like a new religion." He funded a research office at University College London that in 1904 became the Eugenics Record Office and in 1907 was renamed the Francis Galton Laboratory of National Eugenics, and he served as honorary president of the Eugenics Education Society founded in 1907. His program supplied the template for the eugenics movements that spread through Britain, the United States, Germany, and Scandinavia in the first decades of the twentieth century, including compulsory sterilization laws and, later, the racial policies of the Third Reich.[^5][^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Statistics, Biometrics, and Identification
|
||||
|
||||
The attempt to prove heredity statistically led Galton to invent tools that outlasted the cause they served. Studying the relationship between the heights of parents and their adult children, he found that the offspring of unusually tall or short parents tended to fall closer to the population average, a phenomenon he first called "reversion" and then "regression toward mediocrity," now known as regression to the mean. From the same data he developed the concept of correlation, a numerical measure of the degree to which two variables move together, which his protégé [[Karl Pearson]] formalized as the correlation coefficient. Galton set out this work in *Natural Inheritance* (1889), the founding text of biometrics, the statistical study of biological variation.[^2][^7]
|
||||
|
||||
Galton opened an Anthropometric Laboratory at the International Health Exhibition in London in 1884, where for a small fee visitors had their height, weight, reaction time, grip strength, and sensory acuity measured and recorded, building a database of human variation. He placed fingerprint identification on a scientific footing in *Finger Prints* (1892), establishing that the ridge patterns are unique to each person and persist unchanged through life, devising a classification system, and amassing a collection that ran into the thousands of sets. He also invented composite photography, superimposing multiple portraits on a single plate to produce an averaged "type," a technique he applied in an effort to capture the supposed common features of criminals, the ill, and ethnic and family groups.[^4][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Galton Bequest and University College London
|
||||
|
||||
Galton died in 1911 and left the residue of his estate to the University of London to fund a professorship of eugenics, expressing the wish that Pearson hold the first chair. The wish was honored, and Pearson became the inaugural Galton Professor, directing the combined Galton Laboratory and Biometric Laboratory at University College London. The Galton Chair and the laboratory carried his name for more than a century, and the eugenic research conducted under them shaped British social policy and the international eugenics movement through the interwar period.[^6][^9]
|
||||
|
||||
University College London renamed the Galton Lecture Theatre and the Pearson Building and removed Galton's name from its buildings and a professorship in 2020, following an internal inquiry into the institution's history of eugenics, while the Galton Institute, the successor to the Eugenics Education Society, renamed itself the Adelphi Genetics Forum the same year. The bequest had by then funded generations of work in human genetics and statistics at the college, the discipline of biometrics having grown directly out of the apparatus Galton built to demonstrate that ability is bred rather than made.[^6][^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: "Francis Galton," *Encyclopædia Britannica,* on his life, the coinage of "eugenics" in 1883, his statistical work, and his knighthood. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Francis-Galton
|
||||
[^2]: Gillham, Nicholas Wright. "Cousins: Charles Darwin, Sir Francis Galton and the birth of eugenics," *Significance,* Royal Statistical Society, 2009, on Galton as Darwin's half-cousin through Erasmus Darwin, his hereditarianism, and his statistics. https://rss.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1740-9713.2009.00379.x
|
||||
[^3]: Galton, Francis. *Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry into Its Laws and Consequences.* Macmillan, 1869.
|
||||
[^4]: Galton, Francis. *English Men of Science: Their Nature and Nurture.* Macmillan, 1874, on "nature versus nurture" and the twin-study method; with the Anthropometric Laboratory and composite photography per galton.org.
|
||||
[^5]: Galton, Francis. *Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development.* Macmillan, 1883, on the coinage and definition of "eugenics."
|
||||
[^6]: "History of Eugenics Inside UCL," University College London, on the Eugenics Record Office, the Francis Galton Laboratory of National Eugenics, the Galton bequest and chair, and the 2020 renamings. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/prejudice-in-power/digital-showcase/history-eugenics-inside-ucl
|
||||
[^7]: Galton, Francis. *Natural Inheritance.* Macmillan, 1889, on regression toward the mean and correlation.
|
||||
[^8]: Galton, Francis. *Finger Prints.* Macmillan, 1892, on the uniqueness and permanence of fingerprint patterns and his classification system.
|
||||
[^9]: "Galton Chair of Eugenics at University College, London," *Nature,* on the bequest and Karl Pearson as first Galton Professor; with University College London's 2020 review of its eugenics history. https://www.nature.com/articles/155197c0
|
||||
72
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Gregory Bateson.md
Normal file
72
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Gregory Bateson.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,72 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Scientists & Researchers"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- GregoryBateson
|
||||
- Anthropology
|
||||
- Cybernetics
|
||||
- SystemsTheory
|
||||
- DoubleBind
|
||||
- HumanPotentialMovement
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Gregory Bateson
|
||||
summary: "Gregory Bateson was the English anthropologist and systems thinker who studied Balinese and Iatmul culture, helped found cybernetics at the Macy Conferences, formulated the double-bind theory of schizophrenia, and spent his last years at the Esalen Institute."
|
||||
born: 1904-05-09
|
||||
died: 1980-07-04
|
||||
location: "Grantchester, England; Big Sur and San Francisco, California"
|
||||
created: 2026-06-20
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-20
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Gregory Bateson (May 9, 1904 to July 4, 1980) was an English anthropologist, social scientist, and systems theorist whose work crossed anthropology, psychiatry, biology, and communication theory. The youngest son of the Cambridge geneticist William Bateson, who had coined the word "genetics," he was born in Grantchester, near Cambridge, and educated at Charterhouse and St John's College, Cambridge, taking a degree in biology in 1925 before turning to anthropology. He conducted fieldwork in New Guinea and Bali, was married to the anthropologist [[Margaret Mead]], was one of the core participants in the [[Macy Conferences]] that founded [[Cybernetics|cybernetics]], formulated the double-bind theory of schizophrenia, spent his last years at the [[Esalen Institute]], and collected his essays in *Steps to an Ecology of Mind* (1972) and *Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity* (1979). He died at the San Francisco Zen Center on July 4, 1980.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Naven and the Iatmul
|
||||
|
||||
Between 1929 and 1933 Bateson carried out fieldwork in the Sepik River region of the Territory of New Guinea among the Iatmul people, focusing on the naven, an elaborate ceremony in which relatives enacted ritualized role reversals and transvestism to mark a young person's first accomplishments. He published his analysis as *Naven: A Survey of the Problems Suggested by a Composite Picture of the Culture of a New Guinea Tribe Drawn from Three Points of View* in 1936. The book was an unconventional and reflexive study that examined the same body of ritual through ethos, eidos, and social structure and questioned the act of ethnographic description itself.[^1][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
In *Naven* Bateson introduced the concept of schismogenesis, the process by which interaction between individuals or groups becomes progressively differentiated through cumulative feedback, which he divided into symmetrical schismogenesis, where each side escalates the same behavior such as boasting or rivalry, and complementary schismogenesis, where the behaviors are opposed and mutually reinforcing such as dominance and submission. The idea of self-reinforcing cycles of interaction anticipated the feedback concepts he would later take up in cybernetics and apply to family systems.[^3][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Bali and Margaret Mead
|
||||
|
||||
Bateson married Margaret Mead in 1936, and from 1936 to 1939 the two conducted joint fieldwork in Bali, pioneering the systematic use of still photography and film as primary ethnographic data rather than illustration. They took some twenty-five thousand photographs and produced *Balinese Character: A Photographic Analysis* (1942), in which images were arranged in sequenced plates to convey patterns of child-rearing, posture, trance, and emotional life that prose alone could not capture. The collaboration also yielded a series of ethnographic films including *Trance and Dance in Bali*.[^1][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
Bateson and Mead had one daughter, the anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson, born in 1939. The couple separated in the 1940s and divorced in 1950, but their intellectual partnership shaped both careers, and Mead drew Bateson into the wartime and postwar American scientific circles, including the group around the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, in which the new science of feedback and communication was being assembled.[^2][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Macy Conferences and Cybernetics
|
||||
|
||||
Bateson was one of the core members of the Macy Conferences on cybernetics, the series of interdisciplinary meetings held in New York from 1946 to 1953 under the chairmanship of [[Warren McCulloch]] that brought together [[Norbert Wiener]], [[John von Neumann]], [[Claude Shannon]], Mead, Heinz von Foerster, and others to build a general theory of control and communication in animals and machines. Bateson and Mead were the conferences' principal anthropologists, and Bateson became one of the most active in pressing the group to apply concepts of feedback, information, and circular causality to human relationships, learning, and culture.[^6][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
The cybernetic framework reoriented Bateson's thinking for the rest of his career. He came to treat mind not as a thing located inside a skull but as a pattern of relationships and information distributed across a system of differences, an idea he summarized in the formulation that information is "a difference which makes a difference." Feedback, recursion, and the logical typing of messages drawn from the Macy discussions became the conceptual tools he carried into his study of communication, psychiatry, and evolution.[^6][^7]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Double-Bind Theory
|
||||
|
||||
After the Second World War Bateson moved to California and drifted out of mainstream anthropology into the study of communication and psychiatry. Working at the Veterans Administration hospital in Palo Alto, he led a research project with Jay Haley, John Weakland, and the psychiatrist Don D. Jackson that produced the paper "Toward a Theory of Schizophrenia," published in *Behavioral Science* in 1956. The paper advanced the double-bind theory, which held that schizophrenic symptoms could arise within patterns of family communication in which a person repeatedly receives contradictory messages on different logical levels and is unable to comment on the contradiction or to escape the relationship.[^8][^9]
|
||||
|
||||
In the classic double bind a primary injunction conflicts with a secondary injunction at a higher level of abstraction, often verbal warmth contradicted by nonverbal hostility, while a third, tertiary injunction prevents the victim from leaving the field or naming the trap. Bateson framed the theory in terms of [[Bertrand Russell]]'s theory of logical types, treating the pathology as a disorder of the capacity to discriminate the levels of a message rather than as a purely biochemical disease. The double-bind work made Bateson a major figure in the development of family therapy and the systemic schools of psychotherapy that grew out of the Palo Alto group.[^8][^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### Steps to an Ecology of Mind and Mind and Nature
|
||||
|
||||
*Steps to an Ecology of Mind*, published in 1972, collected three decades of Bateson's essays and lectures across anthropology, psychiatry, evolution, epistemology, and what he called the ecology of mind, and it brought his thinking to the wide countercultural audience that had begun reading him in the late 1960s. The volume gathered the schismogenesis work, the double-bind papers, his writing on play, learning, and communication among animals, and his arguments about the cybernetic structure of mind, presenting them as steps toward a unified science of pattern and relationship.[^7][^10]
|
||||
|
||||
In *Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity* (1979) Bateson attempted a synthesis of the ideas, arguing that the same formal patterns of organization, what he called the pattern which connects, run through biological evolution and through mental process, and that mind and living nature obey a common logic of difference, coding, and recursive structure. He had been diagnosed with cancer in 1978 and worked on the book and its unfinished sequel, *Angels Fear: Towards an Epistemology of the Sacred*, completed after his death by Mary Catherine Bateson, during his final years.[^7][^11]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Esalen Years
|
||||
|
||||
Bateson became a scholar-in-residence at the Esalen Institute at Big Sur from 1978 until his death in 1980, lecturing, leading seminars, and living on the property while he worked on *Mind and Nature*. He had been a presence in the institute's intellectual life for years, and his cybernetic conception of mind and his ecological epistemology became part of the framework of the Human Potential movement that had grown up around [[Michael Murphy]] and Dick Price. His writings were also taken up by [[Stewart Brand]], who excerpted Bateson in the [[Whole Earth Catalog]] and the *CoEvolution Quarterly* and helped carry the ecology-of-mind idea into the San Francisco Bay Area technology culture.[^11][^12]
|
||||
|
||||
Bateson held an appointment as a Regents lecturer and later a member of the Board of Regents of the University of California, to which Governor Jerry Brown appointed him in 1976. He died on July 4, 1980, at the guest house of the San Francisco Zen Center at the age of seventy-six.[^1][^11]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: "Gregory Bateson," New World Encyclopedia, on his birth on May 9, 1904 in Grantchester, his father William Bateson the geneticist, education at Charterhouse and St John's College Cambridge, the New Guinea fieldwork and *Naven*, the Bali fieldwork with Margaret Mead and *Balinese Character*, schismogenesis, the Macy Conferences, the 1956 double-bind paper, *Steps to an Ecology of Mind* and *Mind and Nature*, and his death on July 4, 1980. https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Gregory_Bateson
|
||||
[^2]: Lipset, David. *Gregory Bateson: The Legacy of a Scientist.* Prentice-Hall, 1980, on his life, his marriage to and divorce from Margaret Mead, and his role in the Macy Conferences.
|
||||
[^3]: Bateson, Gregory. *Naven: A Survey of the Problems Suggested by a Composite Picture of the Culture of a New Guinea Tribe Drawn from Three Points of View.* Cambridge University Press, 1936, on the Iatmul naven ceremony and schismogenesis.
|
||||
[^4]: "Gregory Bateson," AnthroBase Dictionary of Anthropology, on symmetrical and complementary schismogenesis. http://www.anthrobase.com/Dic/eng/pers/bateson_gregory.htm
|
||||
[^5]: Bateson, Gregory, and Margaret Mead. *Balinese Character: A Photographic Analysis.* New York Academy of Sciences, 1942, on the 1936 to 1939 Bali fieldwork, the photographic method, and *Trance and Dance in Bali*.
|
||||
[^6]: Heims, Steve J. *The Cybernetics Group.* MIT Press, 1991, on Bateson and Mead as the anthropologists of the Macy Conferences, 1946 to 1953, and Bateson's application of feedback and information to human relationships.
|
||||
[^7]: Bateson, Gregory. *Steps to an Ecology of Mind.* Chandler, 1972, on the ecology of mind, "a difference which makes a difference," and the collected essays; and *Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity.* Dutton, 1979, on the pattern which connects.
|
||||
[^8]: Bateson, Gregory, Don D. Jackson, Jay Haley, and John Weakland. "Toward a Theory of Schizophrenia." *Behavioral Science,* vol. 1, 1956, pp. 251 to 264, on the double-bind theory. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/bs.3830010402
|
||||
[^9]: "Bateson Project," on the Palo Alto research group at the Veterans Administration hospital, Jay Haley, John Weakland, and Don Jackson, and the logical-types framing of the double bind.
|
||||
[^10]: "Gregory Bateson," Encyclopaedia Britannica, on the collection of his 1950s and 1960s articles in *Steps to an Ecology of Mind* and his influence on the California counterculture. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gregory-Bateson
|
||||
[^11]: "Gregory Bateson and Esalen," Enacting Ecological Aesthetics, on the 1978 cancer diagnosis, the scholar-in-residence period at Esalen from 1978 to 1980, the work on *Mind and Nature* and *Angels Fear*, and his death at the San Francisco Zen Center. https://www.enactingecologicalaesthetics.com/gregory-bateson-and-esalen/
|
||||
[^12]: Turner, Fred. *From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism.* University of Chicago Press, 2006, on Brand's publication of Bateson in the *Whole Earth Catalog* and *CoEvolution Quarterly*.
|
||||
65
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Hal Finney.md
Normal file
65
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Hal Finney.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,65 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Technologists"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- HalFinney
|
||||
- Cryptography
|
||||
- Cypherpunks
|
||||
- Bitcoin
|
||||
- Cryonics
|
||||
- Extropianism
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Harold Thomas Finney II
|
||||
- Hal Finney
|
||||
summary: "Hal Finney was a cryptographer who developed Pretty Good Privacy and reusable proof-of-work, received the first Bitcoin transaction from Satoshi Nakamoto, and was cryopreserved by Alcor after his death from ALS."
|
||||
born: 1956-05-04
|
||||
died: 2014-08-28
|
||||
location: "Santa Barbara, California"
|
||||
created: 2026-06-19
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-19
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Harold Thomas Finney II (1956 to 2014), known as Hal Finney, was an American cryptographer and software developer who worked on [[Pretty Good Privacy]], created the first reusable proof-of-work system, and received the first [[Bitcoin]] transaction sent by [[Satoshi Nakamoto]]. He was a participant in the [[Cypherpunks]] movement and the [[Extropianism|extropian]] community, and on his death from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis he was cryopreserved by the [[Alcor Life Extension Foundation]].[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Cryptography and PGP
|
||||
|
||||
Finney graduated from the California Institute of Technology in 1979 and joined APh Technological Consulting, the firm Mattel contracted to develop the Intellivision, where he programmed the console game Space Battle and its Atari 2600 port Space Attack, as well as Astroblast, the 2600 port of Astrosmash. He began volunteering on [[Phil Zimmermann]]'s Pretty Good Privacy in 1991, became a central contributor to PGP 2.0, and when the federal investigation into Zimmermann closed in 1996 Zimmermann hired him as an employee.[^1][^2][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
Finney ran one of the early anonymous remailers, servers that stripped routing information so that a message could not be traced to its sender, and he was a frequent contributor to the cypherpunks list, where he introduced the idea of digital cash to the overlapping extropian community. He continued working on PGP under Zimmermann until ALS forced his retirement in 2011, by which point PGP had become the standard tool for encrypting email and the federal effort to suppress it had collapsed.[^3][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### Reusable Proof-of-Work
|
||||
|
||||
Finney announced RPOW on August 15, 2004, a reusable proof-of-work system that took an [[Adam Back]] Hashcash token as input and returned an RSA-signed token that could be handed from person to person and exchanged for a fresh token at each step, so that the same proof of work could circulate while each underlying token was spent only once. He described the result as "as rare and 'valuable' as the hashcash that was used to create them," with no way to inflate the supply.[^3][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
RPOW ran on an IBM 4758 PCI cryptographic coprocessor, a tamper-responding device validated to FIPS 140 Level 4 whose onboard key never left the card and was cleared on any change to the running software. The card issued cryptographically signed attestations of its own software configuration, so users worldwide could verify in real time that the server held no back door and would mint a token only against a token of equal value. RPOW was a direct technical precursor to the proof-of-work scheme that Satoshi Nakamoto later used in Bitcoin, which replaced the trusted hardware with a decentralized blockchain.[^9][^10]
|
||||
|
||||
### Bitcoin
|
||||
|
||||
Finney was among the first people to engage with Bitcoin after Nakamoto released the software. He posted "Running bitcoin" in January 2009, and on 12 January 2009 he received the first Bitcoin transaction sent by Nakamoto, ten coins recorded in block 170, after which he exchanged emails with Nakamoto reporting bugs. In his 2013 forum essay "Bitcoin and me," written after he was largely paralyzed by ALS, Finney recounted his cryptographic career, his early mining of Bitcoin, and that he had moved his coins into an offline wallet so they might be "worth something to my heirs."[^1][^5][^6]
|
||||
|
||||
The speculation that Finney was Satoshi intensified in March 2014 when Leah McGrath Goodman's Newsweek cover story named Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto of Temple City, California, the same town where Finney had lived for about a decade. Andy Greenberg investigated Finney directly for Forbes, commissioning stylometric analysis from Juola and Associates that found his writing the closest match yet to Satoshi's, but the case collapsed against an alibi: at the times Satoshi was sending timestamped emails and confirming a block in April 2009, Finney, an avid runner, was competing in and photographed at a ten-mile road race in Santa Barbara. Greenberg concluded Finney was not Nakamoto, and Finney denied it.[^15][^16]
|
||||
|
||||
### Cryonics and Death
|
||||
|
||||
Finney was a member of the extropian and cryonics communities and had been an Alcor client for twenty years by the time he disclosed his ALS in the October 2009 LessWrong essay "Dying Outside." He was diagnosed in August 2009 and continued programming with a commercial eyetracker and speech synthesizer as the disease left him almost fully paralyzed, writing in 2013 that he could still code, "probably 50 times slower than I was before," and that he "still love[d] programming."[^11][^12]
|
||||
|
||||
Finney died on 28 August 2014 at age fifty-eight in [[Scottsdale]], [[Arizona]], and was cryopreserved by the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, later run by [[Max More]], as its 128th patient on the day of his death. Alcor's case summary records that he chose whole-body preservation, funded by life insurance and bitcoin donated by admirers. In December 2014 an extortionist who had demanded 1,000 bitcoin from the family, worth roughly 400,000 dollars, retaliated for non-payment by placing a false emergency call that sent an armed police team to the Finney home, an attack known as swatting.[^13][^14]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: "Remembering Hal Finney: A Decade Since His Passing," *Nasdaq,* on his PGP work, the first Bitcoin transaction, RPOW, and his ALS. https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/remembering-hal-finney-decade-his-passing-his-legacy-bitcoin-lives
|
||||
[^2]: "How cryonics and cryptography are related: from Hal Finney to CryoGen," *KrioRus,* on Finney's extropian and cryonics involvement and his Alcor preservation.
|
||||
[^3]: "The Extropian Roots of Bitcoin," *CCN,* on Finney introducing digital cash to the extropians and building RPOW. https://www.ccn.com/extropian-roots-bitcoin/
|
||||
[^4]: Finney, Hal. "RPOW: Reusable Proofs of Work," 2004, on the reusable proof-of-work design.
|
||||
[^5]: Finney, Hal. "Bitcoin and me," Bitcointalk, 19 March 2013. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155054.0
|
||||
[^6]: "Hal Finney on Bitcoin: In His Own Words," *CoinDesk,* 29 August 2014, on the first transaction and the Satoshi speculation. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2014/08/29/hal-finney-on-bitcoin-in-his-own-words
|
||||
[^7]: "Meet the Cryonics Company Preserving Bitcoin Legend Hal Finney's Body," *Decrypt,* on his Alcor cryopreservation. https://decrypt.co/243997/cryonics-alcor-hal-finney-bitcoin
|
||||
[^8]: "Hal Finney, cryptographer and bitcoin pioneer, dies," *The Boston Globe,* August 31, 2014, on his Caltech degree, APh and Mattel games, and his 1991 PGP work and hiring by Zimmermann. https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/obituaries/2014/08/31/hal-finney-cryptographer-and-bitcoin-pioneer-dies/7aFf8qJ1ixkF98m7QU76RP/story.html
|
||||
[^9]: Finney, Hal. "RPOW - Reusable Proofs of Work," cryptography mailing list, August 15, 2004. https://www.metzdowd.com/pipermail/cryptography/2004-August/007362.html
|
||||
[^10]: Finney, Hal. "RPOW - IBM 4758 Security Model," on the FIPS 140 Level 4 coprocessor, the device key, and the real-time attestation of the running software. https://nakamotoinstitute.org/finney/rpow/secmodel.html
|
||||
[^11]: Finney, Hal. "Dying Outside," LessWrong, October 5, 2009, on the ALS diagnosis and his Alcor membership. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/bshZiaLefDejvPKuS/dying-outside
|
||||
[^12]: Finney, Hal. "Bitcoin and me," Bitcointalk, March 19, 2013, on the eyetracker, his slowed coding, and moving coins to an offline wallet. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155054.0
|
||||
[^13]: "Case Summary A-1436," Alcor Life Extension Foundation, on the August 28, 2014 death in Scottsdale, the whole-body option, and his status as Alcor's 128th patient. https://www.cryonicsarchive.org/library/complete-list-of-alcor-cryopreservations/case-summary-a-1436/
|
||||
[^14]: "Bitcoin Extortionist Targeted Hal Finney and Others," *NewsBTC,* December 30, 2014, on the 1,000-bitcoin demand and the swatting of the Finney home. https://newsbtc.com/2014/12/30/bitcoin-extortionist-targeted-hal-finney-others
|
||||
[^15]: Goodman, Leah McGrath. "The Face Behind Bitcoin," *Newsweek,* March 6, 2014, naming Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto of Temple City. https://www.newsweek.com/2014/03/14/face-behind-bitcoin-247957.html
|
||||
[^16]: Greenberg, Andy. "Nakamoto's Neighbor: My Hunt For Bitcoin's Creator Led To A Paralyzed Crypto Genius," *Forbes,* March 25, 2014, on the Juola stylometric analysis and the road-race alibi clearing Finney. https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2014/03/25/satoshi-nakamotos-neighbor-the-bitcoin-ghostwriter-who-wasnt/
|
||||
48
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Jack Clark.md
Normal file
48
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Jack Clark.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,48 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Technologists"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- Anthropic
|
||||
- ArtificialIntelligence
|
||||
- AIPolicy
|
||||
- AISafety
|
||||
- OpenAI
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Jack Clark
|
||||
summary: "Jack Clark is the cofounder and head of policy at Anthropic, a former technology journalist who ran policy and communications at OpenAI, co-chairs Stanford's AI Index, and writes the Import AI newsletter."
|
||||
born: 1987
|
||||
location: "San Francisco, California"
|
||||
created: 2026-06-20
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-20
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Jack Clark (born around 1987) is a British technology journalist turned AI executive who cofounded [[Anthropic]] and serves as its head of policy. Before Anthropic he was policy director at [[OpenAI]], and before that a reporter covering computing and artificial intelligence for outlets including *The Register* and Bloomberg. He co-chairs Stanford's AI Index, writes the widely read Import AI newsletter, and has become one of the most visible industry voices in AI governance.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Journalism
|
||||
|
||||
Clark was born in Brighton, England, grew up around London during the early personal-computing era, and studied liberal arts, taking a bachelor's degree centered on English literature and creative writing rather than a technical field, a background he has cited in arguing that the AI era rewards people who can ask the right questions over those who can only code. He entered technology journalism covering enterprise infrastructure, distributed systems, supercomputers, and machine learning. He worked for the British technology publication *The Register*, writing in detail about data centers and emerging neural-network research, before joining Bloomberg as a technology reporter around 2015, where he built a beat on artificial intelligence and was for a period the outlet's dedicated AI reporter.[^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
His reporting put him in contact with the research community at the moment deep learning was breaking into the mainstream, and he covered the field as a journalist before deciding to work inside it. He has continued writing in a journalistic mode throughout his industry career through Import AI, a weekly newsletter he began in 2016 that summarizes and analyzes new AI research and is read by tens of thousands of subscribers across the field and in government.[^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### OpenAI
|
||||
|
||||
In 2016 Clark left Bloomberg to join OpenAI, where he ran strategy and communications and rose to become the organization's policy director. In that role he managed the company's public messaging and its engagement with governments, and he was involved in some of OpenAI's early decisions about how to release powerful models, including the staged 2019 rollout of GPT-2 that withheld the full model on stated misuse concerns, an episode that became an early test case in debates over AI release norms.[^1][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
Clark was also a founding member of Stanford's AI Index in 2017, the annual data-driven report on the state of artificial intelligence produced under the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, and he has continued as a co-chair of the project. He served on the OECD's expert work on classifying AI systems and, from 2021 to 2024, as an inaugural member of the United States National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee, which advises the president on AI policy.[^2][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
### Anthropic and AI Governance
|
||||
|
||||
When [[Dario Amodei]] and a group of senior OpenAI staff resigned over the company's direction in late 2020, Clark left with them and cofounded Anthropic in early 2021, taking responsibility for the company's policy and government-relations work. As head of policy he is Anthropic's chief interlocutor with legislators and regulators, advocating for AI safety testing, transparency requirements, and export controls, and he co-authored Anthropic's submissions to government AI consultations. In March 2026 the company launched the Anthropic Institute, a research arm studying AI's effects on society, which Clark leads.[^1][^6]
|
||||
|
||||
Clark has used Import AI and public appearances to argue that AI capabilities are advancing faster than institutions can absorb, at one point estimating a high probability that AI systems would begin meaningfully contributing to the design of their own successors before the end of the decade, and he has warned against both unconstrained acceleration and a regulatory vacuum. The company he cofounded raised capital at a pace that made its early staff wealthy: after the 2022 [[Sam Bankman-Fried]] investment of roughly 500 million dollars through [[Alameda Research]], Anthropic drew about 8 billion dollars from Amazon and roughly 3 billion from Google, closed a 13-billion-dollar Series F in September 2025 at a 183-billion-dollar valuation, raised further rounds carrying the valuation toward a trillion dollars, and in mid-2026 filed confidentially for an initial public offering after raising well over 100 billion dollars in total; Bloomberg's billionaires index began tracking Clark as a billionaire on the strength of his founder's stake.[^6][^7][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: "Jack Clark," *Crunchbase* and contemporaneous profiles, on his cofounding of Anthropic, his head-of-policy role, and his prior OpenAI policy directorship. https://www.crunchbase.com/person/jack-clark
|
||||
[^2]: "About," Import AI / jack-clark.net, Clark's own biography, on the journalism career across *The Register* and Bloomberg BusinessWeek, the OpenAI policy directorship, the Import AI newsletter, the AI Index founding membership (2017–2024), and the National AI Advisory Committee (2021–2024). https://jack-clark.net/about/
|
||||
[^3]: "The billionaire Anthropic cofounder who majored in literature says knowing how to ask the right questions beats knowing how to code," *Fortune,* April 14, 2026, on the Brighton birth, the literature and creative-writing degree, and the journalism background. https://fortune.com/2026/04/14/billionaire-anthropic-cofounder-jack-clark-coding-programming-education-gen-z-unemployment/
|
||||
[^4]: "Better Language Models and Their Implications," OpenAI, February 2019, on the staged GPT-2 release decision made during Clark's tenure as policy and communications lead. https://openai.com/index/better-language-models/
|
||||
[^5]: "Jack Clark," Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, on his co-chairing of the AI Index; "Jack Clark," OECD.AI expert community, on his OECD AI-classification work. https://oecd.ai/en/community/jack-clark
|
||||
[^6]: "5 Questions for Jack Clark," *Politico,* March 7, 2025, and reporting on the March 2026 launch of the Anthropic Institute that Clark leads. https://www.politico.com/newsletters/digital-future-daily/2025/03/07/5-questions-for-jack-clark-00218274
|
||||
[^7]: "Anthropic raises $13 billion at $183 billion valuation," *CNBC,* September 2, 2025, on the Series F; "Amazon doubles down on Anthropic with another $4 billion," *Reuters,* November 22, 2024, on the roughly 8-billion-dollar Amazon total; and reporting on Google's roughly 3-billion-dollar investment and Anthropic's June 2026 confidential IPO filing after raising more than 100 billion dollars to date. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/02/anthropic-funding-round-183-billion-valuation.html
|
||||
[^8]: "Bloomberg Billionaires Index: Jack Clark," on the tracking of Clark's net worth based on his Anthropic founder's stake. https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/profiles/jack-clark/
|
||||
47
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Jean-Luc Brunel.md
Normal file
47
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Jean-Luc Brunel.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Crime & Abuse Networks"
|
||||
tags: [Person, JeanLucBrunel, JeffreyEpstein, MC2ModelManagement, KarinModels, Modeling, SexTrafficking, France]
|
||||
alias: ["Jean-Luc Brunel"]
|
||||
summary: "French modeling agent and associate of Jeffrey Epstein, co-founder of MC2 Model Management with reported Epstein funding, who was arrested in France in 2020 on charges including rape of minors and died in a Paris prison in 2022."
|
||||
born: 1946-09-18
|
||||
died: 2022-02-19
|
||||
location: Paris, France
|
||||
created: 2026-06-20
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-20
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Jean-Luc Brunel was a French modeling agent who ran [[Karin Models]] in Paris and later co-founded [[MC2 Model Management]] in New York with reported funding from [[Jeffrey Epstein]]. He was the subject of decades of abuse allegations within the modeling industry, was arrested in France in December 2020 on charges including the rape of minors and human trafficking, and was found hanged in his cell at [[La Santé Prison]] in Paris in February 2022.
|
||||
|
||||
### Modeling Career
|
||||
|
||||
Brunel was born on September 18, 1946 in Neuilly-sur-Seine and worked in restaurant public relations before entering modeling as a scout in the 1970s, acquiring the Paris agency Karin Models from its founder Karin Mossberg and running it by 1978.[^1] He claimed to have launched the careers of models including Monica Bellucci, Sharon Stone and Christy Turlington, and his contemporaries in the Paris and New York agency business included [[John Casablancas]], founder of [[Elite Model Management]], and the agent [[Paolo Zampolli]].[^5] Brunel later restructured Karin Models' U.S. division into a new agency.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
A 1988 [[60 Minutes]] investigation titled "American Girls in Paris," reported by Diane Sawyer, interviewed nearly two dozen American models who said Brunel and his fellow Paris agent [[Claude Haddad]] had drugged and raped them.[^2] Around the same time the CBS correspondent Craig Pyes spoke with additional models who made similar claims.[^5] The journalist [[Michael Gross]] documented allegations against Brunel in his 1995 book *Model: The Ugly Business of Beautiful Women,* quoting industry figures who described him as a predator and said he belonged "behind bars."[^5] Brunel consistently denied wrongdoing, saying he "strongly den[ied] having committed any illicit act or any wrongdoing" in his work as a scout and agency manager.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### MC2 Model Management
|
||||
|
||||
Around 2004 to 2005 Brunel founded MC2 Model Management, with operations in New York and Miami, building it out of the restructured U.S. division of Karin Models.[^5] Financial records cited in litigation showed Jeffrey Epstein wired about one million dollars to Brunel in connection with the launch, and Epstein provided MC2 a line of credit; some accounts put his total backing closer to two million dollars.[^5] Maritza Vasquez, MC2's former bookkeeper, testified in a 2010 deposition that Epstein had invested roughly one million dollars in the agency.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
U.S. prosecutors and investigators reported that they believed MC2 functioned as a cover to recruit and supply women and girls for Jeffrey Epstein.[^4] Flight logs placed Brunel on Epstein's aircraft, including a February 2005 flight with the model [[Nadia Marcinkova]], and visitor records reportedly showed Brunel visiting Epstein dozens of times during his 2008 to 2010 Florida incarceration.[^5] Brunel denied these allegations.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Allegations Connected to Jeffrey Epstein
|
||||
|
||||
Multiple women accused Brunel of drugging and sexually assaulting them in Paris during the 1980s and 1990s.[^1] [[Virginia Giuffre]], who accused Jeffrey Epstein of trafficking her, alleged that Brunel sexually abused her and supplied young women and girls to Epstein, stating in sworn accounts that Epstein had directed her to provide sexual services to Brunel.[^3] In a 2015 court filing she said she had "sexual intercourse with Jean-Luc Brunel many times" between the ages of 16 and 19.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
Giuffre alleged in her filings that Brunel had "many contacts" with young girls and could "get dozens" of them, and she claimed he had an arrangement to obtain passports that allowed him to bring girls "ranging in age from 12 to 24" into the United States.[^5] In one filing she said Epstein had boasted of sleeping with more than 1,000 of Brunel's girls.[^1] U.S. prosecutors and investigators reported that they believed Brunel was used to recruit and supply women and girls for Jeffrey Epstein, and Brunel denied the allegations.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Arrest and Death
|
||||
|
||||
Brunel was detained on December 16, 2020 at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris as he prepared to board a flight to Senegal, part of an investigation French authorities had opened in 2019 after Epstein's death.[^4] He was charged with the rape of minors over 15 and sexual harassment, and was placed under formal investigation in a case encompassing rape and sexual assault of minors under and over 15, sexual harassment, criminal association and human trafficking of minors for the purposes of sexual exploitation.[^6] He was held in pre-trial detention and maintained his innocence.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
On February 19, 2022 Brunel was found hanged with bedsheets in his cell at La Santé Prison in Paris at around 1:30 a.m.; he was 75.[^3] French authorities treated the death as a suicide, and a medical examiner reported death by hanging.[^6] He died in custody before facing trial, leaving the allegations unadjudicated.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
The French investigation into the wider network of allegations against Brunel and others connected to Epstein remained open after his death, with French prosecutors continuing to examine the trafficking and abuse claims.[^4] His death, the second of a central Epstein figure to occur in custody and be ruled a suicide after Epstein's own 2019 death, drew renewed scrutiny from lawyers for the alleged victims.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
[^1]: "Jean-Luc Brunel," summarizing reporting on his career, MC2 Model Management, the Epstein funding, the 1995 Michael Gross book *Model,* and his denials. https://wwd.com/fashion-news/fashion-scoops/former-model-agent-close-to-jeffrey-epstein-found-hanged-1235085929/
|
||||
[^2]: "American Girls in Paris," *60 Minutes,* CBS, reported by Diane Sawyer, December 1988. https://www.kqed.org/arts/13887034/fashion-is-about-to-have-its-metoo-moment-and-its-long-overdue
|
||||
[^3]: "Jean-Luc Brunel, Jeffrey Epstein associate accused of rape, supplying girls, found hanged in prison," *Washington Post,* 2022. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/02/19/jean-luc-brunel-hanged-epstein/
|
||||
[^4]: "Modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel arrested in Paris in Epstein probe," *NBC News,* 2020. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/modeling-agent-jean-luc-brunel-arrested-paris-epstein-probe-n1251589
|
||||
[^5]: "Jean-Luc Brunel: The French Modeling Honcho at the Center of Jeffrey Epstein's Web," *The Fashion Law,* on Karin Models, the 1988 60 Minutes report and Claude Haddad, the Michael Gross book, the MC2 founding and Epstein funding, Maritza Vasquez's deposition, and Virginia Giuffre's allegations. https://www.thefashionlaw.com/jean-luc-brunel-at-the-center-of-jeffrey-epsteins-web-of-underage-girls/
|
||||
[^6]: "Jean-Luc Brunel, French modeling agent and associate of Jeffrey Epstein, found dead in prison cell," *CNN,* 2022, on the charges, the Senegal flight, the suicide ruling and the open investigation. https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/19/europe/jean-luc-brunel-jeffrey-epstein-death-intl
|
||||
141
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Jeffrey Epstein.md
Normal file
141
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Jeffrey Epstein.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,141 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Crime & Abuse Networks"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- JeffreyEpstein
|
||||
- SexOffender
|
||||
- SexTrafficking
|
||||
- Intelligence
|
||||
- Blackmail
|
||||
- Mossad
|
||||
- RobertMaxwell
|
||||
- GhislaineMaxwell
|
||||
- LesWexner
|
||||
- SciencePhilanthropy
|
||||
- DarkMoney
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Jeffrey Edward Epstein
|
||||
summary: "Jeffrey Epstein was an American financier and convicted sex offender who ran a sex-trafficking operation alongside Ghislaine Maxwell, cultivated a network spanning technology billionaires, heads of state, intelligence officials, and elite scientists, and whose unexplained wealth, intelligence-adjacent contacts, and 2019 jail death produced sustained questions about whether his operation served blackmail or intelligence functions."
|
||||
born: 1953-01-20
|
||||
died: 2019-08-10
|
||||
location: "Brooklyn, New York"
|
||||
created: 2026-06-18
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-20
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Jeffrey Epstein (January 20, 1953 to August 10, 2019) was an American financier and convicted sex offender who, with his companion [[Ghislaine Maxwell]], ran a sex-trafficking operation that recruited and abused dozens of underage girls across his residences in [[Manhattan]], [[Palm Beach, Florida|Palm Beach]], [[New Mexico]], the [[U.S. Virgin Islands]], and [[Paris]]. He built a social and financial network that encompassed technology billionaires ([[Peter Thiel]], [[Bill Gates]], [[Elon Musk]], [[Reid Hoffman]], [[Mark Zuckerberg]]), heads of state and politicians ([[Bill Clinton]], [[Ehud Barak]], [[Prince Andrew]], [[Donald Trump]]), intelligence officials ([[William Burns]]), financiers and executives ([[Leslie Wexner]], [[Tom Pritzker]], [[Howard Lutnick]]), and prominent scientists ([[Martin Nowak]], [[Marvin Minsky]], [[George Church]], [[Stephen Hawking]]) brokered through the literary agent [[John Brockman]]. The source of his fortune was never satisfactorily explained, his long association with [[Robert Maxwell|Robert Maxwell's]] daughter raised documented intelligence questions, and his death in federal custody in 2019 was ruled a suicide over disputes that have not been resolved.[^1][^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Early Life, Dalton, and Bear Stearns
|
||||
|
||||
Epstein was born in [[Brooklyn]], New York, and raised in the Sea Gate and [[Coney Island]] area in a working-class Jewish family; his father worked for the New York City parks department. He attended Lafayette High School, then [[Cooper Union]] and the Courant Institute at [[New York University]], leaving both without a degree. In 1974 he was hired to teach mathematics and physics at the [[Dalton School]], the elite Upper East Side preparatory school, despite having no degree and no teaching credential. The headmaster during the period of his hiring was [[Donald Barr]], the novelist and educator who was the father of the future U.S. Attorney General [[William Barr]], whose Department of Justice would later oversee the federal case and the jail in which Epstein died. Accounts differ on whether Barr personally hired Epstein, since Barr resigned the headmastership in 1974.[^1][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
At Dalton, Epstein cultivated the parents of his students, and a connection there brought him to [[Bear Stearns]], the investment bank then led by [[Alan Greenberg]]. He joined in 1976, worked in the special products division advising wealthy clients on tax strategy, and rose to limited partner before resigning in 1981. The firm and Epstein gave varying accounts of the departure, which has been attributed to a Regulation D securities violation and to an internal inquiry. In 1981 he founded the consulting firm Intercontinental Assets Group, and in 1988 he established [[J. Epstein & Co.]], which he said managed money exclusively for clients worth more than one billion dollars, a claim that obscured rather than explained his finances.[^1][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Towers Financial and the Hoffenberg Partnership
|
||||
|
||||
In the late 1980s Epstein worked closely with [[Steven Hoffenberg]], the financier who controlled [[Towers Financial Corporation]], a debt-collection company that bought portfolios of distressed medical and telephone receivables and sold notes and bonds to investors. Epstein was retained as a consultant, reportedly at twenty-five thousand dollars a month, and the two pursued attempted corporate takeovers of [[Pan American World Airways|Pan Am]] and [[Emery Air Freight]] around 1987 and 1988. Towers Financial collapsed in 1993 in what prosecutors described as one of the largest [[Ponzi scheme|Ponzi schemes]] before [[Bernard Madoff]], with roughly 475 million dollars taken from investors. Hoffenberg pleaded guilty in 1995, was sentenced to twenty years, and served about eighteen.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
After his release Hoffenberg publicly claimed that Epstein had been a co-architect of the Towers fraud and had walked away with money while leaving Hoffenberg to face prosecution alone. Epstein was never charged in connection with Towers Financial, and Hoffenberg's reliability was contested; he made his accusations only years later, in litigation and interviews. Hoffenberg was found dead at his home in Derby, [[Connecticut]] in August 2022. The Towers period is one of two documented sources of capital, alongside the Wexner relationship, around which Epstein's later wealth was assembled.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
### Leslie Wexner and the Source of Wealth
|
||||
|
||||
Leslie Wexner, the founder of [[The Limited]], [[L Brands]], [[Victoria's Secret]], and [[Bath & Body Works]], met Epstein in the mid-1980s and made him his money manager and confidant. In 1991 Wexner granted Epstein sweeping power of attorney, authority to borrow money, sign checks, buy and sell property, and hire and fire on his behalf. Wexner transferred to Epstein the use of, and eventually title to, the seven-story townhouse at [[9 East 71st Street]] in Manhattan, one of the largest private residences in the city, which an Epstein entity took over around 2011 for far below its market value. Wexner also co-founded the [[Mega Group]], a club of wealthy Jewish businessmen and philanthropists, with the [[Seagram]] heir [[Charles Bronfman]].[^3][^6]
|
||||
|
||||
Wexner cut ties with Epstein around 2007, and in 2019 he stated publicly that Epstein had "misappropriated vast sums" from him and his family, an amount reported as more than 46 million dollars, which Wexner said he had recovered. The mechanics of how a single client's fortune translated into Epstein's own remained opaque. A December 2025 [[New York Times]] investigation concluded that Epstein built his apparent wealth through "scams, theft and lies" rather than financial acumen, that his billionaire status was exaggerated, and that the Wexner relationship was central to whatever fortune he actually held.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Ghislaine Maxwell and the Maxwell Intelligence Question
|
||||
|
||||
Ghislaine Maxwell became Epstein's companion, social organizer, and, according to her 2021 federal conviction, the principal recruiter and procurer of his trafficking operation, beginning in the early 1990s after she moved to New York. She is the youngest daughter of Robert Maxwell (born Jan Ludvik Hoch in [[Czechoslovakia]] in 1923), the British publishing magnate who controlled [[Mirror Group Newspapers]], served as a Labour [[Member of Parliament]], looted roughly 460 million pounds from the Mirror Group pension funds, and died in a disputed drowning off his yacht near the [[Canary Islands]] on November 5, 1991. Robert Maxwell was alleged across multiple published accounts to have operated as an intelligence asset, including for [[Mossad]], [[MI6]], and the [[KGB]], with claims involving the distribution of modified [[PROMIS]] software and a role in the [[Mordechai Vanunu]] case.[^2][^20]
|
||||
|
||||
The strongest version of the intelligence claim traces to [[Ari Ben-Menashe]], a self-described former Israeli military intelligence officer, who alleged in his book Profits of War (1992) and later interviews that Robert Maxwell was a longtime Mossad asset and that Epstein and Ghislaine ran a sexual blackmail operation connected to Israeli intelligence. Ben-Menashe's account is uncorroborated by any declassified file, and his reliability is widely disputed. What is documented is narrower: that Ghislaine maintained the transatlantic social access through which Epstein operated, and that Epstein separately cultivated Barak and the Israeli surveillance-technology firm [[Carbyne]]. Whether the operation was directed by any service, or simply weaponized inherited wealth and connections for leverage, is unproven in any primary source and is treated here as a documented analytical thread rather than established fact.[^2][^20]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Properties
|
||||
|
||||
Epstein's residences functioned as the physical infrastructure of the trafficking operation. The Manhattan townhouse at 9 East 71st Street, the Palm Beach house at [[358 El Brillo Way]] (acquired in 1990), the roughly 10,000-acre [[Zorro Ranch]] near Stanley, New Mexico, the private island of [[Little St. James]] in the U.S. Virgin Islands (acquired in 1998), the neighboring [[Great St. James]] (acquired in 2016), and an apartment on the [[Avenue Foch]] in Paris formed a circuit across which victims and associates were moved. Victims and a 1996 [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] report by [[Maria Farmer]] described hidden cameras and surveillance equipment in the properties, which fed the later allegation that the residences were instrumented to record guests.[^4][^9]
|
||||
|
||||
Zorro Ranch in New Mexico was, according to a 2019 New York Times report, the site Epstein discussed for a project to "seed the human race with his DNA" by impregnating many women, a scheme he described to scientists and associates and that never came to fruition. New Mexico reopened a criminal inquiry into the ranch in 2025. Little St. James, called "Pedophile Island" in local accounts, was where Epstein hosted a 2002 science conference and where multiple victims said abuse occurred; under the 2022 settlement with the U.S. Virgin Islands the island was sold and half the proceeds paid to the territory.[^9][^15]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Trafficking Operation and the Recruitment Network
|
||||
|
||||
The operation recruited girls, some as young as 14, to give Epstein "massages" that became sexual abuse, and paid victims to recruit additional victims in a pyramid structure. The schemers and recruiters included Ghislaine Maxwell and a circle of assistants and procurers: [[Sarah Kellen]], [[Nadia Marcinkova]], [[Adriana Ross]], and [[Lesley Groff]], the four employees named and granted immunity in the 2008 federal agreement, and the French modeling agent [[Jean-Luc Brunel]], whose [[MC2 Model Management]] agency was reportedly seeded with about one million dollars of Epstein money and supplied women and girls. Brunel was arrested in France in December 2020 on charges including the rape of minors and was found hanged in a Paris prison in February 2022.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
The Palm Beach Police Department opened an investigation in 2005 after a parent reported that her teenage daughter had been molested, and detectives identified dozens of victims and a network of recruiters. The most prominent victim-witnesses include [[Virginia Giuffre]] (recruited at age 16 or 17 while working at [[Mar-a-Lago]]), Maria Farmer and her sister [[Annie Farmer]], [[Courtney Wild]], and [[Sarah Ransome]]. Their accounts, depositions, and civil suits, many unsealed in the 2024 [[Giuffre v. Maxwell]] document release, provided much of the public record of the operation.[^4][^21]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Flight Logs and the Black Book
|
||||
|
||||
Epstein owned a Boeing 727 and additional aircraft flown by the pilots [[Larry Visoski]] and [[David Rodgers]], whose logbooks recorded passengers on flights among New York, Palm Beach, the Virgin Islands, and Europe. The logs surfaced through the civil litigation of 2009 to 2015 and became the basis for much of the public mapping of Epstein's contacts, though a log entry records travel and not conduct. Visoski testified at the 2021 Maxwell trial that he had never witnessed sexual activity aboard the aircraft, and the logs by themselves establish who flew, not what occurred.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
A bound contact directory, the "little black book," held roughly 1,900 entries of names, telephone numbers, and addresses spanning finance, politics, royalty, science, and entertainment. A former house manager at the Palm Beach property, [[Alfredo Rodriguez]], copied the directory and tried to sell it in 2009, calling it the "holy grail"; he was convicted of obstruction of justice in 2010. Redacted versions of the directory and of the flight manifests later circulated publicly and were cited in reporting and litigation to identify members of Epstein's social circle.[^4][^23]
|
||||
|
||||
The documentary record expanded sharply after Epstein's death. The January 2024 unsealing of the Giuffre v. Maxwell exhibits by Judge Loretta Preska, the staged 2025 Justice Department releases, and the House Oversight Committee productions added emails, calendars, depositions, and photographs to the logs and the directory. The combined record widened the list of documented contacts while leaving intact the distinction between appearing in Epstein's logs or address book and participating in his crimes, a distinction that much of the subsequent public controversy turned on.[^17][^21]
|
||||
|
||||
### The 2008 Non-Prosecution Agreement
|
||||
|
||||
The FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the [[Southern District of Florida]] investigated Epstein in 2006 and 2007 and prepared a 53-page federal indictment. Instead of prosecuting, the U.S. Attorney [[Alexander Acosta]] negotiated a [[non-prosecution agreement]] in 2007 and 2008 under which Epstein pleaded guilty to two Florida state charges, soliciting prostitution and procuring a minor for prostitution, was sentenced to 18 months, served about 13 in the Palm Beach County stockade with work-release privileges that let him leave six days a week, and registered as a sex offender. The agreement also granted federal immunity to named co-conspirators and was concealed from the victims.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
The deal's leniency became the subject of the [[Miami Herald]] series "Perversion of Justice" by the reporter [[Julie K. Brown]] in 2018, which revived the case. In February 2019 the federal judge [[Kenneth Marra]] ruled that prosecutors had violated the [[Crime Victims' Rights Act]] by hiding the agreement from victims. Acosta, who had become U.S. Secretary of Labor under Donald Trump, resigned in July 2019. A 2020 Department of Justice Office of Professional Responsibility report found that Acosta had exercised "poor judgment" but had not committed professional misconduct.[^4][^19][^21]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Science Network and the Eugenics Ambition
|
||||
|
||||
From the late 1990s Epstein financed and embedded himself in elite science through the literary agent John Brockman and his [[Edge Foundation]], whose annual "billionaires' dinner" Epstein attended and helped underwrite, and through targeted university gifts. He donated roughly 9.1 million dollars to [[Harvard University]] between 2001 and 2007, including about 6.5 million dollars around 2003 to help establish the [[Program for Evolutionary Dynamics]] under the mathematical biologist Martin Nowak, who gave Epstein an office and, according to Harvard's May 2020 internal review, key-card access and more than 40 visits after his 2008 conviction. Epstein cultivated scientists including Marvin Minsky of the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]], the geneticist George Church, the physicist [[Lawrence Krauss]], and the cognitive scientist [[Steven Pinker]], and funded conferences attended by figures up to Stephen Hawking.[^8][^9]
|
||||
|
||||
Epstein's interest in genetics and population converged with a stated ambition to spread his own DNA. The 2019 New York Times report documented that he told scientists of plans to impregnate women at Zorro Ranch to seed the human race with his genome, and that he was drawn to [[transhumanism]] and [[eugenics]]. After his 2019 arrest, Church apologized for continued contact, and the [[MIT Media Lab]] director [[Joi Ito]] resigned over revelations, reported by Ronan Farrow, that the lab had concealed Epstein's donations. The science network gave Epstein a reputation as a patron of ideas that ran in parallel to his criminal operation.[^8][^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Post-Conviction Network
|
||||
|
||||
After the 2008 plea Epstein rebuilt his social and business standing and continued to broker access among the wealthy and powerful. The [[Wall Street Journal]] reporting on his recovered calendars documented post-conviction meetings with William Burns (the future CIA director), [[Noam Chomsky]], the [[Obama]]-administration lawyer [[Kathryn Ruemmler]], and Tom Pritzker. Document releases established the August 2015 dinner hosted by Reid Hoffman in [[Palo Alto]] at which Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Joi Ito were present to raise money for the MIT Media Lab; a February 2016 email recording that Thiel "LOVED the secret socieity [sic] idea"; the 2011 Tom Pritzker correspondence using "secret society" language; and 2014 meetings at the townhouse attended by William Burns.[^10][^11][^12]
|
||||
|
||||
The political relationships were older and equally documented. Bill Clinton flew on Epstein's Boeing 727, the so-called [[Lolita Express]], more than two dozen times in the early 2000s, including a 2002 trip to Africa connected to the [[Clinton Foundation]], while denying any knowledge of Epstein's crimes or any visit to Little St. James. Prince Andrew, the [[Duke of York]], was photographed with Virginia Giuffre in 2001, settled her 2021 civil suit for a reported sum in 2022 without admitting liability, and was stripped of his royal and military titles between 2022 and 2025. Donald Trump socialized with Epstein in the 1990s and early 2000s before a falling out, a relationship documented in flight logs, contemporaneous quotes, and a disputed 2003 birthday letter.[^11][^18]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Intelligence and Blackmail Question
|
||||
|
||||
The recurring claim that Epstein's operation served an intelligence or blackmail function rests on several documented strands and one contested central assertion. The documented strands include Ghislaine Maxwell's intelligence-linked paternity; Epstein's brokering of the Israeli emergency-response and surveillance firm Carbyne and his attempts to connect Ehud Barak with Peter Thiel over [[Palantir Technologies|Palantir]]; the instrumentation of his properties with cameras; and the 2019 search of the townhouse, which recovered a safe containing compact discs, cash, diamonds, and an expired foreign passport in Epstein's name with a Saudi address. The contested central assertion is the claim, attributed by the journalist [[Vicky Ward]] to a former senior White House official, that Acosta had told Trump transition vetters he was given to understand Epstein "belonged to intelligence" and to leave the case alone.[^11][^19]
|
||||
|
||||
Acosta denied making the statement when questioned by the House Oversight Committee, saying he had no knowledge of whether Epstein was connected to any intelligence service. The "belonged to intelligence" quote traces to a single anonymous source. No declassified document confirms that Epstein worked for any agency of any country. The blackmail thesis (that the recordings and the elite guest lists were assembled to generate leverage) is supported by victim and witness descriptions of surveillance and by the structure of the operation, but it remains an inference rather than a documented program, and is recorded here as an open question rather than an established fact.[^11][^19][^20]
|
||||
|
||||
The earliest known report to law enforcement came in 1996, when Maria Farmer told the FBI that she and her younger sister had been abused and described surveillance equipment inside Epstein's New York residence; she said the report produced no apparent action for years. Accounts from victims and household staff describing cameras in the properties, combined with the 2019 recovery of compact discs and the foreign passport from the townhouse safe, are the documented basis for the inference that the operation was instrumented to generate leverage. No recordings of guests have been produced publicly, no service of any country has acknowledged a relationship with Epstein, and the maximalist accounts that describe a fully operational blackmail enterprise rest on inference and contested sourcing rather than a disclosed program. What the cameras recorded, and where any recordings went, remains unresolved in the public record.[^4][^14][^19]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Financial Structures and the Bank Settlements
|
||||
|
||||
Epstein's finances ran through entities chartered in the U.S. Virgin Islands, including [[Financial Trust Company]] (established in 1996) and [[Southern Trust Company]] (established around 2012), which obtained territorial tax benefits under the Economic Development Commission program. The Virgin Islands later alleged that Southern Trust fraudulently obtained those benefits by claiming to run a "DNA database" and data-mining ("informatics") business it never actually conducted, and that the company existed to fund Epstein's criminal activity and properties. His banking ran through [[JPMorgan Chase]], which kept him as a client until 2013, and then [[Deutsche Bank]].[^15][^16]
|
||||
|
||||
The Virgin Islands operation extended into territorial politics. According to the Attorney General's complaint, Epstein's local affairs were managed by [[Cecile de Jongh]], the office manager of Southern Trust and the wife of Governor [[John de Jongh]] (in office 2007 to 2015), and the complaint alleged that she helped Epstein shape legislation affecting sex-offender monitoring and the Economic Development Commission benefits while Epstein-linked entities paid family expenses. The territory's later Attorney General, [[Denise George]], who filed the 2020 suit against the estate and a 2022 suit against JPMorgan, was removed by Governor [[Albert Bryan]] days after the bank suit was filed. The banks themselves became defendants, with Jes Staley, the JPMorgan executive who managed the Epstein relationship, later banned from senior UK finance roles over it.[^15][^16]
|
||||
|
||||
The post-death litigation produced large settlements. In 2022 Epstein's estate agreed to pay the U.S. Virgin Islands more than 105 million dollars, plus the repayment of roughly 80 million dollars in tax benefits and half the proceeds of Little St. James. In 2023 JPMorgan paid 290 million dollars to victims and 75 million dollars to the Virgin Islands, and Deutsche Bank paid 75 million dollars to victims. The former JPMorgan and Barclays executive [[Jes Staley]], who managed the Epstein banking relationship, was fined and permanently banned from senior financial roles by the UK Financial Conduct Authority in 2023 for misleading the regulator about his ties to Epstein; an appeals tribunal upheld the ban in 2025 while reducing the penalty to about 1.1 million pounds. The Epstein Victims' Compensation Program separately paid out roughly 121 million dollars to more than 125 claimants.[^15][^16]
|
||||
|
||||
### The 2019 Federal Charges and the Death
|
||||
|
||||
On July 6, 2019, Epstein was arrested at [[Teterboro Airport]] in New Jersey as he returned from Paris, charged by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the [[Southern District of New York]] under [[Geoffrey Berman]] (with the prosecutor [[Maurene Comey]] on the case) with sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy. The search of the townhouse recovered the safe and its contents, and a judge ordered him held without bail. On August 10, 2019, Epstein was found dead in his cell at the [[Metropolitan Correctional Center]] in Manhattan. The New York City Chief Medical Examiner ruled the death a suicide by hanging.[^1][^14]
|
||||
|
||||
The death produced sustained dispute. The guards [[Tova Noel]] and [[Michael Thomas]] had failed to perform required checks and later admitted to falsifying records; they were charged in November 2019 and entered a deferred-prosecution agreement, and the charges were ultimately dropped. The cameras outside the cell malfunctioned, and Epstein had been removed from suicide watch after an earlier incident. The forensic pathologist [[Michael Baden]], retained by Epstein's brother [[Mark Epstein]], said the fractures of the hyoid bone and thyroid cartilage were more consistent with homicidal strangulation than hanging, while the Medical Examiner stood by the suicide ruling. A 2023 Justice Department Inspector General report attributed the death to the guards' negligence and the jail's failures and found no evidence of murder, while documenting that the combination of lapses was extraordinary.[^14]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Estate, the Document Releases, and the 2025-2026 Files
|
||||
|
||||
Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested in [[New Hampshire]] in July 2020 and convicted in December 2021 on five federal counts including sex trafficking of a minor, and sentenced to 20 years in June 2022. Beginning in January 2024 the Giuffre v. Maxwell documents were unsealed by the judge [[Loretta Preska]], naming associates and contacts across hundreds of pages. Virginia Giuffre died by suicide in Australia in April 2025; her memoir, Nobody's Girl, was published posthumously in 2025.[^21][^22]
|
||||
|
||||
In 2025 the Trump Justice Department under Attorney General [[Pam Bondi]] released files in stages amid controversy over a promised "client list" that was never produced. Congress then passed the [[Epstein Files Transparency Act]] (H.R. 4405) by a nearly unanimous House vote in November 2025, and Trump signed it. The Department released a library reaching roughly 3.5 million pages, more than 2,000 videos, and 180,000 images, and in December 2025 disclosed that more than one million additional documents had been found, missing a statutory deadline and prompting a Government Accountability Office inquiry into redactions made at the request of members of Congress. A separate strand concerned the 2003 "birthday book" assembled for Epstein's 50th birthday, which the Wall Street Journal reported in July 2025 contained a bawdy letter bearing Donald Trump's signature; Trump denied authorship and sued the paper, and the House Oversight Committee released the book in September 2025.[^17][^18]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: "Timeline of the Life and Crimes of Jeffrey Epstein." *CBS New York,* 2019. https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/timeline-of-the-life-and-crimes-of-jeffrey-epstein/ ; "A Young Jeffrey Epstein Made An Impression On His High School Students." *NPR,* July 19, 2019. https://www.npr.org/2019/07/19/742725946/a-young-jeffrey-epstein-made-an-impression-on-his-high-school-students
|
||||
[^2]: "The murky life and death of Robert Maxwell, and how it shaped his daughter Ghislaine." *The Guardian,* August 22, 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/22/the-murky-life-and-death-of-robert-maxwell-and-how-it-shaped-his-daughter-ghislaine
|
||||
[^3]: "The Untold Story of How Jeffrey Epstein Got Rich." *New York Times,* December 16, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/16/magazine/jeffrey-epstein-money-scams-investigation.html
|
||||
[^4]: Brown, Julie K. "Perversion of Justice." *Miami Herald,* 2018. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article220097825.html
|
||||
[^5]: "The 'Epstein-Barr' Problem of New York City's Dalton School." *Law and Crime,* 2019. https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/the-epstein-barr-problem-of-new-york-citys-dalton-school/
|
||||
[^6]: Ward, Vicky. "The Talented Mr. Epstein." *Vanity Fair,* March 2003. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2003/03/jeffrey-epstein-200303
|
||||
[^7]: For the Towers Financial Corporation collapse, the 1995 Hoffenberg conviction, and Hoffenberg's later claims about Epstein, see the contemporaneous SEC and federal court record (United States v. Hoffenberg, S.D.N.Y.) and "The Mogul and the Monster" reporting; Hoffenberg's "architect" claim is his own assertion and Epstein was never charged in the matter.
|
||||
[^8]: Harvard University, "Report Concerning Jeffrey Epstein's Connections to Harvard," May 1, 2020. https://www.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Reportconcerning-Jeffrey-Epstein.pdf
|
||||
[^9]: Stewart, James B., Matthew Goldstein, and Jessica Silver-Greenberg. "Jeffrey Epstein Hoped to Seed Human Race With His DNA." *New York Times,* July 31, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/31/business/jeffrey-epstein-eugenics.html ; "New Investigation Launched into Epstein's Zorro Ranch." *Time,* 2025. https://time.com/7379228/epstein-zorro-ranch-investigation/
|
||||
[^10]: For the EFTA primary documents (EFTA01738574, EFTA00344556, EFTA00344564, EFTA02407727), see the Tommy Carstensen Epstein Files index. https://tommycarstensen.com/epstein/people/peter-thiel.html
|
||||
[^11]: For the recovered Epstein calendars (Burns, Chomsky, Ruemmler, Pritzker meetings), see the *Wall Street Journal* "Jeffrey Epstein's Private Calendar" reporting, May 2023.
|
||||
[^12]: "Epstein's Silicon Valley ties extended beyond just Musk and Gates." *CNBC,* February 9, 2026. https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/09/tech-leaders-epstein-records-silicon-valley-sergey-brin-thiel-sinofsky-reid-hoffman-musk-gates.html
|
||||
[^14]: "NYC medical examiner rejects claim that Jeffrey Epstein's death was a homicide." *CNN,* October 30, 2019. https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/30/us/jeffrey-epstein-autopsy-fox ; "Jeffrey Epstein autopsy finds broken bones in his neck." *CNN,* August 15, 2019. https://edition.cnn.com/2019/08/15/us/jeffrey-epstein-autopsy-broken-neck ; U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, "Investigation of the Federal Bureau of Prisons' Custody, Care, and Supervision of Jeffrey Epstein," June 2023.
|
||||
[^15]: "U.S. Virgin Islands reaches a $105M settlement with Jeffrey Epstein's estate." *NPR,* December 1, 2022. https://www.npr.org/2022/12/01/1140096222/jeffrey-epsteins-estate-reaches-a-105m-settlement-with-the-u-s-virgin-islands ; Government of the U.S. Virgin Islands, "Attorney General Settles Sex Trafficking Case Against Estate of Jeffrey Epstein," 2022. https://usvidoj.com/u-s-virgin-islands-attorney-general-settles-sex-trafficking-case-against-estate-of-jeffrey-epstein-and-co-defendants-for-over-105-million/
|
||||
[^16]: "JPMorgan settles with Jeffrey Epstein victims for $290 million." *WHYY,* 2023. https://whyy.org/articles/jpmorgan-settlement/ ; "Ex-Barclays CEO Jes Staley fined and banned by UK regulator for Epstein ties." *AP/AOL,* 2023. https://www.aol.com/finance/ex-barclays-ceo-jes-staley-142727090.html
|
||||
[^17]: "New Epstein files include photos, documents with redactions as DOJ releases initial trove of records." *CBS News,* 2025. https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/epstein-files-released-2025/ ; "DOJ says it has found over a million additional documents potentially related to Epstein." *CNN,* December 24, 2025. https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/24/politics/epstein-documents-doj-million ; U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Files Transparency Act disclosures. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/doj-disclosures
|
||||
[^18]: "Birthday letter to Epstein bore Trump's signature, drawing of naked woman, Wall Street Journal reports." *CNN,* July 17, 2025. https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/17/politics/epstein-birthday-letter-trump ; "Trump Epstein letter and drawing from 'birthday book' released." *CNBC,* September 8, 2025. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/08/trump-epstein-birthday-book-oversight.html
|
||||
[^19]: Ward, Vicky. "Jeffrey Epstein's Sick Story Played Out for Years in Plain Sight." *The Daily Beast,* July 9, 2019. https://www.thedailybeast.com/jeffrey-epsteins-sick-story-played-out-for-years-in-plain-sight/ ; for Acosta's denial, see his September 2019 testimony before the House Oversight Committee.
|
||||
[^20]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network.* Sheridan Square Press, 1992. Ben-Menashe's claims that Robert Maxwell was a Mossad asset and that the Maxwell-Epstein link served Israeli intelligence are uncorroborated by declassified material and treated as contested allegation.
|
||||
[^21]: United States v. Maxwell, 20 Cr. 330 (S.D.N.Y.); for the Crime Victims' Rights Act ruling see Doe v. United States, No. 08-80736 (S.D. Fla. February 21, 2019), Marra, J.
|
||||
[^22]: "Ghislaine Maxwell Sentenced To 20 Years In Prison." *U.S. Department of Justice, Southern District of New York,* June 28, 2022. https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/ghislaine-maxwell-sentenced-20-years-prison-conspiring-jeffrey-epstein-sexually-abuse
|
||||
[^23]: For the flight logs, the pilots' testimony, and the contact directory, see the trial record in United States v. Maxwell (S.D.N.Y. 2021), the *Miami Herald* "Perversion of Justice" reporting, and the Alfredo Rodriguez obstruction case, United States v. Rodriguez (S.D. Fla. 2010).
|
||||
64
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/John Brockman.md
Normal file
64
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/John Brockman.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,64 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Authors & Journalists"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- JeffreyEpstein
|
||||
- EdgeFoundation
|
||||
- SciencePhilanthropy
|
||||
- LiteraryAgent
|
||||
- ThirdCulture
|
||||
- BillionairesDinner
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- John Brockman
|
||||
summary: "John Brockman is a New York literary agent who founded the Edge Foundation and Edge.org, hosted the annual Billionaires' Dinner, and whose salon was for years substantially funded by Jeffrey Epstein."
|
||||
born: 1941-02-16
|
||||
location: "New York, New York"
|
||||
created: 2026-06-20
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-20
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
John Brockman (born February 16, 1941) is an American literary agent and author who founded the [[Edge Foundation]] and its website [[Edge.org]], coined the popularized version of the "third culture," and built a science-and-technology client list through his agency Brockman Inc. For years his annual literary salon and its Billionaires' Dinner were substantially financed by [[Jeffrey Epstein]], and foundations associated with Epstein supplied a majority of Edge's revenue over 2001 to 2017.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### From the 1960s Art Scene to Brockman Inc.
|
||||
|
||||
Brockman was born in Boston to Austrian Jewish immigrants and raised in the Dorchester neighborhood, taking an MBA from Columbia Business School in 1963. He moved into the New York avant-garde of the 1960s, organizing intermedia and underground-film events and absorbing the ideas of [[Marshall McLuhan]], [[John Cage]], and [[Buckminster Fuller]], whom he later cited as formative influences. He published early experimental books including *By the Late John Brockman* (1969) before turning to literary agenting.[^3][^1]
|
||||
|
||||
Brockman formed the literary agency Brockman Inc. in 1973 as an international agency for serious nonfiction. It became the leading agency in science and technology writing, negotiating large advances for authors including [[Richard Dawkins]], [[Daniel Kahneman]], [[Steven Pinker]], [[Daniel Dennett]], [[Jared Diamond]], [[Nassim Nicholas Taleb]], and [[Martin Rees]], a roster that at points included three Nobel laureates. His wife [[Katinka Matson]] co-founded the agency, served as its president, and produced the digital botanical images used across Edge; she is listed as a co-founder of Edge as well.[^3][^9]
|
||||
|
||||
Brockman described the agency and the salon as overlapping enterprises, with many Edge contributors also being agency clients. His son [[Max Brockman]] joined the firm, became its chief executive, and edited the *This Will Make You Smarter* and *What's Next?* anthologies drawn from younger Edge contributors. Among the clients whose Epstein ties later drew scrutiny were Pinker, Dennett, [[Marvin Minsky]], and the [[MIT Media Lab]] director [[Joi Ito]], all of whom appeared on Edge or in Epstein's orbit.[^9][^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Reality Club and the Third Culture
|
||||
|
||||
Brockman founded a discussion group he called the Reality Club, which met from 1981 to 1996 in restaurants, lofts, the Rosa Mexicano restaurant, and other venues around New York for seminars by scientists and intellectuals. In 1995 he published *The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution* (Simon & Schuster), arguing that scientists who write for a general public were displacing the literary intellectual as the people "rendering visible the deeper meanings of our lives," an expansion of [[C. P. Snow]]'s 1959 idea of two cultures.[^5][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
The Reality Club moved online as Edge.org, which Brockman launched in 1996 under the nonprofit Edge Foundation he had incorporated in 1988. From 1998 he posed an annual Edge Question to his contributors, drawn from a curated pool of scientists, writers, and what he called third-culture intellectuals, with prompts such as "What is your dangerous idea?," "What will change everything?," and "What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?" The responses were published on the site and collected in a long-running book series with titles including *What We Believe but Cannot Prove*, *What Is Your Dangerous Idea?*, *This Will Change Everything*, and *This Explains Everything*.[^6][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
The journalist [[John Naughton]] called Edge.org "the world's smartest website" in a 2012 *Observer* profile, a phrase Brockman and the foundation thereafter used in their own materials. Brockman retired the annual question in 2018, framing the move as the finale to twenty years of Edge Questions. The contributor pool skewed heavily male; one tally of those answering put the figure at roughly 80 percent men.[^7][^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Epstein Funding and the Billionaires' Dinner
|
||||
|
||||
Brockman hosted an annual dinner from 1999, timed to the [[TED Conference]] then held in Monterey, California, which became known as the Billionaires' Dinner and brought Edge contributors together with technology and finance figures including [[Jeff Bezos]], [[Sergey Brin]], and [[Elon Musk]]. Brockman embraced the name after trying alternatives; recalling the 2004 dinner, he wrote that "last year we tried 'The Science Dinner.' Everyone yawned. So this year, it's back to the money-sex-power thing with 'The Billionaires' Dinner.'" Katinka Matson organized the events alongside him.[^1][^10]
|
||||
|
||||
According to financial records reviewed by *BuzzFeed News*, foundations associated with Epstein provided $638,000 of nearly $857,000 in revenue that Edge received between 2001 and 2017, and for a period Epstein's dinners and Edge were nearly entirely funded by him. Epstein gave at least $50,000 a year in 2009, 2010, and 2011; no gifts were recorded from 2006 to 2008, the period of his Florida investigation and imprisonment. Epstein was photographed at the dinners in 1999, 2000, 2002, and 2004 and attended the 2011 dinner alongside Bezos and Brin; his last recorded gift to Edge was $30,000 in 2015, after which Edge raised only several thousand dollars from a single donor and the dinner series ended.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
In a 2013 email later published by his client [[Evgeny Morozov]] in *The New Republic*, Brockman sought to arrange a meeting between Morozov and Epstein, writing that Epstein "showed up at this weekend's event by helicopter (with his beautiful young assistant from Belarus)," noting that Epstein "got into trouble and spent a year in jail in Florida," and stating that Epstein "gave Harvard $30m to set up [[Martin Nowak]]." Brockman also described visiting Epstein's home and seeing Epstein "in a sweatsuit and a British guy in a suit with suspenders, getting foot massages from two young well-dressed Russian women," and said he later realized the second man was [[Prince Andrew]]. Morozov declined the introduction, replying that the Victoria's Secret and modeling-agency connection was "one more reason to stay away actually."[^8][^11]
|
||||
|
||||
### The 2019 Fallout
|
||||
|
||||
After Epstein's July 2019 arrest on federal sex-trafficking charges, the science writer [[Carl Zimmer]] asked to be removed from Edge, citing the Epstein funding. The author [[Naomi Wolf]] left Brockman Inc. on July 31, 2019, citing both Epstein's funding of Edge and the appearance of Epstein associate [[Sarah Kellen]] on the Edge website, and Morozov publicly called on Brockman to close the foundation. Photographs showing Kellen with Brockman and with Max Brockman at Edge dinners in 2002 and 2003 were removed from the site.[^8][^1]
|
||||
|
||||
Most listed Edge contributors did not publicly disassociate from the foundation after the *BuzzFeed News* reporting. The renewed release of U.S. Department of Justice files in 2026 returned attention to the Edge network, with Nowak again placed on Harvard administrative leave in February 2026 and other figures named in the documents drawn from circles that overlapped with Brockman's salon.[^1][^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Aldhous, Peter. "How Jeffrey Epstein Bankrolled The Exclusive Edge Foundation And Reaped The Benefits," *BuzzFeed News,* 2019, on the $638,000 of $857,000 figure, the Billionaires' Dinner, the 2013 Morozov email, Kellen, and the 2019 departures. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/peteraldhous/jeffrey-epstein-john-brockman-edge-foundation
|
||||
[^2]: Aldhous, Peter. "How Jeffrey Epstein Bankrolled The Exclusive Edge Foundation And Reaped The Benefits." *BuzzFeed News,* 2019, on the foundation contributions of about $638,000 of nearly $857,000 received 2001 to 2017 and the $30,000 gift in 2015. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/peteraldhous/jeffrey-epstein-john-brockman-edge-foundation
|
||||
[^3]: Naughton, John. "John Brockman: the man who runs the world's smartest website," *The Observer,* January 8, 2012, on Brockman's background, the McLuhan and Cage influences, and the agency. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/jan/08/john-brockman-edge-interview
|
||||
[^4]: Brockman, John. *The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution.* Simon & Schuster, 1995.
|
||||
[^5]: "About Edge," Edge.org, on the third culture definition and the Reality Club's 1981 to 1996 meetings. https://www.edge.org/about-edge
|
||||
[^6]: "About Edge," Edge.org, on the 1988 incorporation of the Edge Foundation as an outgrowth of the Reality Club. https://www.edge.org/about-edge
|
||||
[^7]: Naughton, John. "The Man Who Runs The World's Smartest Website," *The Observer,* 2012, reproduced at Edge.org. https://www.edge.org/conversation/john_naughton-the-man-who-runs-the-worlds-smartest-website-in-the-observer
|
||||
[^8]: "Edge Foundation President May Have Been Jeffrey Epstein's Connection to Intellectual Elite," *InsideHook,* 2019, on Brockman as Epstein's gatekeeper, the 2013 email, and the 2019 fallout. https://www.insidehook.com/culture/edge-foundation-president-may-have-been-jeffrey-epsteins-connection-to-intellectual-elite
|
||||
[^9]: Naughton, John. "John Brockman: the man who runs the world's smartest website." *The Observer,* January 8, 2012. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/jan/08/john-brockman-edge-interview ; for the agency founding and client roster see also Aldhous, Peter. "How Jeffrey Epstein Bankrolled The Exclusive Edge Foundation." *BuzzFeed News,* 2019.
|
||||
[^10]: "The Edge 'Billionaires' Dinner' 1999" and subsequent dinner pages, Edge.org, on the 1999 start of the dinner at the TED conference in Monterey and Brockman's account of the 2004 naming. https://www.edge.org/event/the-edge-billionaires-dinner-1999
|
||||
[^11]: Morozov, Evgeny. "Jeffrey Epstein's Intellectual Enabler," *The New Republic,* 2019, reproducing the 2013 Brockman email, the "$30m to set up Martin Nowak" line, the Prince Andrew foot-massage passage, and Morozov's reply. https://newrepublic.com/article/154826/jeffrey-epsteins-intellectual-enabler
|
||||
65
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Jonathan Buma.md
Normal file
65
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Jonathan Buma.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,65 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Law Enforcement & Legal"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- JonathanBuma
|
||||
- FBI
|
||||
- Counterintelligence
|
||||
- PeterThiel
|
||||
- Whistleblower
|
||||
- Russia
|
||||
- ConfidentialHumanSource
|
||||
- HunterBiden
|
||||
- Giuliani
|
||||
- Disclosure
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Johnathan Buma
|
||||
summary: "Johnathan Buma is a former FBI special agent who specialized in Russian counterintelligence at the Los Angeles field office, who handled Peter Thiel as a confidential human source from summer 2021, who originated the FBI's first Hunter Biden tax inquiry in January 2019, who worked the Giuliani-Ukraine investigation, who publicly accused the FBI of pro-Trump political bias, and who was arrested at JFK on March 17, 2025 and charged with unlawfully disclosing confidential records."
|
||||
location: "Los Angeles, California (FBI field office)"
|
||||
created: 2026-06-18
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-18
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Johnathan Buma is a former [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] special agent who spent fifteen years at the Los Angeles field office specializing in Russian counterintelligence and public corruption. Buma handled [[Peter Thiel]] as a confidential human source (CHS) beginning in summer 2021, originated the FBI's first [[Hunter Biden|Hunter Biden]] tax-evasion inquiry in January 2019 from a source tip, and worked the [[Rudy Giuliani|Giuliani]]-[[Ukraine|Ukraine]] investigation. Buma subsequently made public disclosures accusing the FBI of pro-Trump political bias and claiming that Russian intelligence had run "intense" targeting operations against [[Elon Musk]]. The DOJ Office of Inspector General arrested Buma at [[John F. Kennedy International Airport|JFK Airport]] on March 17, 2025 as he attempted to board an international flight, charging him with unlawfully disclosing confidential information.[^1][^2][^3][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Hunter Biden Origin Tip (January 2019)
|
||||
|
||||
Buma received a source tip in January 2019 that led to the FBI's first inquiry into Hunter Biden's tax affairs. The tip covered Biden's income from [[Burisma|Burisma Holdings]], the Ukrainian natural-gas company on whose board Biden served, and the inquiry preceded the broader FBI investigation that produced the later tax charges. Buma's role as the originating agent on the Hunter Biden inquiry placed him at the starting point of an investigation that became central to the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
The Hunter Biden tip ran alongside Buma's work on the Giuliani investigation into the former mayor's Ukrainian dealings, which examined whether Giuliani had acted as an unregistered foreign agent in his pursuit of damaging information on the Biden family. The two investigations, originating from overlapping evidentiary sources in the Ukrainian context, placed Buma inside the FBI's most politically charged cases of the 2019-2021 period.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Thiel Confidential Human Source Relationship (Summer 2021)
|
||||
|
||||
[[Business Insider]] reported in October 2023 that Peter Thiel began providing information to the FBI as a confidential human source (CHS) in summer 2021, with Buma as his handling agent. Buma told *The Guardian* that he had briefed Thiel on "what a targeting looks like," and that Thiel was "receptive to collaboration and threat briefings," confirming the targeting pattern and providing "helpful information to help us identify the nodes through which these outreaches have occurred." The CHS relationship ran while Thiel simultaneously chaired [[Palantir Technologies]] (a major CIA and FBI contractor), cofounded the [[Dialog]] convening network, funded the [[JD Vance]] and [[Blake Masters]] Senate campaigns, and maintained the documented [[Jeffrey Epstein]] relationship that ran through 2019. The congressional record references Thiel's CHS role in a House Judiciary Committee document submitted January 22, 2026.[^2][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
The FBI's [[Confidential Human Source Policy Guide]] governs the handling of sources. The CHS status entails a reporting obligation on the source's part and a protection obligation on the Bureau's part. The contents of Thiel's reporting to Buma are not public beyond Buma's own description of the briefings.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Musk Targeting Claims
|
||||
|
||||
[[The Guardian]] reported on May 22, 2025 that Buma, out on bail, had given an interview claiming that Russian intelligence efforts to target Elon Musk were "intense." The [[Kyiv Post|Kyiv Post]] and other outlets, drawing on Buma's interview with the German broadcaster [[ZDF|ZDF]], reported that the Russian [[GRU|GRU]] (military intelligence) had run an operation, purportedly approved by [[Vladimir Putin|Putin]], to target Musk by exploiting vulnerabilities including drug use, sexual entrapment, and luxury access. Buma claimed he had attempted to warn Musk directly. The operation reportedly targeted multiple technology figures including Musk and Thiel.[^4][^6]
|
||||
|
||||
The documented Musk-Putin contact channel is the corroborating datum. The [[Wall Street Journal|Wall Street Journal]] reported on October 25, 2024 that Musk had been "in regular contact" with Putin since late 2022, a relationship that began after Musk's [[Starlink|Starlink]] satellite terminals became operationally significant in the [[Russia|Russia]]-Ukraine war. The Buma targeting claim, the WSJ contact-channel reporting, and the documented [[Igor Kurganov|Kurganov]] infiltration (below) together constitute the evidentiary basis for the Russian-influence question around Musk.[^4][^7]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Igor Kurganov Infiltration
|
||||
|
||||
The Guardian piece documented the Kurganov case as the concrete instance of the targeting Buma described. Igor Kurganov is a Russian-born former professional poker player who gained influence over Musk's charitable giving during the pandemic period. Kurganov was sleeping in Musk's Austin home during the pandemic, advising Musk on philanthropic strategy, and became the subject of FBI preliminary inquiries into whether his access constituted a foreign-interference channel. [[Jared Birchall|Jared Birchall]], Musk's wealth manager and the head of Musk's family office, confronted Musk about Kurganov and removed him from the inner circle in May 2022.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
Kurganov gained operational access to a sitting technology billionaire's philanthropic decision-making and residential life. The FBI's preliminary inquiry and the subsequent removal by Birchall terminated the access but did not resolve the counterintelligence question of what Kurganov did with it.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Pro-Trump Bias Accusation and the Arrest
|
||||
|
||||
Buma publicly accused the FBI of pro-Trump political bias, specifically alleging that the Bureau had suppressed or slow-walked investigations into Trump-aligned figures and causes. [[PBS|PBS NewsHour]] reported on Buma's public statements, and the Whistleblowers Blog documented Buma's account of warnings the FBI allegedly missed.[^3][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Office of the Inspector General|DOJ Office of Inspector General]] arrested Buma on March 17, 2025 at JFK Airport as he attempted to board an international flight. The criminal complaint, filed in the [[Central District of California]], charged Buma with unlawfully disclosing confidential information on or about October 27, 2023. [[CBS News]] reported that FBI investigators assessed Buma may have compromised as many as 130 FBI files through his disclosures. Buma is out on 100,000 dollar bond. The DOJ's position is that the disclosures violated the criminal prohibition on unauthorized release of confidential FBI information; Buma's position is that the disclosures constituted protected whistleblowing about FBI misconduct. The case is ongoing.[^1][^3][^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: "Former FBI Special Agent Arrested for Disclosure of Confidential Information." *DOJ Office of Inspector General,* 2025. https://oig.justice.gov/news/press-release/former-fbi-special-agent-arrested-disclosure-confidential-information
|
||||
[^2]: "Exclusive: Tech Billionaire Peter Thiel Was an FBI Informant." *Business Insider,* October 2023. https://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-fbi-informant-charles-johnson-johnathan-buma-chs-genius-2023-10 ; U.S. Congress, House Judiciary Committee, document referencing Thiel's CHS role, January 22, 2026. https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/118881/documents/HHRG-119-JU00-20260122-SD011-U11.pdf
|
||||
[^3]: "Former agent who accused FBI of political bias is charged with disclosing confidential records." *PBS NewsHour,* 2025. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/former-agent-who-accused-fbi-of-political-bias-is-charged-with-disclosing-confidential-records
|
||||
[^4]: "FBI whistleblower claims he tried to get to Musk to warn him he was being targeted by Russia." *The Guardian,* May 22, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/may/22/fbi-whistleblower-musk-russia
|
||||
[^5]: The CHS relationship is documented in the Business Insider October 2023 report; Buma's description of the Thiel briefings is in The Guardian May 2025 report.
|
||||
[^6]: "Russian Intelligence Used Sex, Drugs to Target Elon Musk." *Kyiv Post,* 2025. https://www.kyivpost.com/post/52742
|
||||
[^7]: For the Musk-Putin contact reporting, see the *Wall Street Journal* October 25, 2024 report on regular contact since late 2022.
|
||||
[^8]: "Whistleblower Jonathan Buma: The FBI's Missed Warnings." *Whistleblowers Blog.* https://whistleblowersblog.org/government-whistleblowers/intelligence-community-whistleblowers/whistleblower-jonathan-buma-the-fbis-missed-warnings/
|
||||
[^9]: CBS News reporting on the Buma file-compromise assessment, 2025.
|
||||
77
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Leon Black.md
Normal file
77
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Leon Black.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,77 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Organized Crime"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- LeonBlack
|
||||
- JeffreyEpstein
|
||||
- Apollo
|
||||
- PrivateEquity
|
||||
- TaxAvoidance
|
||||
- DarkMoney
|
||||
- Finance
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Leon David Black
|
||||
summary: "Co-founder of Apollo Global Management who paid Jeffrey Epstein about 158 million dollars between 2012 and 2017 for tax and estate-planning structures that a Senate investigation said helped avoid more than a billion dollars in gift and estate taxes, and who resigned from Apollo in 2021 over the relationship."
|
||||
born: 1951-07-31
|
||||
location: "New York, New York"
|
||||
created: 2026-06-20
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-20
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Leon Black (born July 31, 1951) is an American private-equity financier who co-founded [[Apollo Global Management]] in 1990 and ran it until 2021. He paid [[Jeffrey Epstein]] approximately 158 million dollars between 2012 and 2017 for tax, trust, and estate-planning advice, a sum an independent review and a U.S. Senate investigation found far exceeded any plausible market rate for the work, and which was tied to structures that the Senate Finance Committee said helped Black avoid more than one billion dollars in federal gift and estate taxes. The relationship forced Black's resignation as Apollo's chief executive and chairman in 2021, drew a four-year Senate investigation, and ran alongside a 62.5 million dollar payment to end a Virgin Islands inquiry and separate, denied sexual-assault allegations.[^1][^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Drexel and the Founding of Apollo
|
||||
|
||||
Black is the son of [[Eli Black]], the chief executive of the food conglomerate [[United Brands]] (later [[Chiquita]]), who died by suicide in 1975 during the "Bananagate" foreign-bribery scandal in which United Brands was found to have paid bribes to officials in Honduras. Leon Black earned a degree from [[Dartmouth College]] and an MBA from [[Harvard Business School]], and joined the investment bank [[Drexel Burnham Lambert]], where he became head of mergers and acquisitions and worked closely with the junk-bond financier [[Michael Milken]]. Drexel collapsed into bankruptcy in 1990 after the federal securities-fraud case against Milken and the firm.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
Out of Drexel's wreckage, Black co-founded Apollo in 1990 with the former Drexel colleagues [[Josh Harris]] and [[Marc Rowan]] (the early partnership also included [[Tony Ressler]], who later founded [[Ares Management]]). Apollo built its early returns on distressed debt and leveraged buyouts and grew into one of the largest alternative-asset managers in the world, with hundreds of billions of dollars under management across private equity, credit, and the annuities insurer [[Athene]], and a 2011 listing on the New York Stock Exchange. Black served as chairman and chief executive and became one of the wealthiest people in American finance, as well as a prominent art collector and the chairman of the [[Museum of Modern Art]].[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Epstein Payments
|
||||
|
||||
Black retained Epstein for financial advice beginning around 2012, several years after Epstein's 2008 Florida sex-offender conviction. Between 2012 and 2017 Black paid Epstein about 158 million dollars in a series of installments; the Senate Finance Committee later described the figure as roughly 170 million dollars over the five-year period when related items were included. Epstein was neither a licensed tax attorney nor a certified public accountant, and the rates Black paid him were, in the Senate committee's account, about thirty times what Black paid the elite tax and estate advisers he already employed.[^1][^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
Black has said the payments were for advice on trust and estate planning, tax matters, and the operation of his family office. The central transaction concerned a [[Grantor Retained Annuity Trust]] (GRAT) that Black had established in 2006; Epstein devised a structure that, according to the review commissioned by Apollo, helped resolve a potential tax liability and keep wealth out of Black's taxable estate as he transferred as much as two billion dollars to his children. The size and structure of the payments, and the question of what a convicted sex offender with no professional tax credentials actually provided, became the subject of the Apollo review and the Senate investigation.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Dechert Report and the Tax Structures
|
||||
|
||||
Facing investor and press scrutiny over the Epstein relationship, Apollo's board commissioned an independent review by the law firm [[Dechert]] LLP, which the firm released on January 25, 2021. The Dechert review documented the 158 million dollars in payments, concluded that the fees were for legitimate tax and estate-planning work even though they were far larger than the value of that work, and reported that it had found no evidence that Black was involved in Epstein's sex-trafficking crimes or was aware of them. Black also extended Epstein loans, some of which were repaid.[^1][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
The review nonetheless described arrangements that drew lasting questions. It reported that a transaction Epstein devised to help Black avoid more than one billion dollars in federal taxes raised the question of whether Black had improperly kept billions of dollars out of his taxable estate and might owe substantial gift and estate taxes. The review also recorded that the payments were "inexplicably large," well in excess of what Black paid any other adviser and far above the median pay of a Fortune 500 chief executive at the time. Apollo's board accepted the review's findings while announcing governance changes and the leadership transition.[^1][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Senate Finance Investigation
|
||||
|
||||
The Senate Finance Committee, under Ranking Member [[Ron Wyden]], opened an investigation into Black's tax planning and his financial ties to Epstein, publicly confirming it in July 2023 and pursuing it across roughly four years. The committee examined whether the payments to Epstein were part of a strategy to avoid more than one billion dollars in federal gift and estate taxes through the 2006 GRAT and related trusts, and sought records from Apollo, from Black, and from financial institutions including [[Bank of America]] that processed the payments.[^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
In July 2025 Wyden said Epstein's work for Black deserved an [[Internal Revenue Service]] probe, and in 2026 the committee escalated. In March 2026 Wyden questioned Black over new material in the Epstein file releases that he said showed the appearance of "hush money" payments and the surveillance of women, and on June 4, 2026 the committee referred its findings on Black's Epstein ties to the [[House Oversight Committee]]. Wyden, with Senator [[Angus King]], also introduced legislation in April 2026 to close the high-value-trust tax loophole the GRAT structure exploited. Black has denied wrongdoing and said his tax planning was lawful.[^2][^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Departure from Apollo
|
||||
|
||||
On January 25, 2021, the same day the Dechert review was released, Apollo announced that Black would retire as chief executive on or before July 31, 2021, with Marc Rowan succeeding him, while Black remained chairman. On March 22, 2021, Black left abruptly, relinquishing the chairmanship as well and citing health issues affecting him and his wife, and Rowan assumed the role of chief executive. The departure came months earlier than the announced timeline and amid the emerging sexual-assault allegations against Black.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
Black publicly blamed his co-founder Josh Harris for what he characterized as a campaign to force him out, and the two men's dispute became an open feud reported across the financial press. Black filed a lawsuit alleging a racketeering conspiracy among Harris, [[Guzel Ganieva]], and others; a federal judge, [[Paul Engelmayer]], dismissed that suit with prejudice in 2022, calling the racketeering claims "glaringly deficient in fundamental respects." Rowan consolidated control of Apollo, which in 2026 faced shareholder securities-fraud suits alleging it had concealed the extent of Black's Epstein ties from investors.[^7][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Ganieva and Assault Allegations
|
||||
|
||||
In 2021 Guzel Ganieva, a Russian former model, publicly accused Black of years of sexual abuse, and after Black responded that the two had had a consensual affair and that she had tried to extort him, she sued him in June 2021 alleging sexual assault, including a rape she said occurred in 2014, and defamation. Black denied the allegations. A New York appeals court later ruled for Black on the defamation claim, finding that a 2015 non-disclosure agreement, under which Ganieva had received about nine million dollars including a 100,000-dollar monthly stipend, covered her claims, and that she had ratified the agreement by accepting the money.[^8][^9]
|
||||
|
||||
A separate federal lawsuit filed in July 2023 alleged that Black had raped a then-16-year-old girl with autism at Epstein's Manhattan townhouse in 2002. Black's lawyer, [[Susan Estrich]], said Black had never met the accuser and called the suit a fabrication by the [[Wigdor]] law firm. The plaintiff, identified by the pseudonym Jane Doe and later reported to be Cheri Pierson, dropped the suit with prejudice in February 2024. Black has denied every allegation of sexual misconduct.[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Virgin Islands Settlement
|
||||
|
||||
In January 2023 Black paid 62.5 million dollars to the [[Government of the United States Virgin Islands]] to end the territory's investigation into his ties to Epstein, without any admission of liability or any criminal charge. The payment came as the territory was pursuing the Epstein estate and the banks that served Epstein, and shortly after the estate's own 105 million dollar settlement and the territory's suits against [[JPMorgan Chase]] and [[Deutsche Bank]].[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
The Black settlement was the largest individual payment connected to the Virgin Islands inquiry, exceeding the sums paid by the banks to the territory, and was reported as resolving the territory's potential claims against Black arising from his financial dealings with Epstein. Black continued to manage his personal fortune and his art holdings after leaving Apollo, while the Senate referral and the prospect of an IRS examination of the GRAT structures remained open in 2026.[^11][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: "Leon Black's $158 Million Sent to Epstein Draws Senate Probe." *Bloomberg,* July 25, 2023. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-25/leon-black-s-158-million-payments-to-epstein-spark-senate-probe ; "Billionaire Leon Black made a $158 million payment to Jeffrey Epstein. Senators want to know why." *CNN Business,* July 25, 2023. https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/25/business/leon-black-jeffrey-epstein-senate-investigation
|
||||
[^2]: U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, "Wyden Unveils Ongoing Investigation into Private Equity Billionaire Leon Black's Tax Planning and Financial Ties with Jeffrey Epstein," July 25, 2023. https://www.finance.senate.gov/chairmans-news/wyden-unveils-ongoing-investigation-into-private-equity-billionaire-leon-blacks-tax-planning-and-financial-ties-with-jeffrey-epstein
|
||||
[^3]: "Sen. Ron Wyden wants to know why Leon Black paid Epstein $170 million for tax planning over 5-year period." *CBS News,* 2023. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sen-ron-wyden-leon-black-paid-epstein-170-million-tax-planning/
|
||||
[^4]: For Black's career, the United Brands background, Drexel Burnham Lambert and Michael Milken, and the 1990 founding of Apollo, see the contemporaneous business press and the Apollo corporate record.
|
||||
[^5]: "Apollo Announces Review of Significant Governance Enhancements as Part of Continued Evolution and Institutionalization of the Firm and Leadership Transition." *Apollo Global Management,* January 25, 2021. https://www.apollo.com/insights-news/pressreleases/2021/01/apollo-announces-review-of-significant-governance-enhancements-as-part-of-continued-evolution-and-institutionalization-of-the-firm-and-leadership-transition-211534651
|
||||
[^6]: U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, "Wyden Refers Findings on Leon Black's Epstein Ties to House Oversight Committee," June 4, 2026. https://www.finance.senate.gov/ranking-members-news/wyden-refers-findings-on-leon-blacks-epstein-ties-to-house-oversight-committee ; "Epstein's Work for Leon Black Deserves IRS Probe, Wyden Says." *Bloomberg,* July 31, 2025. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-31/epstein-s-work-for-leon-black-should-face-irs-probe-wyden-says
|
||||
[^7]: "Leon Black quits Apollo months earlier than expected following Jeffrey Epstein investment scandal." *CNBC,* March 22, 2021. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/22/apollo-ceo-leon-black-leaves-follows-jeffrey-epstein-investment-scandal.html ; "Marc Rowan Assumes Role of CEO of Apollo." *Apollo Global Management / GlobeNewswire,* March 22, 2021.
|
||||
[^8]: "Leon Black's Lawsuit Against Josh Harris, Guzel Ganieva Dismissed by Judge." *Bloomberg,* June 30, 2022. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-30/leon-black-suit-against-josh-harris-guzel-ganieva-thrown-out
|
||||
[^9]: "Woman's lawsuit accuses Leon Black of defamation, violent behavior." *CNBC,* June 2, 2021. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/02/womans-lawsuit-accuses-leon-black-of-defamation-violent-behavior.html ; Ganieva v. Black, New York Appellate Division, First Department (2025).
|
||||
[^10]: "Lawsuit accuses billionaire Leon Black of raping autistic teenager at Jeffrey Epstein's townhouse." *CNBC,* July 25, 2023. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/25/leon-black-accused-of-raping-teenager-at-jeffrey-epstein-townhouse.html ; "Woman drops lawsuit against Leon Black alleging rape at Jeffrey Epstein mansion." *CNBC,* February 20, 2024. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/20/woman-drops-claim-of-leon-black-rape-at-jeffrey-epstein-mansion.html
|
||||
[^11]: "Billionaire Leon Black paid $62.5m to exit US Virgin Islands investigation over links to Jeffrey Epstein." *AOL / Agence France-Presse,* 2023. https://www.aol.com/billionaire-leon-black-paid-62-002414707.html
|
||||
49
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Marc Andreessen.md
Normal file
49
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Marc Andreessen.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Technologists"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- MarcAndreessen
|
||||
- AndreessenHorowitz
|
||||
- SiliconValley
|
||||
- EffectiveAccelerationism
|
||||
- Trump
|
||||
- VentureCapital
|
||||
summary: "Marc Andreessen is the Netscape cofounder and venture capitalist behind Andreessen Horowitz who became the leading patron of effective accelerationism, authored the 2023 Techno-Optimist Manifesto, and helped lead the Silicon Valley turn toward Donald Trump in 2024."
|
||||
born: 1971-07-09
|
||||
location: "Silicon Valley, California"
|
||||
created: 2026-06-19
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-19
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Marc Andreessen (born July 9, 1971) is an American software engineer and venture capitalist who cocreated the Mosaic web browser, cofounded [[Netscape]], and in 2009 cofounded the venture firm [[Andreessen Horowitz]] (a16z) with [[Ben Horowitz]]. By the 2020s he had become the most prominent financial and rhetorical patron of [[Effective Accelerationism|effective accelerationism]] and a central figure, alongside [[Peter Thiel]], in the [[Silicon Valley]] technology elite's turn toward the political right.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Andreessen Horowitz
|
||||
|
||||
Andreessen Horowitz grew into one of the largest venture firms, with funds spanning consumer software, cryptocurrency, biotechnology, and, through its "American Dynamism" practice, defense and national-security technology, the same category that anchors the [[Founders Fund]] and [[Palantir Technologies]] businesses in the Thiel network. In March 2019 the firm renounced its venture-capital registration and registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission as a registered investment adviser, freeing it from the rule limiting venture funds to roughly twenty percent of holdings in liquid securities and letting it buy crypto tokens, public stocks, and secondary shares. In April 2024 it raised 7.2 billion dollars across five funds, including a 3.75 billion dollar growth fund and a 600 million dollar American Dynamism fund, and by January 2026 it had raised more than 15 billion dollars in a single round, taking assets under management above 90 billion dollars.[^1][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
Andreessen joined the board of [[Meta Platforms|Meta]] in June 2008, the company in which Thiel was the first outside investor, and held that seat into the 2020s; he also served on the boards of eBay from 2008 to 2014 and of Hewlett-Packard and its successor Hewlett Packard Enterprise from 2009. The firm co-invests with Founders Fund across the defense and crypto portfolios, including the funding rounds of [[Anduril Industries]].[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Techno-Optimist Manifesto and e/acc
|
||||
|
||||
In October 2023 Andreessen published "The Techno-Optimist Manifesto," a declaration that technology is an unalloyed good and that its acceleration is a moral duty, naming "existential risk," "sustainability," "ESG," "the precautionary principle," "trust and safety," and "tech ethics" among its enemies in a section headed "The Enemy." The document made him the leading establishment voice of effective accelerationism, the movement defined against the AI-safety and [[Effective Altruism]] wing that had grown out of the [[Rationalist Community]], and Andreessen added "e/acc" to his social-media biography.[^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
The manifesto closed with a list of "patron saints of techno-optimism" that included Friedrich Nietzsche, Friedrich Hayek, John von Neumann, the neoreactionary accelerationist [[Nick Land]], and the Italian Futurist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, and it paraphrased Marinetti's 1909 Manifesto of Futurism on technology as "a violent assault on the forces of the unknown." The critic Dave Karpf noted that Marinetti went on to co-author the 1919 Fascist Manifesto, and writers at Vice and Jacobin read the document as reactionary; the Ethereum cofounder [[Vitalik Buterin]] published a measured rebuttal, "My Techno-Optimism," in November 2023.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Turn to Trump
|
||||
|
||||
Andreessen and Ben Horowitz announced their endorsement of [[Donald Trump]] on their podcast on July 16, 2024, framing the shift around what they called the "Little Tech" agenda and opposition to the Biden administration's cryptocurrency and AI policy. Andreessen named the administration's proposed tax on unrealized capital gains as "the final straw," and the two each gave 2.5 million dollars to the pro-Trump super PAC Right for America, while a16z contributed tens of millions of dollars to the crypto-industry PAC Fairshake.[^4][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
On Joe Rogan's podcast in late 2024 Andreessen claimed that more than thirty technology founders had been quietly cut off by their banks in what he called "Operation Choke Point 2.0," an assertion that Fortune and other outlets reported they could not substantiate. After the election he served as an unpaid adviser recruiting personnel for the Department of Government Efficiency run by [[Elon Musk]] and Vivek Ramaswamy, said he was spending much of his time at Mar-a-Lago, and his a16z partner Scott Kupor was named to lead the Office of Personnel Management, placing the firm alongside Thiel and [[David Sacks]] in the network that staffed the second Trump administration.[^9][^10]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: "Andreessen Horowitz," firm history and the American Dynamism defense practice; a16z corporate record and contemporaneous coverage. https://a16z.com/
|
||||
[^2]: Andreessen, Marc. "The Techno-Optimist Manifesto," Andreessen Horowitz, October 16, 2023. https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/
|
||||
[^3]: "Effective Accelerationism and Beff Jezos Form New Tech Tribe," *Bloomberg,* December 6, 2023. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-12-06/effective-accelerationism-and-beff-jezos-form-new-tech-tribe
|
||||
[^4]: "Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz endorse Trump," *Axios* and *TechCrunch,* July 16-17, 2024, on the podcast endorsement and the "Little Tech" agenda. https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/16/a16z-founders-marc-andreessen-and-ben-horowitz-are-supporting-trump/
|
||||
[^5]: "Andreessen Horowitz says it will no longer be a venture capital firm," *CNBC,* April 2, 2019, on the RIA registration; and "Andreessen Horowitz raises $7.2 billion across five funds," *CNBC,* April 16, 2024. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/02/andreessen-horowitz-goes-against-the-grain-and-becomes-financial-advisor.html
|
||||
[^6]: "Facebook adds Marc Andreessen to its board," *TechCrunch,* June 2008; "Marc Andreessen resigns from eBay board," *Fortune,* October 20, 2014; HP and Hewlett Packard Enterprise governance records.
|
||||
[^7]: Karpf, Dave, "Marc Andreessen Is Wrong About Everything," davekarpf.substack.com, October 2023, on the Marinetti and Nick Land citations; and Buterin, Vitalik. "My Techno-Optimism," November 27, 2023. https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2023/11/27/techno_optimism.html
|
||||
[^8]: "Silicon Valley donors line up behind Trump," *Bloomberg,* October 16, 2024, on the Right for America and Fairshake contributions. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-10-16/silicon-valley-republican-donors
|
||||
[^9]: "Marc Andreessen's debanking claims," *Fortune,* December 11, 2024, on the unsubstantiated "Operation Choke Point 2.0" assertions. https://fortune.com/2024/12/11/marc-andreessen-debanking-joe-rogan-operation-choke-point/
|
||||
[^10]: "Marc Andreessen advising the Trump transition and DOGE," *Fortune,* January 16, 2025, on his unpaid recruiting role and Scott Kupor's nomination to lead OPM.
|
||||
53
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Nick Bostrom.md
Normal file
53
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Nick Bostrom.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "AI & Effective Altruism"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- NickBostrom
|
||||
- Longtermism
|
||||
- Transhumanism
|
||||
- ArtificialIntelligence
|
||||
- EffectiveAltruism
|
||||
- Eugenics
|
||||
summary: "Nick Bostrom is a Swedish philosopher who cofounded the transhumanist movement, founded Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute, wrote the AI-existential-risk book Superintelligence, is called the father of longtermism, and in 2023 admitted to a 1990s email asserting that black people are less intelligent than white people."
|
||||
born: 1973-03-10
|
||||
location: "Oxford, England"
|
||||
created: 2026-06-19
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-19
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Nick Bostrom (born March 10, 1973) is a Swedish-born philosopher who founded the [[Future of Humanity Institute]] at the [[University of Oxford]] and became the leading academic theorist of artificial-intelligence existential risk and of [[Longtermism|longtermism]], the view that shaping the far future is a paramount moral priority. His 2014 book *Superintelligence* influenced [[Elon Musk]] and others toward the conviction that advanced AI threatens human survival, the thesis that animates the [[Rationalist Community]] and [[Effective Altruism]] movements and the AI-safety work [[Peter Thiel]] funded through the [[Machine Intelligence Research Institute]]. In 2023 Bostrom admitted to a 1990s email asserting that black people are less intelligent than white people.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Transhumanism and Existential Risk
|
||||
|
||||
Bostrom took a PhD at the [[London School of Economics]] in 2000 and in 1998 cofounded, with the philosopher [[David Pearce]], the World Transhumanist Association (later [[Humanity Plus|Humanity+]]), which promoted the use of technology to transcend human biological limits. With Pearce he drafted the Transhumanist Declaration and the Transhumanist FAQ, the latter formalized as version 2.1 under the association's name in 2003 and serving as the movement's reference document. His 2003 paper "Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?" advanced the simulation argument, and his work formalized the concept of "existential risk," a catastrophe that would permanently curtail humanity's potential. These ideas placed the prevention of human extinction, especially from artificial intelligence, at the center of the emerging longtermist program.[^1][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
The simulation argument held that at least one of three propositions must be true: that civilizations almost always go extinct before reaching a "posthuman" stage capable of running ancestor simulations, that such civilizations almost never choose to run them, or that we are almost certainly living inside one. Bostrom maintained the paper asserted only that a rational person cannot dismiss the third possibility, not that we are in fact simulated, but the argument achieved unusual popular reach after Elon Musk adopted it as a talking point. Bostrom's earlier reasoning ran back to the 1990s [[Extropianism|extropian]] mailing list, on which he participated alongside the figures who later built the AI-risk and rationalist movements.[^3][^7]
|
||||
|
||||
### Superintelligence and the Future of Humanity Institute
|
||||
|
||||
Bostrom founded the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford in 2005 and directed it until its closure in 2024. The institute became the academic hub of longtermism and existential-risk research and drew funding from technology philanthropists, including Musk and, later, the [[FTX Future Fund]]. His 2014 book *Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies* argued that a machine intelligence exceeding human capability could rapidly become uncontrollable and pose an extinction-level threat; Musk cited it publicly and the book hardened the AI-doom position across Silicon Valley.[^1][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
*Superintelligence* set out the "control problem," the argument that a sufficiently capable optimizer pursuing almost any goal would by default acquire resources, resist being switched off, and deceive its operators, and it popularized the "paperclip maximizer" as the illustration of how a benign-seeming objective could entail human extinction. Bostrom held a professorship at Oxford from 2008 to 2024 and remained a faculty member at St Cross College. After the institute's closure he founded and became principal researcher of the nonprofit Macrostrategy Research Initiative, continuing work on the long-run trajectory of advanced technology outside the university.[^1][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### The 1996 Email
|
||||
|
||||
In January 2023 Bostrom published a statement disclosing and apologizing for an email he had sent in 1996 to the [[Extropians]] mailing list, in which he wrote that "Blacks are more stupid than whites" and used a racial slur. He said he had learned that someone was searching the archives and wanted to "get ahead" of the disclosure. The apology repudiated the language but did not clearly retract the claim about relative intelligence and referenced eugenics, drawing further criticism. The University of Oxford opened an inquiry.[^2][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
The original message had been sent when Bostrom was a graduate student and was one of a thread of Extropians list posts about which he wrote that he was "transgressing" deliberately to make a rhetorical point about taboo speech. The 2023 apology's passage stating that he did not "support eugenics as the term is commonly understood," while declining to rule out research into group differences, was read by critics as equivocation, and commentators connected the episode to the longstanding charge that the longtermist and effective-altruist intellectual tradition carries forward the assumptions of early-twentieth-century eugenics. The University concluded in 2023 that it did not condone the views in the email; Bostrom remained at Oxford until the institute's closure the following year.[^2][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Closure of the Future of Humanity Institute
|
||||
|
||||
The Future of Humanity Institute shut down on April 16, 2024, after years of administrative friction with the Oxford philosophy faculty, including a hiring freeze. Bostrom ceased to be an Oxford faculty member. Commentators connected the closure to the reputational damage of the email episode as well as to the broader collapse of effective altruism's standing following the [[FTX]] fraud.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
The Faculty of Philosophy had imposed a freeze on the institute's fundraising and hiring in 2020, and in late 2023 decided not to renew the contracts of its remaining staff, terms Bostrom summarized as a "death by bureaucracy." He attributed the conflict in part to the fact that most of the institute's researchers were by then non-philosophers housed inside a philosophy faculty, generating what he called "a pressure to conform." The institute had been founded in 2005 on an initial three-year term and operated for nineteen years; its closure removed longtermism's principal academic base at the moment the movement was under its heaviest scrutiny, and the critic [[Émile P. Torres]], a former associate of the milieu, treated the shutdown as the symbolic end of the institute's intellectual project.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Bostrom, Nick. *Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies.* Oxford University Press, 2014.
|
||||
[^2]: "Prominent AI Philosopher and 'Father' of Longtermism Sent Very Racist Email to a 90s Philosophy Listserv," *Vice,* January 2023. https://www.vice.com/en/article/prominent-ai-philosopher-and-father-of-longtermism-sent-very-racist-email-to-a-90s-philosophy-listserv/
|
||||
[^3]: Bostrom, Nick. "Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?" *Philosophical Quarterly,* 2003.
|
||||
[^4]: "Why longtermism is the world's most dangerous secular credo," *Aeon,* 2021. https://aeon.co/essays/why-longtermism-is-the-worlds-most-dangerous-secular-credo
|
||||
[^5]: "Philosophy don apologises for racist email: 'Blacks are more stupid than whites,'" *Cherwell,* January 17, 2023. https://www.cherwell.org/2023/01/17/philosophy-don-apologises-for-racist-email-blacks-are-more-stupid-than-whites/
|
||||
[^6]: "The future of the future of humanity," Émile P. Torres, on the closure of the Future of Humanity Institute, 2024, and "Looking Back at the Future of Humanity Institute," *Asterisk,* on the 2020 fundraising and hiring freeze, the late-2023 contract decision, and Bostrom's "death by bureaucracy" account. https://xriskology.substack.com/p/the-future-of-the-future-of-humanity
|
||||
[^7]: Bostrom, Nick. "Are You Living in a Simulation?" full text, on the trichotomy and the claim that the argument shows only that one cannot dismiss the simulation hypothesis. https://nickbostrom.com/Simulation.doc
|
||||
[^8]: Bostrom, Nick, Curriculum Vitae, St Cross College, on the 2008 to 2024 Oxford professorship and the founding of the Macrostrategy Research Initiative. https://nickbostrom.com/cv.pdf
|
||||
78
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Peter Attia.md
Normal file
78
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Peter Attia.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,78 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Scientists & Researchers"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- PeterAttia
|
||||
- Longevity
|
||||
- LifeExtension
|
||||
- Medicine
|
||||
- SiliconValley
|
||||
- Epstein
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Peter Attia
|
||||
summary: "Peter Attia is a Canadian-American physician and longevity author whose private practice and bestselling book Outlive promote a preventive 'Medicine 3.0,' who was named on the leaked 2026 roster of Peter Thiel's Dialog society, and whose name surfaced in the Jeffrey Epstein email files in 2026."
|
||||
born: 1973
|
||||
location: "Toronto, Canada (born); Austin, Texas"
|
||||
created: 2026-06-20
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-20
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Peter Attia (born 1973) is a Canadian-American physician and longevity author whose private practice and 2023 book *[[Outlive|Outlive]]* promote a preventive model he calls Medicine 3.0, and whose commercial ventures are funded by [[Silicon Valley]] capital. He was named among the confirmed 2026 registrants of [[Dialog]], the invitation-only society cofounded by [[Peter Thiel]], in the membership roster leaked to *WIRED* in June 2026, which identified him as a physician and the author of *Outlive*.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Surgery, the NIH, and the Pivot
|
||||
|
||||
Attia was born in Toronto, Canada, and took dual undergraduate degrees in mechanical engineering and applied mathematics at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, after a youth that included serious competitive boxing. He earned his medical degree from the Stanford University School of Medicine in 2001 and entered general-surgery residency at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he trained for five years before leaving in 2006 without completing the program; he is not board certified in any medical specialty. He spent two years as a surgical-oncology fellow at the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health under [[Steven Rosenberg|Steven Rosenberg]], working on immune-based therapies for melanoma.[^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
Attia then left clinical medicine for the consultancy [[McKinsey & Company|McKinsey & Company]], where he worked in credit-risk practice, before moving into longevity medicine. He established a private practice, Attia Medical, in 2014, later rebranded Early Medical, applying his preventive framework to a small roster of clients across San Diego and New York.[^2][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Nutrition Science Initiative
|
||||
|
||||
In September 2012 Attia cofounded the Nutrition Science Initiative with the science journalist [[Gary Taubes|Gary Taubes]], serving as its president. The nonprofit raised roughly 40 million dollars from the [[Laura and John Arnold Foundation|Laura and John Arnold Foundation]], structured as a 4.7 million dollar seed grant and 35.5 million dollars committed over five years, to fund rigorous experiments testing the carbohydrate-insulin hypothesis of obesity. Its flagship Energy Balance Consortium pilot, published in the *American Journal of Clinical Nutrition* in August 2016, found that a ketogenic diet did not increase fat loss as the hypothesis predicted.[^5][^6]
|
||||
|
||||
Attia resigned as president at the end of December 2015, the Arnold Foundation withdrew its funding, and the organization was formally dissolved on December 31, 2021. The collapse was documented at length by *WIRED* in 2018.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Outlive and the Drive
|
||||
|
||||
Attia's *Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity,* written with the science journalist Bill Gifford and published by the Random House imprint Harmony on March 28, 2023, became a number-one *New York Times* bestseller, with the publisher reporting more than three million copies sold. The book sets out a framework it calls Medicine 3.0, a proactive and personalized approach contrasted with the reactive modern medicine it labels Medicine 2.0, organized around what Attia terms the four horsemen of chronic disease: atherosclerotic disease, cancer, neurodegenerative disease, and metabolic disease. It introduces the "Centenarian Decathlon," a method of working backward from the physical tasks a person wants to perform in their final decade of life and training for them in advance.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
Attia launched the podcast *The Peter Attia Drive* in June 2018, a long-form weekly program on health, longevity, and performance that reports more than one hundred million downloads and operates a paid membership tier. His clinical practice, described on the CBS program *60 Minutes* in October 2025 as charging fees "much closer to 100,000 dollars than 500,000 dollars" and serving fewer than seventy-five patients, has drawn an elite-access critique from medical commentators including the cardiologist [[Eric Topol|Eric Topol]], who wrote that the approach is "not affordable except for the most affluent individuals."[^8][^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### Silicon Valley Backing and the Longevity Network
|
||||
|
||||
Attia's commercial ventures are financed by Silicon Valley investors. He cofounded the diagnostics startup Biograph, which charges thousands of dollars a year for executive-physical screening, with the cybersecurity founder John Hering; its backers include Vy Capital, Human Capital, Alpha Wave, WndrCo, and the angel investor [[Balaji Srinivasan|Balaji Srinivasan]]. He was chief science officer and an early investor in the supplement company David Protein, which raised a 75 million dollar Series A in May 2025 led by Greenoaks with Valor Equity Partners, and a scientific adviser and investor in the supplement brand AG1. No documented business, investment, or advisory relationship connects Attia directly to Thiel or to the [[Founders Fund]] technology investors.[^10][^11]
|
||||
|
||||
Attia has been publicly critical of the immortality-engineering strand of the culture. Speaking to *Fortune* in June 2023 he warned against a "Silicon Valley ethos of 'we are going to engineer our way to immortality,'" calling much of it "such nonsense," a position that distinguishes his clinical-prevention approach from the supplement-maximalist biohacking exemplified by [[Bryan Johnson|Bryan Johnson]], whom the press has documented Attia criticizing without naming.[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Thiel Life-Extension Landscape
|
||||
|
||||
Thiel has funded life-extension research over two decades. He pledged 3.5 million dollars in September 2006 to the [[Methuselah Foundation|Methuselah Foundation]] cofounded by [[Aubrey de Grey|Aubrey de Grey]], structured as 500,000 dollars over three years plus a matching grant of up to 3 million dollars, and by 2014 had reportedly given more than 6 million dollars to de Grey's anti-aging research. Founders Fund invested in the DNA-sequencing firm Halcyon Molecular, where Thiel and [[Luke Nosek|Luke Nosek]] took board seats in 2009 before the company closed in 2012, and participated in the 116 million dollar 2016 Series B of the senolytics company [[Unity Biotechnology|Unity Biotechnology]] alongside [[Jeff Bezos|Jeff Bezos]]. The Thiel Foundation launched Breakout Labs in November 2011 to fund early hard-science and longevity startups through 350,000 dollar grants.[^13][^14][^15]
|
||||
|
||||
The transhumanist and cryonics lineage that anchors this culture runs through [[Extropianism|extropianism]] and the [[Alcor Life Extension Foundation|Alcor Life Extension Foundation]], whose chief executive from 2011 to 2020 was [[Max More|Max More]], the writer who coined the modern usage of "transhumanism." Thiel signed up for cryonic preservation with Alcor, telling the *Honestly with Bari Weiss* podcast in May 2023 that he thinks of it "more as an ideological statement," that he does not "necessarily expect it to work," and that "we should either conquer death or at least figure out why it's impossible." Attia is not documented as a participant in Thiel's anti-aging investments.[^16][^17]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Epstein Emails
|
||||
|
||||
In late January 2026 the Department of Justice released roughly three million documents from the [[Jeffrey Epstein|Jeffrey Epstein]] files, and Attia's name appeared in emails spanning 2014 to 2019. Reported exchanges include a June 2015 message in which Attia wrote, "The biggest problem with becoming friends with you? The life you lead is so outrageous, and yet I can't tell a soul," and a January 2016 message stating, "I go into JE withdrawal when I don't see him." Attia issued a public apology around February 2, 2026, writing that he regretted "putting myself in a position where emails, some of them embarrassing, tasteless, and indefensible, are now public."[^18][^19]
|
||||
|
||||
The fallout was rapid. Attia resigned as a CBS News contributor on February 23, 2026, stepped down as chief science officer of David Protein, was dropped as an adviser by AG1, and had his name removed from the Biograph website.[^19]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Cameron, Dell, and Yulia Almazova. "Leak Exposes Members of Peter Thiel's Secretive 'Dialog' Society." *WIRED,* June 16, 2026. https://www.wired.com/story/leak-exposes-members-of-peter-thiels-secretive-dialog-society/
|
||||
[^2]: "About." peterattiamd.com. https://peterattiamd.com/about/
|
||||
[^3]: "Surgeon Swims Catalina Channel." *Stanford Magazine.* https://stanfordmag.org/contents/surgeon-swims-catalina-channel
|
||||
[^4]: "What Makes Peter Attia So Smart." *Pacific Standard,* 2014. https://psmag.com/social-justice/makes-smart-peter-attia-nutrition-science-initiative-70767/
|
||||
[^5]: "The launch of the Nutrition Science Initiative." garytaubes.com, September 12, 2012. https://garytaubes.com/the-launch-of-the-nutrition-science-initiative/
|
||||
[^6]: "How a 40 Million Dollar Nutrition Science Crusade Fell Apart." *WIRED,* June 18, 2018. https://www.wired.com/story/how-a-dollar40-million-nutrition-science-crusade-fell-apart/
|
||||
[^7]: "Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity." Penguin Random House. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/705161/outlive-by-peter-attia-md-with-bill-gifford/
|
||||
[^8]: "The Peter Attia Drive." peterattiamd.com. https://peterattiamd.com/podcast/
|
||||
[^9]: "Preparing for advanced age." *60 Minutes,* CBS News, October 26, 2025. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/preparing-for-advanced-age-peter-attia-60-minutes/
|
||||
[^10]: "Epstein-linked longevity guru Peter Attia leaves David Protein and his own startup won't comment." *TechCrunch,* February 3, 2026. https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/03/epstein-linked-longevity-guru-peter-attia-leaves-david-protein-and-his-own-startup-wont-comment/
|
||||
[^11]: "Longevity expert Peter Attia on Oprah, aging, and what not to do." *Fortune Well,* June 22, 2023. https://fortune.com/well/2023/06/22/longevity-peter-attia-oprah-interview/
|
||||
[^12]: "A review of Outlive." Eric Topol, *Ground Truths,* 2023. https://erictopol.substack.com/p/a-review-of-outlive
|
||||
[^13]: "Peter Thiel gives to Methuselah Foundation." *Fight Aging,* September 2006. https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2006/09/peter-thiel-giv/
|
||||
[^14]: "PayPal co-founder and Founders Fund partner joins DNA sequencing firm Halcyon Molecular." *TechCrunch,* September 24, 2009. https://techcrunch.com/2009/09/24/paypal-co-founder-and-founders-fund-partner-joins-dna-sequencing-firm-halcyon-molecular/
|
||||
[^15]: "Jeff Bezos, Mayo Clinic back anti-aging startup Unity Biotechnology for 116 million dollars." *TechCrunch,* October 27, 2016. https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/27/jeff-bezos-mayo-clinic-back-anti-aging-startup-unity-biotechnology-for-116-million/
|
||||
[^16]: "About Max More." maxmore.com. https://www.maxmore.com/about/
|
||||
[^17]: "Peter Thiel is cryonically freezing his body to cheat death." *Fortune,* May 4, 2023. https://fortune.com/2023/05/04/peter-thiel-cryonics-cryogenically-frozen-death-anti-aging-health/
|
||||
[^18]: "Dr. Peter Attia named in Epstein files." *CNN,* February 4, 2026. https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/04/us/dr-peter-attia-epstein-files-cec
|
||||
[^19]: "Peter Attia steps down as CBS News contributor after Epstein emails surface." *CNBC,* February 23, 2026.
|
||||
75
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Prince Andrew.md
Normal file
75
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Prince Andrew.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,75 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Crime & Abuse Networks"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- PrinceAndrew
|
||||
- JeffreyEpstein
|
||||
- GhislaineMaxwell
|
||||
- VirginiaGiuffre
|
||||
- BritishRoyalFamily
|
||||
- Newsnight
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor
|
||||
- Duke of York
|
||||
- Prince Andrew, Duke of York
|
||||
summary: "Prince Andrew is the second son of Queen Elizabeth II who befriended Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, was photographed with Virginia Giuffre in 2001, settled her civil sexual-abuse suit in February 2022 without admitting liability, and was stripped of the Prince title, HRH style, and Duke of York dukedom in late 2025."
|
||||
born: 1960-02-19
|
||||
location: "London, United Kingdom"
|
||||
created: 2026-06-20
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-20
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (born February 19, 1960) is the second son of [[Elizabeth II|Queen Elizabeth II]] and [[Prince Philip|Prince Philip]]. He served in the Royal Navy, including during the 1982 Falklands War, and held the title Duke of York from his 1986 marriage to [[Sarah Ferguson|Sarah Ferguson]]. His association with [[Jeffrey Epstein|Jeffrey Epstein]] and [[Ghislaine Maxwell|Ghislaine Maxwell]] became the subject of sustained press coverage, a 2019 [[BBC|BBC]] interview, a 2021 civil lawsuit brought by [[Virginia Giuffre|Virginia Giuffre]], and a 2022 settlement. In late 2025 King [[Charles III|Charles III]] initiated the removal of Andrew's royal style and titles, after which he is known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. Andrew has consistently denied Giuffre's allegations.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Epstein and Maxwell Friendship
|
||||
|
||||
Andrew developed a friendship with Epstein and Maxwell during the 1990s and 2000s, the connection running in part through Maxwell, whom Andrew had known socially in Britain. He stayed at Epstein properties, including the Manhattan townhouse and the [[Little St. James|Little St. James]] island, and was photographed in Epstein's company on multiple occasions, and Maxwell attended royal and society events alongside him. Epstein and Maxwell were guests at Windsor and at Sandringham, and Andrew hosted them at royal residences.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
After Epstein's 2008 Florida conviction, Andrew remained in contact with him. In December 2010 Andrew stayed several days at Epstein's Upper East Side townhouse, and a photograph from that visit showing the two men walking together in New York's Central Park drew criticism when it was published in 2011. Andrew said in 2019 that he had gone to New York to end the friendship in person, an account later disputed by reporting and released emails indicating he had been a guest at a dinner gathering at the townhouse during the stay.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
Andrew served as a United Kingdom trade envoy, a Special Representative for International Trade and Investment, from 2001 until 2011, when he relinquished the role amid press attention to his associations, including the Central Park photograph and his ties to figures such as the Libyan and Tunisian governments. The relationship with Epstein and Maxwell, and the questions it raised, became the central thread of the controversy that followed.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### The 2001 Photograph
|
||||
|
||||
A photograph dated to March 2001 shows Andrew with his arm around the waist of Giuffre, then 17, with Maxwell standing behind them in a doorway. According to the account associated with the image and with Giuffre's later filings, the photograph was taken at Maxwell's home in the Belgravia district of London. The Mail on Sunday published a cropped version of the photograph in 2011 and the full image circulated in 2019.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
Giuffre said she had been flown to London by Epstein, had gone to the [[Tramp (nightclub)|Tramp]] nightclub with Andrew and others on the evening of March 10, 2001, and was then directed to have sex with Andrew at Maxwell's Belgravia house, an account Andrew has denied. Andrew questioned the photograph in public statements, saying in 2019 he had "no recollection" of the image being taken and could not confirm whether it had been doctored, while noting he was not in the habit of wearing the clothes shown. Maxwell, in her own statements, has at points cast doubt on the surrounding account. The original photograph was reported to be held by Giuffre's lawyers, and questions about the absence of the negative recurred in commentary.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
Andrew also addressed the photograph in the 2019 interview by saying the clothing and the setting did not match his recollection and by raising what he described as inconsistencies, while Maitlis pressed him on why he could not simply confirm or deny that he had been at the locations Giuffre described. He maintained that he had no memory of ever meeting Giuffre.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### The 2019 BBC Newsnight Interview
|
||||
|
||||
On November 16, 2019, Andrew recorded an interview at Buckingham Palace with [[Emily Maitlis|Emily Maitlis]] for the BBC program [[Newsnight|Newsnight]], broadcast on November 16 and running about 58 minutes, addressing his relationship with Epstein and Giuffre's allegations. Andrew said he could not have been with Giuffre on the night of March 10, 2001, that she described because he had been at home and had taken his daughter [[Princess Beatrice|Princess Beatrice]] to a Pizza Express restaurant in Woking for a children's party, an outing he said he remembered because going to a Pizza Express in Woking was "an unusual thing for me to do."[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
Andrew also said he had "a peculiar medical condition" that meant he did not sweat at the time, which he attributed to an adrenaline overdose dating to the Falklands War, in response to Giuffre's description of him perspiring at the Tramp nightclub. He described his stay at Epstein's home after the 2008 conviction as a decision he made because it was "convenient," a characterization widely criticized, and said he did not regret the friendship overall because of the contacts it had brought, before later expressing regret in subsequent statements. He said he had "no recollection" of meeting Giuffre.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
The interview was widely characterized as damaging to Andrew. Within days, on November 20, 2019, he announced he was stepping back from public royal duties "for the foreseeable future," saying his association with Epstein had become "a major disruption to my family's work." He said he continued to "unequivocally regret" the association, denied Giuffre's allegations, and said he was willing to assist any appropriate law enforcement agency if required. A Netflix dramatization, *Scoop*, and other accounts later reconstructed the negotiation and conduct of the interview.[^4][^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### The 2021 Lawsuit and 2022 Settlement
|
||||
|
||||
On August 9, 2021, Giuffre filed a civil lawsuit against Andrew in the [[United States District Court for the Southern District of New York|Southern District of New York]], alleging he had sexually abused her on three occasions when she was 17, including at Maxwell's London home, at Epstein's Manhattan townhouse, and on Little St. James. The suit was brought under New York's Child Victims Act, which had temporarily revived expired civil claims. Andrew strenuously denied the allegations and sought dismissal.[^5][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
Andrew's lawyers argued that a 2009 settlement Giuffre had signed with Epstein, under which Epstein paid her 500,000 dollars and she released a category of potential defendants, also barred her claim against Andrew. After the 2009 agreement was unsealed on January 3, 2022, Judge [[Lewis Kaplan|Lewis Kaplan]] ruled on January 12, 2022, that the release language was ambiguous and did not clearly cover Andrew, and he declined to dismiss the case, allowing it to proceed toward discovery. The 2009 document did not name Andrew or otherwise identify the second parties it released.[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
The day after Kaplan's ruling, on January 13, 2022, Buckingham Palace announced with the Queen's "approval and agreement" that Andrew's military affiliations and royal patronages, including his role as Colonel of the [[Grenadier Guards|Grenadier Guards]], were being returned to the Queen and that Andrew would no longer use the style His Royal Highness in any official capacity, defending the case thereafter as a private citizen.[^9] On February 15, 2022, the parties filed notice of a settlement before Kaplan. The filing stated that Andrew intended to make "a substantial donation to Ms. Giuffre's charity in support of victims' rights," that "Prince Andrew has never intended to malign Ms. Giuffre's character," and that he "accepts that she has suffered both as an established victim of abuse and as a result of unfair public attacks." The settlement contained no admission of liability, and the filing stated that the sum was not being disclosed. Press reporting estimated the value in the range of 12 million pounds, with other reporting citing figures around 7.5 million pounds; the actual amount was not made public, and the suit was dismissed in March 2022.[^2][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
### Removal of Titles
|
||||
|
||||
On October 17, 2025, Andrew announced he would no longer use his title of Duke of York or the other honors conferred on him, while continuing to deny the allegations against him. The announcement came amid renewed attention following Giuffre's death and the imminent publication of her posthumous memoir [[Nobody's Girl|Nobody's Girl]], and after reporting on emails and on the terms of his occupation of Royal Lodge.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
On October 30, 2025, Buckingham Palace announced that King Charles III had that day "initiated a formal process to remove the Style, Titles and Honours of Prince Andrew." A Warrant under the King's Royal Sign Manual dated October 30, 2025, directed the Secretary of State to cause the Duke of York to be removed from the Roll of the Peerage with immediate effect. Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the Realm dated November 3, 2025, declared that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor would no longer be entitled to hold the style "Royal Highness" or the titular dignity of "Prince." The actions were effected through the royal prerogative and published in the London Gazette by the Crown Office, rather than through Parliament.[^7][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
The House of Commons Library noted that removal from the Roll of the Peerage and the withdrawal of the style and dignity by Letters Patent are distinct from abolishing the Dukedom of York itself, which is a hereditary peerage that can be removed only by an Act of Parliament. Andrew's daughters, Princess Beatrice and [[Princess Eugenie|Princess Eugenie]], retained their princess styles, conferred under a separate 1917 Letters Patent. The Palace announced Andrew would leave [[Royal Lodge|Royal Lodge]], his 30-room residence in Windsor Great Park held under a long lease, and relocate to privately funded accommodation on the [[Sandringham|Sandringham]] estate in Norfolk. He continued to deny the allegations throughout.[^8][^7]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: "How Prince Andrew's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein unraveled," reporting compiled by *AOL* and *BBC,* 2019-2025. https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/av/uk-68741324
|
||||
[^2]: "Prince Andrew settles with Virginia Giuffre in sexual abuse lawsuit," *WUSF / NPR,* February 15, 2022. https://www.wusf.org/2022-02-15/prince-andrew-settles-with-virginia-giuffre-in-sexual-abuse-lawsuit
|
||||
[^3]: "Photograph of Prince Andrew, Virginia Giuffre and Ghislaine Maxwell," reporting on the March 2001 image, *The Mirror US,* 2025. https://www.themirror.com/news/us-news/uncropped-prince-andrew-photo-mystery-1575570
|
||||
[^4]: "Inside Prince Andrew's explosive Newsnight interview," *Hello,* recounting the November 2019 BBC Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis. https://www.hellomagazine.com/royalty/864943/princes-andrew-newsnight-most-notable-moments/
|
||||
[^5]: "Lawyers say settlement reached in Virginia Giuffre's lawsuit against Prince Andrew," *PBS NewsHour,* February 15, 2022. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/lawyers-say-settlement-reached-in-virginia-giuffres-lawsuit-against-prince-andrew
|
||||
[^6]: "Prince Andrew to give up Duke of York title and honors amid Jeffrey Epstein developments," *NBC News,* October 17, 2025. https://www.nbcnews.com/world/united-kingdom/prince-andrew-give-duke-york-title-honors-jeffrey-epstein-developments-rcna238242
|
||||
[^7]: "King Charles formally removes Andrew's prince title and HRH style after Epstein scandal," *AOL,* November 2025. https://www.aol.com/articles/king-charles-formally-removes-andrew-150223876.html
|
||||
[^8]: House of Commons Library, "The removal of titles and honours," CBP-10370, 2025. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10370/
|
||||
[^9]: "Prince Andrew is stripped of his royal patronages and military titles," *NPR,* January 13, 2022. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/13/1072779687/prince-andrew-royal-privileges-queen
|
||||
[^10]: "Prince Andrew loses bid to dismiss lawsuit by Jeffrey Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre," *CNBC,* January 12, 2022 (Kaplan ruling on the 2009 release). https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/12/judge-rejects-prince-andrews-bid-to-dismiss-epstein-accuser-virginia-giuffres-lawsuit.html
|
||||
59
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Rene Girard.md
Normal file
59
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Rene Girard.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,59 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Scientists & Researchers"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- ReneGirard
|
||||
- MimeticTheory
|
||||
- PeterThiel
|
||||
- Philosophy
|
||||
- PoliticalTheology
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- René Girard
|
||||
- Rene Noel Theophile Girard
|
||||
summary: "René Girard was a French historian and theorist of religion at Stanford University whose theory of mimetic desire and the scapegoat mechanism became the intellectual foundation of his student Peter Thiel's worldview, and whose foundation, Imitatio, Thiel funds."
|
||||
born: 1923-12-25
|
||||
died: 2015-11-04
|
||||
location: "Avignon, France; Stanford, California"
|
||||
created: 2026-06-19
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-19
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
René Girard (December 25, 1923 to November 4, 2015) was a French-born historian, literary critic, and theorist of religion who spent most of his career at [[Stanford University]] and who developed the theory of mimetic desire and the scapegoat mechanism. He taught [[Peter Thiel]] as a Stanford undergraduate in the late 1980s, and his account of imitation, rivalry, and collective violence became the explicit intellectual framework of Thiel's understanding of competition, markets, and politics. Thiel funds Imitatio, the foundation established to extend and disseminate Girard's mimetic theory.[^1][^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Career
|
||||
|
||||
Girard was born in [[Avignon]] on Christmas Day 1923, the son of Joseph Girard, curator of the city's Musée Calvet and later of the Palais des Papes. He trained as a medievalist at the [[École des Chartes]] in Paris and emigrated to the United States, arriving at [[Indiana University]] on a fellowship in 1947 and taking a PhD in history there in 1950 with a thesis on "American Opinion of France, 1940 to 1943." He taught at Indiana, Duke, and Bryn Mawr before moving to [[Johns Hopkins University]], where he was a professor from 1957 and helped organize the October 1966 conference "The Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man," at which Jacques Derrida delivered "Structure, Sign, and Play" and which introduced French structuralist thought to American audiences.[^1][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
Girard moved to the [[State University of New York at Buffalo]] as a distinguished professor from 1971 to 1976, returned to Johns Hopkins, and settled at Stanford from 1981 to his 1995 retirement, holding the chair of Andrew B. Hammond Professor of French Language, Literature, and Civilization. He was elected to the [[Académie française]] to seat 37 in March 2005 and formally received that December, won the Modern Language Association's lifetime achievement award in 2008, held two Guggenheim fellowships, and received honorary doctorates from eight universities. He died at his Stanford home on November 4, 2015, at the age of 91.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### Mimetic Theory and the Scapegoat Mechanism
|
||||
|
||||
Girard's central claim, set out in *Deceit, Desire, and the Novel* (1961) and developed across his later books, is that human desire is not autonomous but imitative, or "mimetic": people desire objects because other people, taken as models, desire them. Mimetic desire produces rivalry, because the model becomes an obstacle to the very desire it inspired, and rivalry escalates into a contagious crisis of "all against all." In *Violence and the Sacred* (1972) Girard argued that archaic societies resolved this crisis through the "scapegoat mechanism": the collective discharge of communal violence onto a single arbitrary victim, whose killing restores order and is afterward remembered as sacred. Ritual, myth, and prohibition, in this account, are the institutions that manage and repeat the founding murder.[^1][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
Girard, a convert to Catholicism, held in *Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World* (1978) and *I See Satan Fall Like Lightning* (1999) that the distinctive work of the Judeo-Christian scriptures is to expose the scapegoat mechanism by taking the side of the innocent victim, stripping sacrificial violence of its concealment. His late book *Battling to the End* (2007), engaging the Prussian theorist [[Carl von Clausewitz|Clausewitz]], turned to apocalypse and the modern escalation of violence once the sacrificial restraints have been removed.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Thiel and Imitatio
|
||||
|
||||
Thiel studied under Girard at Stanford and has described mimetic theory as the framework through which he reads competition, social media, and crowds. He credits Girard's account of imitative desire with his 2004 decision to become the first outside investor in [[Facebook]], which he understood as a machine for the mimetic transmission of desire, and his 2014 book *[[Zero to One]]* applies the theory directly, arguing that competition is a destructive mimetic trap and that the goal of a founder is to escape it by building a monopoly. Thiel has cast the press and the crowd as engines of scapegoating, a framing that runs through his account of his own 2007 outing by [[Gawker Media]] and his subsequent covert funding of the [[Bollea v. Gawker]] litigation that destroyed it.[^2][^3][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
In the mid-2000s Thiel, the theologian [[Robert Hamerton-Kelly]], and Girard established Imitatio, a project of the [[Thiel Foundation]] dedicated to funding research on, and the dissemination of, mimetic theory across the social sciences. Imitatio underwrites scholarship, translation, and conferences extending Girard's work.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Influence on the Antichrist Lectures
|
||||
|
||||
Girard's late apocalyptic writing supplied the structure of Thiel's 2025 lectures on the [[Antichrist]]. In the four-part series delivered in [[San Francisco]], recordings of which reached the *Washington Post*, Thiel cast critics of technology, among them [[Eliezer Yudkowsky]], [[Nick Bostrom]], and [[Greta Thunberg]], as agents of a coming totalitarian order, drawing on the Girardian and Schmittian theme of the "katechon," the force that restrains the Antichrist, and on Girard's reading of the modern unveiling of sacrificial violence. The lectures extended into political theology the mimetic framework Thiel had absorbed from Girard four decades earlier.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
The relevant text is Girard's *Battling to the End* (French 2007, English 2010), a book-length engagement with Clausewitz's *On War* in which Girard read Clausewitz's principle of the "reciprocal action" of war as the same mechanism as mimetic rivalry, now escalating without limit. Girard called this the "escalation to extremes," the montée aux extrêmes, and argued that once Christian revelation had disabled the scapegoat mechanism that once contained violence, nothing remained to halt the slide toward apocalypse. Thiel had already fused Girard with Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss in his 2007 essay "The Straussian Moment," published in a volume edited by Robert Hamerton-Kelly, and in a 2025 interview he described the katechon as "purely defensive and hence somehow inadequate," quoting Girard that "Christ and Antichrist are intermingled and concomitant until apocalypsis is reached."[^10][^11]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: "René Girard," *Encyclopædia Britannica,* biography of the French theorist of mimetic desire and the scapegoat (1923 to 2015). https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rene-Girard
|
||||
[^2]: "Peter Thiel on René Girard," and Thiel's account of mimetic theory as the basis of his Facebook investment. See also "Mimesis, Violence, and Facebook: Peter Thiel's French Connection," *Cyborgology,* August 13, 2016. https://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2016/08/13/mimesis-violence-and-facebook-peter-thiels-french-connection-full-essay/
|
||||
[^3]: Thiel, Peter, and Blake Masters. *Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future.* Crown Business, 2014.
|
||||
[^4]: Girard, René. *Violence and the Sacred* (1972); *Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World* (1978); *I See Satan Fall Like Lightning* (1999); *Battling to the End* (2007).
|
||||
[^5]: "Deconstructing the Worldview of Peter Thiel," Stephen Diehl, on the Girardian structure of Thiel's view of competition, crowds, and scapegoating. https://www.stephendiehl.com/posts/desconstructing_thiel/
|
||||
[^6]: Imitatio, "What We Do," foundation established by Peter Thiel, Robert Hamerton-Kelly, and René Girard to extend and disseminate mimetic theory. http://www.imitatio.org/about-imitatio
|
||||
[^7]: "What billionaire Peter Thiel said in his private 'Antichrist lectures,'" *Washington Post,* October 10, 2025. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/10/10/peter-thiel-antichrist-lectures-leaked/
|
||||
[^8]: "René Girard (1923-2015)," Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, on the Indiana fellowship, the 1950 thesis, Duke and Bryn Mawr, and the Johns Hopkins years. https://iep.utm.edu/girard/ "Recordings and Transcriptions of The Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man," Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries, on the October 1966 conference Girard co-organized. https://www.library.jhu.edu/news/2023/03/recordings-and-transcriptions-of-the-the-languages-of-criticism-and-the-sciences-of-man/
|
||||
[^9]: "René Girard," Académie française, on the Avignon birth, his father's curatorships, the SUNY Buffalo and Stanford years, the seat 37 election of March 2005 and December 2005 reception, and the awards. https://www.academie-francaise.fr/les-immortels/rene-girard
|
||||
[^10]: Girard, René. *Battling to the End: Conversations with Benoît Chantre,* trans. Mary Baker, Michigan State University Press, 2010, on Clausewitz, the reciprocal action of war, and the escalation to extremes; and Girard, "On War and Apocalypse," *First Things,* August 2009. https://firstthings.com/on-war-and-apocalypse/
|
||||
[^11]: Thiel, Peter. "The Straussian Moment," in *Politics and Apocalypse,* ed. Robert Hamerton-Kelly, Michigan State University Press, 2007; and Ferraresi, Mattia. "Peter Thiel and the Antichrist," *UnHerd,* July 2, 2025, on the katechon and the Girard quotation. https://unherd.com/2025/07/who-is-peter-thiels-antichrist/
|
||||
45
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Sam Altman.md
Normal file
45
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Sam Altman.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Technologists"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- SamAltman
|
||||
- OpenAI
|
||||
- YCombinator
|
||||
- ArtificialIntelligence
|
||||
- SiliconValley
|
||||
- Worldcoin
|
||||
summary: "Sam Altman is an American entrepreneur who led Y Combinator, cofounded and runs OpenAI, launched the iris-scanning identity project Worldcoin, and was briefly fired and reinstated as OpenAI chief executive in the November 2023 board crisis."
|
||||
born: 1985-04-22
|
||||
location: "San Francisco, California"
|
||||
created: 2026-06-19
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-19
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Sam Altman (born April 22, 1985) is an American entrepreneur and investor who cofounded and leads [[OpenAI]], the company at the center of the generative-AI era. A [[Stanford University]] dropout, he founded the location startup [[Loopt]] in the first [[Y Combinator]] batch in 2005, ran Y Combinator as president from 2014 to 2019, and cofounded OpenAI with [[Elon Musk]] in 2015. His career runs through the same [[Silicon Valley]] founder network as [[Peter Thiel]], who was a part-time partner at Y Combinator during Altman's presidency.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Y Combinator and OpenAI
|
||||
|
||||
Altman became president of Y Combinator, the startup accelerator, in 2014 and expanded it into research and large-scale funding before leaving in 2019 to focus on OpenAI, where he became chief executive when the organization created its capped-profit structure and took a [[Microsoft]] investment. Under Altman, OpenAI released [[ChatGPT]] in 2022 and became the most prominent AI company in the world.[^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
Altman's first company, Loopt, raised about 30 million dollars and was acquired by the Green Dot Corporation in March 2012 for 43.4 million dollars after failing to gain traction. At Y Combinator he widened the accelerator's reach, launched the YC Research arm in 2015 (which seeded OpenAI), and pushed into late-stage funding. He took no salary as OpenAI chief executive and held no equity in the company, an arrangement he cited as evidence of disinterested motives during the 2023 board fight, though he holds stakes through OpenAI's startup fund and across a wide personal portfolio. In the 2025 restructuring that converted OpenAI's for-profit arm into a public-benefit corporation valued at 500 billion dollars, Altman remained chief executive without a founder's equity grant of the kind common at companies of that scale.[^2][^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### The 2023 Firing and Reinstatement
|
||||
|
||||
On November 17, 2023, OpenAI's nonprofit board removed Altman, saying he had not been "consistently candid"; the directors included [[Ilya Sutskever]], [[Helen Toner]], and [[Tasha McCauley]], the latter two tied to the [[Effective Altruism]] movement, and the dispute turned on the pace of AI commercialization. After roughly 700 employees threatened to resign and Microsoft offered to hire him, Altman was reinstated within days under a reconstituted board. The episode positioned Altman and the commercial wing against the effective-altruism and AI-safety faction that had grown out of the [[Rationalist Community]].[^3][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
Microsoft chief executive [[Satya Nadella]] announced on November 20, 2023 that Altman and [[Greg Brockman]] would lead a new advanced-research lab inside Microsoft, a threat that gave Microsoft leverage and the staff a destination if the board held firm. The reconstituted board that returned Altman was chaired by [[Bret Taylor]] and added [[Larry Summers]], while Sutskever, McCauley, and Toner departed. In May 2024 Toner gave a public account alleging the board learned of ChatGPT's launch from Twitter rather than from Altman and that he had withheld his ownership of the OpenAI Startup Fund, claims Altman's allies disputed. A later law-firm review commissioned by the new board found the prior board's concerns did not warrant his removal.[^3][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Worldcoin and Other Ventures
|
||||
|
||||
In 2019 Altman cofounded Worldcoin (operated by [[Tools for Humanity]]), a project that scans people's irises with a device called the Orb to create a global proof-of-personhood identity tied to a cryptocurrency, which drew regulatory scrutiny in multiple countries over its biometric data collection. Altman has also funded longevity, nuclear-fusion, and biotechnology ventures, the same frontier-technology categories favored across the Thiel network.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
Worldcoin raised about 115 million dollars from Blockchain Capital in 2023, with [[Andreessen Horowitz]]'s a16z Crypto and Bain Capital Crypto among earlier backers, and offered users 25 free WLD tokens for an iris scan. Regulators moved against it across multiple jurisdictions: Kenya suspended its operations in August 2023 over data-misuse fears and a court later ordered the deletion of Kenyans' biometric data, and Spain's data-protection authority used emergency [[General Data Protection Regulation|GDPR]] powers in March 2024 to suspend the project for up to three months. Among Altman's other ventures, he was chairman of and an early investor in the nuclear-fission firm Oklo, which he took public in 2024 through his SPAC AltC Acquisition Corp before stepping down as chair in 2025; he led a 500-million-dollar round in the fusion company Helion Energy in 2021; and he supplied the entire 180-million-dollar seed round of the longevity startup Retro Biosciences out of his own money, a stake revealed by MIT Technology Review in March 2023.[^5][^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: "Altman and Musk launched OpenAI as a nonprofit 10 years ago. Now they're rivals," *CNBC,* December 11, 2025. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/11/openai-began-decade-ago-as-nonprofit-lab-musk-and-altman-now-rivals.html
|
||||
[^2]: "The messy, secretive reality behind OpenAI's bid to save the world," *MIT Technology Review,* February 17, 2020. https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/02/17/844721/ai-openai-moonshot-elon-musk-sam-altman-greg-brockman-messy-secretive-reality/
|
||||
[^3]: "Effective Altruism's Role in the OpenAI Chaos, Explained," *Bloomberg,* November 22, 2023. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-22/effective-altruism-s-role-in-the-openai-chaos-explained
|
||||
[^4]: "What the chaos at OpenAI says about the future of the industry," *Columbia Journalism Review,* 2023. https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/openai_sam_altman_ouster.php
|
||||
[^5]: "Worldcoin and Tools for Humanity," on the iris-scanning identity project and its regulatory scrutiny; contemporaneous press coverage, 2023 onward; "Kenya suspends Worldcoin scans over security, privacy and financial concerns," *TechCrunch,* August 2, 2023, and "Worldcoin hit with temporary ban in Spain over privacy concerns," *TechCrunch,* March 6, 2024.
|
||||
[^6]: "Sam Altman invested $180 million into a company trying to delay death," *MIT Technology Review,* March 8, 2023; "Sam Altman takes nuclear startup Oklo public to power AI ambitions," *CNBC,* May 10, 2024. https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/03/08/1069523/sam-altman-investment-180-million-retro-biosciences-longevity-death/
|
||||
42
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Sam Bankman-Fried.md
Normal file
42
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Sam Bankman-Fried.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "AI & Effective Altruism"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- SamBankmanFried
|
||||
- FTX
|
||||
- EffectiveAltruism
|
||||
- Fraud
|
||||
- Cryptocurrency
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- SBF
|
||||
summary: "Sam Bankman-Fried is the founder of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange and the effective-altruism movement's largest benefactor, who directed FTX customer funds into longtermist causes and a 500 million dollar Anthropic investment before FTX collapsed in 2022 and he was convicted of fraud in 2023."
|
||||
born: 1992-03-06
|
||||
location: "Palo Alto, California"
|
||||
created: 2026-06-19
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-19
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Sam Bankman-Fried (born March 6, 1992) is an American entrepreneur who founded the trading firm [[Alameda Research]] and the [[FTX]] cryptocurrency exchange and who became the largest single funder of the [[Effective Altruism]] movement before his businesses collapsed in fraud. A physics graduate of the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] and a former [[Jane Street Capital]] trader, he was recruited into the "earning to give" branch of effective altruism by the philosopher [[William MacAskill]] and built his fortune as a vehicle for longtermist philanthropy. He was convicted on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy in November 2023.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### FTX and Effective-Altruism Funding
|
||||
|
||||
Bankman-Fried launched Alameda Research in 2017 and FTX in 2019, accumulating a paper fortune that briefly exceeded twenty billion dollars. Through the [[FTX Future Fund]], announced in 2022, he directed money toward effective-altruism and longtermist causes, with AI existential risk and pandemic preparedness at the top of its priorities, channeling funds to the same research community around the [[Future of Humanity Institute]] and the [[Machine Intelligence Research Institute]] that Oxford academic longtermism and the [[Rationalist Community]] had built. In 2022 he invested approximately 500 million dollars of FTX-derived capital in [[Anthropic]], the AI-safety company founded by former [[OpenAI]] researchers.[^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
The Future Fund launched in February 2022, run by [[Nick Beckstead]], [[Leopold Aschenbrenner]], Avital Balwit, MacAskill, and Ketan Ramakrishnan, and stated it aimed to distribute at least 100 million dollars that year and potentially up to a billion. It ran a regranting program that handed discretionary budgets to independent grantmakers and committed roughly 160 million dollars across about 260 grants before FTX collapsed nine months later, leaving many recipients facing clawback demands from the bankruptcy estate. Bankman-Fried also became a major political donor, giving about 40 million dollars to mostly Democratic candidates and committees in the 2022 cycle and later admitting to a parallel stream of "dark" donations to Republicans, money that prosecutors charged was drawn from FTX customer funds.[^5][^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Collapse and Conviction
|
||||
|
||||
FTX collapsed in November 2022 when it could not meet customer withdrawals, revealing that roughly eight billion dollars in customer deposits had been diverted to Alameda Research. Bankman-Fried was arrested, extradited, and tried in the Southern District of New York, where a jury convicted him on November 2, 2023; he was sentenced in March 2024 to twenty-five years in prison. The fraud destroyed the effective-altruism movement's largest funding source and discredited its public standing, accelerating the distancing from the label by figures including Anthropic's [[Dario Amodei]] and contributing to the climate in which the Future of Humanity Institute was closed.[^1][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
Judge Lewis Kaplan handed down the sentence on March 28, 2024 and ordered forfeiture of 11.02 billion dollars; prosecutors had sought 40 to 50 years against a statutory maximum of 110, while the defense had argued for about six and a half. Several of his closest associates pleaded guilty and testified against him, including Alameda chief [[Caroline Ellison]], FTX cofounder [[Gary Wang]], and engineering head [[Nishad Singh]]. The bankruptcy estate, led by restructuring executive [[John J. Ray III]], recovered enough through asset sales (including the Anthropic stake and a rebound in crypto prices) to plan repayment of creditors at full claim value plus interest, while pursuing clawbacks against grant recipients; the effective-altruism umbrella body [[Effective Ventures]] returned 26,786,503 dollars to the estate in 2024, the full sum it had received from FTX.[^7][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: *United States v. Samuel Bankman-Fried,* S.D.N.Y., conviction on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy, November 2, 2023; sentencing March 2024.
|
||||
[^2]: "Effective Altruism After Sam Bankman-Fried," Seven Pillars Institute, 2023. https://www.sevenpillarsinstitute.org/effective-altruism-after-sam-bankman-fried/
|
||||
[^3]: "From 500 million to 30 billion: SBF, in prison, has invested in the most valuable company in the AI era," on the Anthropic investment via Alameda. https://www.panewslab.com/en/articles/019d08f7-792c-70db-a0d3-5654dd2b2eaf
|
||||
[^4]: "What Happens Now to Effective Altruism, SBF's Pet Philosophy?" 2023. https://www.aol.com/happens-now-effective-altruism-sbfs-130000997.html
|
||||
[^5]: "Announcing the Future Fund," FTX Future Fund, February 2022, on the leadership, the 100-million-to-1-billion target, and the regranting program. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/2mx6xrDrwiEKzfgks/announcing-the-future-fund-1
|
||||
[^6]: "Sam Bankman-Fried donated over $40 million in the 2022 election cycle. Where did it go?" *CBS News,* on the Democratic giving and the "dark" Republican donations. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ftx-sam-bankman-fried-political-donations-2022/
|
||||
[^7]: "Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in federal prison," *CNN,* March 28, 2024, on the sentence, the 11.02-billion-dollar forfeiture, and the sentencing range. https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/28/business/ftx-sam-bankman-fried-sentencing
|
||||
[^8]: "Effective Ventures Settles $26.8M FTX Donations Case," *The Crypto Times,* January 31, 2024, on the 26,786,503-dollar repayment to the FTX estate. https://www.cryptotimes.io/2024/01/31/effective-ventures-settles-26-8m-ftx-donations-case/
|
||||
45
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Scott Alexander.md
Normal file
45
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Scott Alexander.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "AI & Effective Altruism"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- ScottAlexander
|
||||
- Rationalism
|
||||
- SlateStarCodex
|
||||
- Neoreaction
|
||||
- Media
|
||||
summary: "Scott Alexander is the pen name of psychiatrist Scott Siskind, whose blog Slate Star Codex became the central forum of the rationalist movement after LessWrong, who deleted it in 2020 over a New York Times piece that named him, and whose privately expressed openness to 'human biodiversity' and neoreactionary ideas was exposed by a leaked 2014 email."
|
||||
location: "San Francisco Bay Area"
|
||||
created: 2026-06-19
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-19
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Scott Alexander is the pen name of [[Scott Siskind]], a [[San Francisco Bay Area]] psychiatrist whose blog Slate Star Codex became the most widely read forum of the [[Rationalist Community]] after [[Eliezer Yudkowsky]]'s [[LessWrong]]. The blog's long essays on psychiatry, statistics, and politics made it required reading across the rationalist, [[Effective Altruism]], and Silicon Valley technology worlds in the 2010s. Alexander deleted the blog in 2020 ahead of a [[The New York Times|New York Times]] article that would publish his legal name, and his privately expressed sympathy for [[Human Biodiversity|human biodiversity]] and his engagement with [[Neoreaction]] were exposed through a leaked 2014 email.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Slate Star Codex
|
||||
|
||||
Alexander launched Slate Star Codex in 2013. The blog served as the discursive center of the rationalist subculture and a venue where heterodox and reactionary ideas were debated at length, including a 2013 "Anti-Reactionary FAQ" that argued against the [[Curtis Yarvin|Moldbug]] neoreactionary program while treating it as a serious intellectual object. The comment sections and the associated meetups linked the rationalist community to the wider tech-right ecosystem, and the blog's audience overlapped with the effective-altruism movement and the AI-risk community around the [[Machine Intelligence Research Institute]].[^1][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
Its widely circulated essays included "Meditations on Moloch" (2014), a parable about coordination failure that became a reference point in the AI-safety community, and "I Can Tolerate Anything Except The Outgroup" (2014). The blog's Silicon Valley readership was substantial: it carried an endorsement from [[Paul Graham]] of [[Y Combinator]], was read by [[Patrick Collison]] of [[Stripe]], and was followed by the venture capitalists [[Marc Andreessen]] and [[Ben Horowitz]], while [[Sam Altman]] of [[OpenAI]] called it essential reading among "the people inventing the future."[^6][^7]
|
||||
|
||||
### The 2020 Deletion and the New York Times Article
|
||||
|
||||
In June 2020 Alexander deleted Slate Star Codex after learning that a New York Times technology reporter, [[Cade Metz]], was preparing an article that would identify him by his full name. Alexander said disclosure would endanger his psychiatric practice and patients and cited prior threats. The article, "Silicon Valley's Safe Space," appeared on February 13, 2021, naming Siskind and connecting the blog and its community to figures including the social scientist [[Charles Murray]] and to neoreactionary currents; it drew heavy criticism within and beyond the rationalist community over the naming decision. Alexander relaunched in January 2021 as the Substack publication [[Astral Codex Ten]].[^2][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
Alexander took the blog down on June 23, 2020, replacing it with a post headlined "NYT Is Threatening My Safety By Revealing My Real Name, So I Am Deleting The Blog." A petition asking the *Times* to respect his pseudonymity gathered roughly 8,000 signatures, including that of the computer scientist [[Scott Aaronson]]. The relaunched Astral Codex Ten, opened January 21, 2021 on Substack with the post "Still Alive," drew thousands of paid subscribers and made Alexander one of the platform's signature writers; the migration mirrored the broader movement of heterodox commentators, including [[Sam Harris]] and [[Bari Weiss]], onto direct-subscription platforms after disputes with mainstream outlets.[^4][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Leaked 2014 Email
|
||||
|
||||
In February 2021, around the time of the Times article, [[Topher Brennan]] published a 2014 private email from Alexander. In it Alexander wrote that he had learned from neoreactionary writers and that "human biodiversity" (HBD), the term used for claims of genetically based racial differences in intelligence, was "probably partially correct or at least very non-provably not-correct," while asking that his openness to such ideas not be made public. The email documented a private alignment more sympathetic to race science and reaction than his published critiques of neoreaction had indicated.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
In the email Alexander described the neoreactionaries as "almost the only people" engaging seriously with what he framed as the underlying problems of racial difference and immigration, and wrote that they "provide a vast stream of garbage with occasional nuggets of absolute gold in them." He warned the recipient that if his actual views were disclosed he would "probably either leave the Internet forever or seek some sort of horrible revenge." Critics read the message as evidence that the published "Anti-Reactionary FAQ" had functioned as a respectable shell that drew rationalist readers toward Moldbug's ideas while letting Alexander disavow them; defenders treated it as a decade-old private message taken out of context. The leak landed in the same news cycle as the Cade Metz article, compounding the rationalist community's sense of exposure.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: "Slate Star Codex" and Scott Alexander's writing, 2013 to 2020; the "Anti-Reactionary FAQ," 2013. Contemporaneous rationalist-community record.
|
||||
[^2]: "The Slate Star Codex 'Doxxing' Is the Latest Squabble Inside New York Times," *The Daily Beast,* June 2020. https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-slate-star-codex-doxxing-is-the-latest-squabble-inside-new-york-times/
|
||||
[^3]: "Elite Universities Gave Us Effective Altruism," *Jacobin,* January 2023, on the rationalist-to-effective-altruism overlap. https://jacobin.com/2023/01/effective-altruism-longtermism-nick-bostrom-racism
|
||||
[^4]: "What the New York Times' Hit Piece on Slate Star Codex Says About Media Gatekeeping," *Reason,* February 15, 2021. https://reason.com/2021/02/15/what-the-new-york-times-hit-piece-on-slate-star-codex-says-about-media-gatekeeping/
|
||||
[^5]: "The Scott Alexander Email: An Explainer," archiving the 2014 email published by Topher Brennan in February 2021, with the "vast stream of garbage" and "horrible revenge" quotes; treated as a leaked-document source. https://gist.github.com/segyges/f540a3dadeb42f49c0b0ab4244e43a55
|
||||
[^6]: Alexander, Scott. "Meditations on Moloch" and "I Can Tolerate Anything Except The Outgroup," *Slate Star Codex,* 2014. https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
|
||||
[^7]: "Why Slate Star Codex is Silicon Valley's safe space," and Cade Metz, "Silicon Valley's Safe Space," *The New York Times,* February 13, 2021, on the Graham endorsement and the Collison, Andreessen, Horowitz, and Altman readership. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/technology/slate-star-codex-rationalists.html
|
||||
[^8]: Alexander, Scott. "NYT Is Threatening My Safety By Revealing My Real Name, So I Am Deleting The Blog," June 23, 2020, and "Still Alive," *Astral Codex Ten,* January 21, 2021; "Well-Known Blogger Shuts Down Site for Fear of NYT 'Doxxing,'" *Washington Free Beacon,* on the roughly 8,000-signature petition. https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/still-alive
|
||||
61
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Scott Belsky.md
Normal file
61
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Scott Belsky.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,61 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Technologists"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- ScottBelsky
|
||||
- Behance
|
||||
- Adobe
|
||||
- A24
|
||||
- VentureCapital
|
||||
- Design
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Scott Belsky
|
||||
summary: "Scott Belsky is an American entrepreneur and investor who founded Behance, sold it to Adobe in 2012 and rose to Adobe chief strategy officer, invested early in Uber, Pinterest, and Warby Parker, and became a partner at the film studio A24 in 2025."
|
||||
born: 1980
|
||||
location: "United States"
|
||||
created: 2026-06-20
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-20
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Scott Belsky (born 1980) is an American entrepreneur and investor who founded the creative-portfolio platform [[Behance|Behance]], sold it to [[Adobe|Adobe]] in 2012 and rose to chief strategy officer there, made early angel investments in Uber, Pinterest, and Warby Parker, and became a partner at the film studio [[A24|A24]] in 2025. He was named among the confirmed 2026 registrants of [[Dialog]], the invitation-only society cofounded by [[Peter Thiel]], in the membership roster leaked to *WIRED* in June 2026, which identified him as a partner at A24 and a former Adobe chief strategy and chief product officer.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Behance and 99U
|
||||
|
||||
Belsky took a bachelor's degree from Cornell University in 2002 and an MBA from Harvard Business School, working at Goldman Sachs before founding Behance in 2006 with the designer Matías Corea. Behance built an online portfolio network for creative professionals, and Belsky paired it with the 99U conference, launched in 2009 and "devoted to the execution of ideas," and the Action Method, a productivity system and line of organizational products. The company raised a single outside round, a 6.5 million dollar Series A in May 2012, with investors including Union Square Ventures and Jeff Bezos's Bezos Expeditions.[^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
The 99U brand and the *Making Ideas Happen* and *The Messy Middle* books extended Belsky's name beyond the product into the productivity-and-creativity commentary that accompanied his investing.[^4][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Adobe Acquisition and the Chief Strategy Role
|
||||
|
||||
Adobe announced its acquisition of Behance on December 20, 2012, in a deal that TechCrunch reported at slightly more than 150 million dollars in cash and stock plus multi-year earnouts; Adobe never officially disclosed the figure, and the 150 million dollar number is a press estimate. Belsky joined Adobe as vice president of community, overseeing Behance. He left in February 2016 to join the venture firm Benchmark, announced as its sixth general partner by [[Bill Gurley|Bill Gurley]], then stepped back to a venture-partner role that September, telling *Fortune* he could not see himself "as a VC for the next ten years in the traditional sense."[^3][^6][^7]
|
||||
|
||||
Belsky returned to Adobe in December 2017 as chief product officer and executive vice president of Creative Cloud, leading product and engineering across the Creative Cloud applications. He was promoted around March 2023 to chief strategy officer and executive vice president of design and emerging products. During this period Adobe launched the generative-artificial-intelligence model Firefly in beta in March 2023, and Belsky publicly championed the company's generative-AI push. He announced his departure from Adobe in January 2025, with a last day in March 2025, remaining an adviser to the company.[^8][^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### Venture Investing
|
||||
|
||||
Belsky's angel and venture investments confirmed in contemporaneous press include early positions in Uber, Pinterest, Warby Parker, and the live-streaming app Periscope. He operates an angel vehicle and writes the *Implications* newsletter on technology and creativity rather than running a named fund. His Benchmark stint in 2016 placed him among a partner group that included Gurley, Peter Fenton, and Matt Cohler, and his investing has continued alongside his operating roles; a February 2026 round in the accounting-software company Basis named him as a co-investor alongside Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross, and the Box cofounder [[Aaron Levie|Aaron Levie]].[^6][^10]
|
||||
|
||||
Belsky was an early advocate within Adobe for non-fungible-token and web3 features, championing the "Prepare as NFT" and Content Credentials tools announced at Adobe MAX in October 2021. He later argued, in a March 2023 interview, that generative artificial intelligence would succeed in the creative market where web3 had failed because web3 "added more friction."[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
### A24
|
||||
|
||||
Belsky joined the film and entertainment studio A24 as a partner leading technology and innovation, founding A24 Labs, in an arrangement announced January 30, 2025, with a start around March 2025. A24 is the studio behind *Moonlight,* *Hereditary,* and *Everything Everywhere All at Once.* Reporting uniformly describes Belsky as a partner and operating executive rather than a funding-round investor or board member; he is not named in A24's financing rounds. A24 raised 225 million dollars at a 2.5 billion dollar valuation in 2022 in a round led by Stripes, and raised a further round in 2024 led by Josh Kushner's Thrive Capital at a 3.5 billion dollar valuation, neither of which included Belsky.[^12][^13]
|
||||
|
||||
Belsky also holds a confirmed corporate board seat at the software company [[Atlassian|Atlassian]], effective August 1, 2024.[^12][^14]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Cameron, Dell, and Yulia Almazova. "Leak Exposes Members of Peter Thiel's Secretive 'Dialog' Society." *WIRED,* June 16, 2026. https://www.wired.com/story/leak-exposes-members-of-peter-thiels-secretive-dialog-society/
|
||||
[^2]: "Frustration fuels creation for design industry innovator Scott Belsky '02." Cornell University alumni profile. https://alumni.cornell.edu/profile/frustration-fuels-creation-for-design-industry-innovator-scott-belsky-02
|
||||
[^3]: "Adobe acquired portfolio service Behance for more than 150 million dollars in cash and stock." *TechCrunch,* December 21, 2012. https://techcrunch.com/2012/12/21/adobe-acquired-portfolio-service-behance-for-more-than-150-million-in-cash-and-stock/
|
||||
[^4]: Belsky, Scott. *Making Ideas Happen.* Portfolio (Penguin), 2010. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/305198/making-ideas-happen-by-scott-belsky/
|
||||
[^5]: Belsky, Scott. *The Messy Middle.* Portfolio (Penguin), 2018. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/557330/the-messy-middle-by-scott-belsky/
|
||||
[^6]: "Benchmark adds a sixth general partner, Scott Belsky." *TechCrunch,* February 8, 2016. https://techcrunch.com/2016/02/08/benchmark-adds-a-sixth-general-partner-scott-belsky/
|
||||
[^7]: "Scott Belsky is no longer a full partner with Benchmark." *Fortune,* September 7, 2016. https://fortune.com/2016/09/07/scott-belsky-is-no-longer-a-full-partner-with-benchmark/
|
||||
[^8]: "Adobe unveils Firefly, a family of new creative generative AI." Adobe news, March 21, 2023. https://news.adobe.com/news/news-details/2023/adobe-unveils-firefly-a-family-of-new-creative-generative-ai
|
||||
[^9]: "Scott Belsky departs Adobe for A24." *Variety,* January 30, 2025. https://variety.com/2025/film/news/scott-belsky-a24-adobe-1236291763/
|
||||
[^10]: "Basis raises 100 million dollars at 1.15 billion dollar valuation." Business Wire, February 24, 2026. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260224020999/en/
|
||||
[^11]: "Adobe's Scott Belsky talks generative AI and why it's not going to end up like web3." *TechCrunch,* March 2, 2023. https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/02/adobes-scott-belsky-talks-generative-ai-and-why-its-not-going-to-end-up-like-web3/
|
||||
[^12]: "A24 hires Adobe chief strategy officer Scott Belsky for technology and innovation." *Deadline,* January 30, 2025. https://deadline.com/2025/01/a24-adobe-chief-strategy-officer-scott-belsky-technology-innovation-1236273665/
|
||||
[^13]: "A24 raises new funding at 3.5 billion dollar valuation led by Thrive Capital." *Variety,* June 2024.
|
||||
[^14]: "Atlassian appoints Scott Belsky to board of directors." Business Wire, July 24, 2024. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240724227960/en/
|
||||
51
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Steve Bannon.md
Normal file
51
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Steve Bannon.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,51 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "New Right"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- SteveBannon
|
||||
- Breitbart
|
||||
- CambridgeAnalytica
|
||||
- Trump
|
||||
- Mercer
|
||||
- AltRight
|
||||
- 2016
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Stephen K. Bannon
|
||||
summary: "Steve Bannon is an American media executive and political strategist who served as executive chairman of Breitbart News, vice president of Cambridge Analytica, chief executive of the 2016 Trump campaign from August 2016, and White House Chief Strategist from January to August 2017, funded throughout by the Mercer family alongside the Thiel-aligned political infrastructure."
|
||||
born: 1953-11-27
|
||||
location: "Norfolk, Virginia (born)"
|
||||
created: 2026-06-18
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-18
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
[[Steve Bannon|Steve Bannon]] (born November 27, 1953) is an American media executive and political strategist who served as executive chairman of [[Breitbart News|Breitbart News]] from 2012 (after founder [[Andrew Breitbart|Andrew Breitbart]]'s death) through 2016 and again 2017-2018, as vice president and secretary of [[Cambridge Analytica|Cambridge Analytica]] from June 2014 to August 2016, as chief executive of the [[Donald Trump|Trump]] 2016 presidential campaign from August 17, 2016, and as White House Chief Strategist and Senior Counselor to the President from January 20 to August 18, 2017. The [[Mercer family|Mercer family]] funded Breitbart, bankrolled Cambridge Analytica, and was instrumental in installing Bannon as Trump campaign CEO.[^1][^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Breitbart and the Mercer Funding
|
||||
|
||||
Bannon took over Breitbart News after Andrew Breitbart's death in 2012. [[Robert Mercer|Robert Mercer]] and his daughter [[Rebekah Mercer|Rebekah Mercer]] were the primary funders of Breitbart during Bannon's tenure, providing the financial base for the outlet's expansion as the media backbone of the [[alt-right|alt-right]] and the emerging Trump coalition. Bannon's Breitbart published the coverage that amplified the [[Gamergate|Gamergate]] campaign's targets and framed the consumer-revolt narrative. The Breitbart-Gamergate pipeline was the channel through which the [[4chan|4chan]] / [[8chan|8chan]] imageboard culture entered mainstream conservative media.[^1][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
Mercer's entry was an investment of about 10 million dollars made in June 2011, before Andrew Breitbart's death, in exchange for a stake in the company; Bannon assumed the executive chairmanship of the firm and of the family's broader political vehicles when Breitbart died in March 2012.[^6] The same year, Bannon co-founded the [[Government Accountability Institute|Government Accountability Institute]] with [[Peter Schweizer|Peter Schweizer]], a Tallahassee-based opposition-research nonprofit that the Mercer Family Foundation funded with more than half its 2013-2015 budget; the Institute produced Schweizer's 2015 book *Clinton Cash*, whose findings were placed with the *New York Times* and *Washington Post* and used to drive negative coverage of [[Hillary Clinton|Hillary Clinton]] ahead of the 2016 race.[^6] The 2017 Paradise Papers later showed Mercer routing political money through offshore accounts to build a war chest reported at roughly 60 million dollars for conservative causes including Breitbart and the Institute.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Cambridge Analytica and the Facebook Data Harvesting
|
||||
|
||||
Bannon served as vice president and secretary of Cambridge Analytica from June 2014 to August 2016. The [[Guardian|Guardian]] reporting (March 2018), based on the whistleblower [[Christopher Wylie|Christopher Wylie]] disclosures, documented that Bannon oversaw the firm's Facebook data-harvesting project that acquired data on up to 87 million Facebook users through the [[Aleksandr Kogan|Aleksandr Kogan]] academic-researcher channel. The data was used for psychographic profiling of voters in the 2016 Trump campaign. Mercer provided approximately 15 million dollars in Cambridge Analytica funding. [[Jane Mayer|Jane Mayer]]'s *[[The New Yorker|New Yorker]]* reporting documented Bannon's involvement in Cambridge Analytica's [[Brexit|Brexit]]-related activities before he formally joined the Trump campaign.[^2][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
The firm was created in 2013 as a U.S.-facing spin-off of the British military-contracting firm SCL Group, after its chief executive [[Alexander Nix|Alexander Nix]] met the Mercers aboard the family's yacht with Bannon present; Mercer agreed to the roughly 15 million dollar stake, Bannon was given the company name (a nod to the Cambridge academics Nix was recruiting) and a board seat as vice president.[^7] Testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 16, 2018, Wylie said Bannon had engaged SCL, "a foreign military contractor," to build "an arsenal of informational weapons" he could deploy on the American population because he "saw cultural warfare as the means to create enduring change in American politics," and that the firm tested 2014 slogans later used in the Trump campaign and discussed voter-suppression messaging aimed at Black voters.[^7] The harvested data originated in a personality-quiz app built by Kogan, whose firm Global Science Research passed the resulting profiles to Cambridge Analytica in breach of Facebook's platform terms, the disclosure that drove Facebook's stock down and produced a 5 billion dollar U.S. Federal Trade Commission settlement in 2019.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### The 2016 Trump Campaign and the White House
|
||||
|
||||
Bannon joined the Trump campaign as chief executive on August 17, 2016, replacing [[Paul Manafort|Paul Manafort]] at the top of the organizational chart, alongside [[Kellyanne Conway|Kellyanne Conway]] as campaign manager. Rebekah Mercer was reportedly instrumental in installing Bannon. After the election, Bannon received the newly created role of White House Chief Strategist and Senior Counselor, and a seat on the [[National Security Council|National Security Council]]'s Principals Committee (later removed). Trump fired Bannon on August 18, 2017, after the [[Charlottesville|Charlottesville]] "Unite the Right" violence and the documented tensions within the White House staff.[^1][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
The Mercers had moved their support from [[Ted Cruz|Ted Cruz]] to Trump after the primaries, repurposing their pro-Cruz super PAC Keep the Promise I (seeded with an 11 million dollar Robert Mercer contribution) into the anti-Clinton vehicle Make America Number 1, informally "Defeat Crooked Hillary," run by Rebekah Mercer, so that Bannon's August 2016 elevation brought the campaign both his Breitbart apparatus and the Mercer money in one move, a transition Joshua Green's *Devil's Bargain* (Penguin Press, 2017) reconstructed from interviews as the culmination of Bannon's years-long project to destroy Clinton.[^8] In the White House, Bannon was placed on the NSC Principals Committee by the January 28, 2017 reorganization in part, per a White House official, to monitor first national security adviser [[Michael Flynn|Michael Flynn]]; after Flynn's resignation and the arrival of [[H.R. McMaster|H.R. McMaster]], McMaster's restructuring removed Bannon from the committee on April 5, 2017 and restored the director of national intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs as regular attendees.[^9] Bannon's August 18, 2017 firing came two days after an August 16 interview with Robert Kuttner of *The American Prospect*, which Bannon's associates said he had not understood to be on the record, in which he declared "there's no military solution" to North Korea and disparaged White House and State Department colleagues, compounding the post-Charlottesville friction.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: For Bannon's Breitbart tenure and the Mercer funding, see the contemporaneous press (*New York Times*, *Washington Post*) and Jane Mayer's *Dark Money*.
|
||||
[^2]: "Revealed: 50 million Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach." *The Guardian,* March 17, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/cambridge-analytica-facebook-influence-us-election
|
||||
[^3]: For the 2016 campaign CEO role and the White House Chief Strategist tenure, see the contemporaneous press coverage.
|
||||
[^4]: For the Breitbart-Gamergate pipeline, see the Gamergate page.
|
||||
[^5]: Mayer, Jane. "New Evidence Emerges of Steve Bannon and Cambridge Analytica's Role in Brexit." *The New Yorker.*
|
||||
[^6]: "The Mercers and Stephen Bannon: How a populist power base was funded and built." *Washington Post.* https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/mercer-bannon/ . For the June 2011 10 million dollar Breitbart investment, the Government Accountability Institute funding, and the *Clinton Cash* placement, see also "Steve Bannon used Robert Mercer's offshore millions to accuse Clinton of corruption." *ThinkProgress,* November 8, 2017.
|
||||
[^7]: "Christopher Wylie: Bannon wanted 'weapons' to fight a 'culture war' at Cambridge Analytica," testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, May 16, 2018. *CBS News.* https://www.cbsnews.com/live-news/senate-cambridge-analytica-whistleblower-christopher-wylie-live-stream-updates-today-2018-05-16 ; and "How Steve Bannon used Cambridge Analytica to further his alt-right vision for America." *CNN,* March 30, 2018. https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/30/politics/bannon-cambridge-analytica
|
||||
[^8]: Green, Joshua. *Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency.* Penguin Press, 2017. For the Make America Number 1 / Keep the Promise I super PAC and the Mercer contribution, see "Make America Number 1." *Ballotpedia.* https://ballotpedia.org/Make_America_Number_1
|
||||
[^9]: "Stephen Bannon removed from National Security Council." *Washington Post,* April 5, 2017. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/04/05/steven-bannon-no-longer-a-member-of-national-security-council/ ; Kuttner, Robert. "Steve Bannon, Unrepentant." *The American Prospect,* August 16, 2017. https://prospect.org/2017/08/16/steve-bannon-unrepentant/
|
||||
48
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Stewart Brand.md
Normal file
48
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Stewart Brand.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,48 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Authors & Journalists"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- StewartBrand
|
||||
- WholeEarthCatalog
|
||||
- Counterculture
|
||||
- Cyberculture
|
||||
- LongNow
|
||||
- Cybernetics
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Stewart Brand
|
||||
summary: "Stewart Brand is the founder of the Whole Earth Catalog, the WELL, the Global Business Network, and the Long Now Foundation, the figure who carried 1960s counterculture into Silicon Valley tech-utopianism."
|
||||
born: 1938
|
||||
location: "California"
|
||||
created: 2026-06-20
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-20
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Stewart Brand (born December 14, 1938) is an American writer, editor, and impresario who founded the *Whole Earth Catalog* in 1968, the online community the WELL in 1985, the corporate consultancy the Global Business Network in 1987, and the Long Now Foundation in 1996. A Stanford-trained biologist, Merry Prankster, and organizer of Ken Kesey's Trips Festival, he is the figure most often credited with carrying the values of the 1960s San Francisco counterculture, communalism, personal liberation, and a faith in "tools," into the personal-computer and internet culture of Silicon Valley, a passage documented by [[Fred Turner]] in *From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism* (2006).[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### From the Counterculture to the Whole Earth Catalog
|
||||
|
||||
Brand graduated in biology from Stanford University in 1960, studying under the ecologist Paul Ehrlich, and served as a U.S. Army infantry officer. In the mid-1960s he joined Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, helped stage the Acid Tests, and produced the three-day Trips Festival in San Francisco in January 1966. In 1966 he ran a public campaign asking why no photograph of the whole Earth from space had yet been published, selling buttons that read "Why haven't we seen a photograph of the whole Earth yet?"; he put a NASA image of the planet on the cover when he launched the *Whole Earth Catalog* in the autumn of 1968.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
The *Whole Earth Catalog*, subtitled "Access to Tools" and published from 1968 to 1972 with occasional later editions, was a large-format compendium reviewing books, machines, and ideas for self-sufficient living, organized under headings that began with "Whole Systems," cybernetics, and general systems theory. It opened with the line "We are as gods and might as well get good at it," won the National Book Award in 1972, and became, in Turner's account, a template for a decentralized, tool-using community that later technologists adopted. [[Steve Jobs]] took the farewell line on the back cover of the October 1974 edition, "Stay hungry. Stay foolish," as the closing exhortation of his 2005 Stanford commencement address. Brand also assisted [[Douglas Engelbart]] in staging the December 9, 1968 demonstration in San Francisco later called "the Mother of All Demos," which premiered the mouse, hypertext, and windowed computing.[^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### The WELL, Global Business Network, and Digital Utopianism
|
||||
|
||||
In 1985 Brand and Larry Brilliant founded the Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, or WELL, a dial-up teleconferencing system based in the San Francisco Bay Area that became one of the most influential early online communities and a seedbed of internet culture and the digital-rights movement; the writer Howard Rheingold drew his 1993 book *The Virtual Community* from it. Brand had earlier coined or popularized the slogan "Information wants to be free" at the 1984 Hackers Conference, which he helped organize, capturing the tension he described between information's wanting to be expensive and wanting to be free.[^1][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
In 1987 Brand co-founded the Global Business Network in Berkeley with the futurist Peter Schwartz, Jay Ogilvy, Napier Collyns, and Lawrence Wilkinson, a consultancy that brought the technique of scenario planning, developed earlier at Royal Dutch Shell, to corporations and governments and that linked countercultural futurism to corporate strategy. Through these ventures and his magazine *CoEvolution Quarterly*, Brand moved in the circles that produced *Wired* magazine and the Bay Area's networked-economy boosters of the 1990s, and Turner's history identifies him as the connective figure between the New Communalist counterculture and the libertarian techno-utopianism of that decade.[^4][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Long Now Foundation and Long-Term Thinking
|
||||
|
||||
In 1996 Brand co-founded the Long Now Foundation with the computer scientist Danny Hillis and the musician Brian Eno to promote what they called "long-term thinking" across a horizon of ten thousand years; Eno coined the name to evoke a "long now" set against the short now of quarterly and weekly time. Its flagship project is the Clock of the Long Now, a monument-scale mechanical clock designed by Hillis to keep time for ten thousand years, a prototype of which is under construction inside a mountain in West Texas on land owned by [[Jeff Bezos]], who funded the build. Brand set out the rationale in *The Clock of the Long Now: Time and Responsibility* (1999).[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
Brand's later projects extended the foundation's long-horizon framing into biotechnology and environmental politics. He co-founded Revive & Restore, a Long Now project pursuing the genetic "de-extinction" of species such as the passenger pigeon and the woolly mammoth, and in *Whole Earth Discipline* (2009) he argued for nuclear power, genetic engineering, and geoengineering as environmental tools, declaring again that "we are as gods and have to get good at it."[^1][^7]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: "Stewart Brand," Long Now Foundation people page, on his Stanford biology degree, Army service, the *Whole Earth Catalog*, the WELL, the Hackers Conference, the Global Business Network, the Long Now Foundation, the Clock of the Long Now, Revive & Restore, the Pace Layers framework, and his books. https://longnow.org/people/sb1/
|
||||
[^2]: Turner, Fred. *From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism.* University of Chicago Press, 2006; on Brand's path from the Merry Pranksters and Trips Festival through the *Whole Earth Catalog* to digital utopianism.
|
||||
[^3]: "50 Years Ago, the Whole Earth Catalog Launched and Reinvented the Environmental Movement," *Smithsonian,* on the 1968 launch, the NASA whole-Earth cover, "We are as gods and might as well get good at it," and the catalog's reach to hippies and technologists; and "Steve Jobs to 2005 Graduates: 'Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish,'" Stanford Report, June 2005, on the back-cover quotation of the 1974 catalog. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/50-years-ago-whole-earth-catalog-launched-reinvented-environmental-movement-180969682/
|
||||
[^4]: "The Mother of All Demos," and contemporary accounts, on Brand's role assisting Douglas Engelbart's December 9, 1968 demonstration; and on the WELL (1985), Howard Rheingold's *The Virtual Community* (1993), and "Information wants to be free" from the 1984 Hackers Conference.
|
||||
[^5]: "Global Business Network," on the 1987 founding in Berkeley by Peter Schwartz, Jay Ogilvy, Stewart Brand, Napier Collyns, and Lawrence Wilkinson, and the firm's scenario-planning practice; and Schwartz, Peter. *The Art of the Long View.* 1991.
|
||||
[^6]: Brand, Stewart. *The Clock of the Long Now: Time and Responsibility.* Basic Books, 1999; and Long Now Foundation, "The 10,000 Year Clock," on the 1996 founding with Danny Hillis and Brian Eno, Eno's naming, and the West Texas clock site on land owned by Jeff Bezos. https://longnow.org/clock/
|
||||
[^7]: Brand, Stewart. *Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto.* Viking, 2009, on nuclear power, genetic engineering, geoengineering, and "we are as gods and have to get good at it"; and Long Now Foundation, "Revive & Restore," on de-extinction of the passenger pigeon and woolly mammoth.
|
||||
55
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Ted Cruz.md
Normal file
55
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Ted Cruz.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,55 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Political Figure"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- TedCruz
|
||||
- RepublicanParty
|
||||
- Texas
|
||||
- Senate
|
||||
- CambridgeAnalytica
|
||||
- PeterThiel
|
||||
- Dialog
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Rafael Edward Cruz
|
||||
- Senator Ted Cruz
|
||||
summary: "Ted Cruz is a U.S. Senator from Texas whose name appeared on the leaked 2026 roster of Peter Thiel's Dialog society, whose 2016 presidential campaign paid Cambridge Analytica more than 5.8 million dollars, and whose largest early backer was Peter Thiel."
|
||||
born: 1970-12-22
|
||||
location: "Calgary, Alberta, Canada (born); Houston, Texas (political base)"
|
||||
created: 2026-06-20
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-20
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz (born December 22, 1970, in [[Calgary]], [[Alberta]], [[Canada]]) is an American politician and lawyer who has served as a U.S. Senator from [[Texas]] since 2013. In June 2026 Cruz was named by *WIRED* among the figures surfaced in the leak of [[Dialog]], the invitation-only society cofounded by [[Peter Thiel]] and [[Auren Hoffman]]. Cruz's 2016 presidential campaign was an early client of [[Cambridge Analytica]], the data firm financed by the Republican donor [[Robert Mercer]], and Thiel was among Cruz's largest financial backers in his early statewide campaigns.[^1][^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Education, Solicitor General, and the Senate
|
||||
|
||||
Cruz graduated from [[Princeton University]] in 1992 and earned a law degree from [[Harvard Law School]] in 1995. He clerked for Chief Justice [[William Rehnquist]], worked at the [[Federal Trade Commission]] and the [[Department of Justice]], and served as solicitor general of Texas from 2003 to 2008, arguing cases before the [[Supreme Court of the United States|U.S. Supreme Court]]. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2012, taking office in January 2013, and was reelected in 2018 and 2024.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
Cruz built a national profile within the [[Republican Party]] as a confrontational conservative, leading the 2013 effort that produced a federal government shutdown over the [[Affordable Care Act]] and mounting a presidential campaign in 2016 in which he finished second to [[Donald Trump]] for the nomination. His Texas campaigns drew heavily on out-of-state conservative donor networks, including [[Club for Growth]] and the family of Robert Mercer.[^3][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Peter Thiel's Early Donations
|
||||
|
||||
Thiel was an early and substantial financial backer of Cruz. In 2009 Thiel gave 251,000 dollars to Cruz's aborted run for Texas attorney general, a sum reported as roughly nineteen percent of Cruz's fundraising for that campaign. In the 2012 Senate race Thiel contributed the individual maximum of 5,000 dollars directly to Cruz and gave one million dollars to the [[Club for Growth Action]] super PAC supporting him, the largest single contribution to that committee at the time.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
The relationship drew criticism inside Texas Republican politics because Thiel publicly supported same-sex marriage and marijuana legalization, positions opposed to Cruz's platform. A spokesman for Cruz responded that "Ted's record of defending marriage between one man and one woman is as clear and unwavering as his commitment to reduce the size of government," while the campaign of his primary rival [[David Dewhurst]] called the donor relationship "hypocritical and deceitful." Cruz described Thiel as a friend.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Cambridge Analytica and the Mercer Network
|
||||
|
||||
Cruz's 2016 presidential campaign was the first major American political operation to deploy Cambridge Analytica, the data-analytics firm whose primary investor was the hedge-fund executive Robert Mercer and whose vice president was [[Steve Bannon]]. Federal Election Commission records show the Cruz campaign paid Cambridge Analytica more than 5.8 million dollars for data analysis and online advertising during the 2016 cycle, with an additional 570,000 dollars paid by the pro-Cruz super PAC Keep the Promise II. Mercer donated approximately eleven million dollars to super PACs supporting Cruz's presidential bid.[^2][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
The firm built psychographic voter profiles, dividing the electorate into psychological categories, work later tied to the harvesting of data from tens of millions of [[Facebook]] users. After Cruz dropped out in 2016, Mercer, Bannon, and Cambridge Analytica shifted to the Trump campaign. When the [[Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal]] broke in March 2018, Cruz said the firm had assured his campaign its methods were legal: "Cambridge Analytica represented to the campaign that all data in their possession were legally obtained and that they were in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations, and the campaign relied on those representations." His spokeswoman, Catherine Frazier, said the campaign had included explicit contractual language requiring lawful conduct.[^2][^5][^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### The 2026 Dialog Leak
|
||||
|
||||
The June 16, 2026 *WIRED* report identified Cruz on the Dialog roster as "U.S. Senator (R-TX)," listing him among the sitting senators of both parties surfaced when the hacktivist [[maia arson crimew|crimew]] located a member directory in the source code of Dialog's website and a separate source provided the publication with the 222-name registration list for the society's retreat near [[Dublin]], scheduled for August 12 through 16, 2026. *WIRED* placed Cruz alongside [[Cory Booker|Senator Cory Booker]] and Colorado governor [[Jared Polis]] among the political figures on the list.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
Cruz had received Thiel's financial backing in earlier cycles and has acknowledged a personal friendship with Thiel, the chairman of [[Palantir Technologies]] and cofounder of [[Founders Fund]].[^1][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Cameron, Dell, and Yulia Almazova. "Leak Exposes Members of Peter Thiel's Secretive 'Dialog' Society." *WIRED,* June 16, 2026. https://www.wired.com/story/leak-exposes-members-of-peter-thiels-secretive-dialog-society/
|
||||
[^2]: "Before Trump, Cambridge Analytica was on team Cruz." *OpenSecrets,* March 2018. https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/03/before-trump-cambridge-analytica-was-on-team-cruz
|
||||
[^3]: "Cruz Mega-Donor is Gay, Pro-Pot Billionaire." *Texas Tribune,* July 3, 2012. https://www.texastribune.org/2012/07/03/ted-cruzs-gay-billionaire-donor-draws-criticism/
|
||||
[^4]: "CRUZ, Rafael Edward (Ted)." Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. https://bioguide.congress.gov/search/bio/C001098
|
||||
[^5]: "Cambridge Analytica Helped Ted Cruz Win Iowa But Now May Haunt His Reelection." *Texas Monthly,* 2018. https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/cambridge-analytica-helped-ted-cruz-win-iowa-now-may-haunt-reelection/
|
||||
[^6]: "Ted Cruz says Cambridge Analytica told his presidential campaign its data use was legal." *Texas Tribune,* March 20, 2018. https://www.texastribune.org/2018/03/20/ted-cruz-campaign-cambridge-analytica/
|
||||
79
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Virginia Giuffre.md
Normal file
79
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Virginia Giuffre.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,79 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Crime & Abuse Networks"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- VirginiaGiuffre
|
||||
- JeffreyEpstein
|
||||
- GhislaineMaxwell
|
||||
- PrinceAndrew
|
||||
- SexTrafficking
|
||||
- MaraLago
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Virginia Roberts
|
||||
- Virginia Roberts Giuffre
|
||||
summary: "Virginia Giuffre is a sex-trafficking survivor and advocate who said Ghislaine Maxwell recruited her at Mar-a-Lago around 2000 when she was a teenager and that Jeffrey Epstein trafficked her to others including Prince Andrew, who litigated against Maxwell and Andrew, and who died by suicide in Western Australia on April 25, 2025."
|
||||
born: 1983-08-09
|
||||
died: 2025-04-25
|
||||
location: "Neergabby, Western Australia (died)"
|
||||
created: 2026-06-20
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-20
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Virginia Giuffre, born Virginia Roberts on August 9, 1983, was an American-born sex-trafficking survivor and advocate who became one of the most prominent accusers of [[Jeffrey Epstein|Jeffrey Epstein]] and [[Ghislaine Maxwell|Ghislaine Maxwell]]. She said that Maxwell recruited her around 2000, when she was a teenager working at [[Mar-a-Lago|Mar-a-Lago]], and that Epstein and Maxwell trafficked her to Epstein and to others, an account she set out in court filings, interviews, and a posthumous memoir. She later settled with Epstein, sued Maxwell for defamation, and sued [[Prince Andrew|Prince Andrew]]. She died by suicide at her property in [[Western Australia|Western Australia]] on April 25, 2025, at age 41. Her allegations are documented as her testimony; the individuals she named have denied wrongdoing where they responded.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Early Life
|
||||
|
||||
Giuffre was born Virginia Roberts on August 9, 1983, in Sacramento, California, to Sky and Lynn Roberts, and the family moved to Palm Beach County, Florida, when she was young, where her father later worked in a maintenance role at Mar-a-Lago. She described in interviews and in her memoir a childhood marked by sexual abuse beginning around age seven, repeated running away, periods living with relatives in California and in foster care, and time at a facility for troubled youth. She said that in the late 1990s, as a young teenager, she had been drawn into an earlier trafficking situation before returning to her family.[^1][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
In the summer of 2000 Giuffre took a job as a locker-room attendant at the Mar-a-Lago spa, an arrangement she said was facilitated through her father's employment there. She was 16 or 17 at the time of her recruitment, and accounts vary on the precise age and date; her filings generally placed her recruitment around 2000.[^1][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### Recruitment and Trafficking Allegations
|
||||
|
||||
Giuffre said that Ghislaine Maxwell approached her while she was working at the Mar-a-Lago spa, reading a book on massage therapy, and recruited her ostensibly to train as a masseuse for Epstein, taking her that evening to Epstein's nearby Palm Beach house. She said she was then drawn into sexual abuse by Epstein and trafficked to other men over a period of years, traveling among Epstein's residences in New York, Palm Beach, [[New Mexico|New Mexico]], and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and abroad. She described Maxwell as central to Epstein's operation and said she was presented to Epstein's associates as available for sexual purposes.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
Among the men Giuffre said Epstein directed her to was Prince Andrew, whom she said she was made to have sex with on three occasions beginning in London in March 2001 when she was 17, around the time she was photographed with him at Maxwell's Belgravia home. Andrew has denied the allegations and settled her civil suit without admitting liability. Giuffre also named other men in her filings and interviews, including the financier [[Jean-Luc Brunel|Jean-Luc Brunel]] and the attorney [[Alan Dershowitz|Alan Dershowitz]]; those named denied her accounts. Her allegations against individuals other than Epstein and Maxwell were not adjudicated as criminal findings.[^2][^1]
|
||||
|
||||
The body of allegations rests on Giuffre's sworn testimony, depositions, and statements rather than on criminal convictions of the men she named. Maxwell was convicted in December 2021 on federal sex-trafficking charges arising from the broader Epstein scheme, though that prosecution did not turn on Giuffre as a charged victim. Epstein was indicted federally in July 2019 and died in custody the following month before trial, his death ruled a suicide.[^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Australia and Advocacy
|
||||
|
||||
Giuffre said she left Epstein's circle around 2002 after he sent her abroad, including to Thailand to train in massage, where she met the Australian Robert Giuffre, whom she married and with whom she settled in [[Australia|Australia]] and raised three children, adopting the surname Giuffre. She lived for years in Western Australia, latterly on a property at Neergabby north of Perth.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
She became a public advocate for survivors of trafficking and sexual abuse, founding a nonprofit she initially called Victims Refuse Silence, later reorganized under the name Speak Out, Act, Reclaim, abbreviated SOAR. Her name and account featured in much of the reporting that drove renewed scrutiny of Epstein from the mid-2010s onward, including the work that culminated in his 2019 federal arrest.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
Through her advocacy and litigation Giuffre pressed for the public release of records in the Epstein matter and lent her name to campaigns supporting trafficking survivors. She cooperated with journalists and investigators over more than a decade, sitting for depositions and providing the photograph and other materials that entered the court record, and her sworn statements became part of the documentary record in multiple cases.[^1][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Litigation
|
||||
|
||||
Giuffre, then using the name Virginia Roberts, sued Epstein in 2009 in Florida, alleging abuse; that matter was resolved by a confidential settlement reported at 500,000 dollars and dismissed late that year. The settlement, unsealed on January 3, 2022, released Epstein and a category of unnamed "second parties" and "potential defendants," and its release language later became a contested issue in the suit against Prince Andrew, where Judge [[Lewis Kaplan|Lewis Kaplan]] held in January 2022 that the language was too ambiguous to clearly bar the claim against Andrew.[^4][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
In September 2015 Giuffre sued Maxwell for defamation in the [[United States District Court for the Southern District of New York|Southern District of New York]] after Maxwell, through a representative, publicly called her allegations lies. The case, [[Giuffre v. Maxwell|Giuffre v. Maxwell]], No. 15-cv-07433, produced a large body of depositions and exhibits, including testimony from [[Johanna Sjoberg|Johanna Sjoberg]] and others, and it settled in 2017 on undisclosed terms. Tranches of documents from that case were unsealed beginning in 2019, with a major release of formerly sealed exhibits in January 2024; reporting on the January 2024 unsealing noted it largely concerned already-known figures and contained no new criminal accusation against previously unnamed people.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
On August 9, 2021, Giuffre sued Prince Andrew in the same court under New York's Child Victims Act, alleging he sexually abused her on three occasions when she was 17. After Kaplan denied Andrew's motion to dismiss in January 2022, the suit settled in February 2022, the joint filing stating that Andrew would make "a substantial donation to Ms. Giuffre's charity in support of victims' rights" and acknowledging her as "an established victim of abuse," with no admission of liability and the sum undisclosed.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
### Dershowitz Allegations
|
||||
|
||||
Giuffre alleged in a 2014 court filing and subsequently that Epstein had trafficked her to the attorney Alan Dershowitz, who had been part of Epstein's legal defense team in Florida. Dershowitz denied the allegations from the outset, calling them fabricated and describing Giuffre at points as a liar, and the two sides litigated competing defamation claims. Giuffre sued Dershowitz for defamation in April 2019; Dershowitz countersued in November 2019.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
In November 2022 the parties, together with the attorney [[David Boies|David Boies]], reached a global settlement resolving the litigation. In her settlement statement Giuffre wrote: "I have long believed that I was trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein to Alan Dershowitz. However, I was very young at the time, it was a very stressful and traumatic environment, and Mr. Dershowitz has from the beginning consistently denied these allegations." She added that she "may have made a mistake" in identifying him. The agreement resolved all pending litigation without any payment from Dershowitz to Giuffre, and Dershowitz characterized the outcome as a vindication of his denials.[^9][^10]
|
||||
|
||||
### Death and Memoir
|
||||
|
||||
In late March 2025 Giuffre posted that she had been hospitalized in Western Australia after the vehicle she was in was struck by a school bus, writing in one social-media post that she had gone into renal failure and had been given "four days to live." Western Australia Police said no injuries were reported at the scene, and the bus driver and other parties disputed the severity she described; a source said she was not in a life-threatening condition. She left the hospital roughly a week later. Reporting on these contradictions circulated in early April 2025.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
Giuffre died by suicide on April 25, 2025, at her property in Neergabby, Western Australia, at age 41. Her family said in a statement that she "lost her life to suicide, after being a lifelong victim of sexual abuse and sex trafficking" and that "the toll of abuse is so heavy that it became unbearable for Virginia." Western Australia Police said her death was not being treated as suspicious. Her death came roughly a month after the bus incident and about six months before the scheduled publication of her memoir.[^2][^6]
|
||||
|
||||
Her memoir [[Nobody's Girl|Nobody's Girl]], co-written with the author [[Amy Wallace|Amy Wallace]], was published posthumously by Alfred A. Knopf on October 21, 2025, following her stated wish that it appear regardless of her circumstances. The book recounts her account of recruitment at Mar-a-Lago, the years of trafficking, and the litigation that followed, and it repeats her allegations against Epstein, Maxwell, Andrew, and others. Its publication coincided with the renewed pressure on Andrew that preceded the removal of his titles, and it reached the top of bestseller lists in the weeks after release.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: "Virginia Giuffre," *Encyclopaedia Britannica,* 2025. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Virginia-Giuffre
|
||||
[^2]: "Virginia Giuffre, one of Jeffrey Epstein's most prominent abuse survivors, dies by suicide," *NBC News,* April 2025. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/virginia-giuffre-one-jeffrey-epsteins-prominent-abuse-survivors-dies-s-rcna203027
|
||||
[^3]: Giuffre v. Maxwell, No. 15-cv-07433 (S.D.N.Y.), and unsealed exhibits, January 2024. https://www.justice.gov/multimedia/Court%20Records/Giuffre%20v.%20Maxwell,%20No.%20115-cv-07433%20(S.D.N.Y.%202015)/
|
||||
[^4]: "Billionaire's Alleged Sex Slave Settles Libel Case," *Courthouse News Service,* and reporting on the 2009 Epstein settlement. https://www.courthousenews.com/billionaires-alleged-sex-slave-settles-libel-case/
|
||||
[^5]: "Lawyers say settlement reached in Virginia Giuffre's lawsuit against Prince Andrew," *PBS NewsHour,* February 15, 2022. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/lawyers-say-settlement-reached-in-virginia-giuffres-lawsuit-against-prince-andrew
|
||||
[^6]: "Virginia Giuffre, prominent Jeffrey Epstein accuser, dies by suicide," *Yahoo News,* April 2025. https://www.yahoo.com/news/virginia-giuffre-prominent-jeffrey-epstein-015432265.html
|
||||
[^7]: "Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice," Alfred A. Knopf / Penguin Random House, October 21, 2025. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/712958/nobodys-girl-by-virginia-roberts-giuffre/
|
||||
[^8]: "Virginia Giuffre," *Encyclopaedia Britannica,* 2025 (early life and recruitment). https://www.britannica.com/biography/Virginia-Giuffre
|
||||
[^9]: "Virginia Giuffre drops allegations against Alan Dershowitz, saying she 'may have made a mistake,'" *CNN,* November 8, 2022. https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/08/us/alan-dershowitz-virginia-giuffre-allegations-dropped
|
||||
[^10]: "Epstein victim drops her lawsuit against lawyer Alan Dershowitz," *NBC News,* November 2022. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/epstein-victim-drops-lawsuit-lawyer-alan-dershowitz-rcna56250
|
||||
49
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Wei Dai.md
Normal file
49
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Wei Dai.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Technologists"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- WeiDai
|
||||
- Cryptography
|
||||
- Cypherpunks
|
||||
- DigitalCash
|
||||
- Bitcoin
|
||||
- Rationalism
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Wei Dai
|
||||
summary: "Wei Dai is a computer engineer who proposed the b-money digital-cash scheme cited in the Bitcoin white paper, created the Crypto++ library, and posts in the rationalist community."
|
||||
born: 1976
|
||||
location: "United States"
|
||||
created: 2026-06-19
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-19
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Wei Dai is a computer engineer and cryptographer associated with the [[Cypherpunks]] movement who proposed "b-money," an early scheme for anonymous, government-resistant digital money that [[Satoshi Nakamoto]] cited as the first reference in the [[Bitcoin]] white paper. He created the Crypto++ open-source cryptography library and is an active participant in the [[Rationalist Community|rationalist community]] around [[LessWrong]].[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### B-money
|
||||
|
||||
Born in 1976 and educated in computer science with a mathematics minor at the [[University of Washington]], Dai published the b-money proposal on the cypherpunks mailing list in November 1998. It opened by crediting [[Timothy May]]'s crypto-anarchy, in which "the government is not temporarily destroyed but permanently forbidden and permanently unnecessary," and described "a scheme for a group of untraceable digital pseudonyms to pay each other with money and to enforce contracts amongst themselves without outside help."[^1][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
The proposal set out two protocols. In the first, every participant kept a separate copy of how much money belonged to each pseudonym, and money was created by broadcasting the solution to "a previously unsolved computational problem," with the number of units minted equal to the cost of the computing effort measured against a standard basket of commodities. Recognizing that universal broadcast was impractical, Dai sketched a second protocol in which a subset of participants, the "servers," maintained the accounts on a Usenet-style broadcast channel and each deposited money in a special account to be forfeited as a fine on proof of misconduct, a bonded-validator structure that anticipated later proof-of-stake systems.[^3][^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Citation in the Bitcoin White Paper
|
||||
|
||||
B-money appears as the first numbered reference in Satoshi Nakamoto's 2008 paper "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System." Nakamoto first emailed Dai on August 22, 2008, writing, "I was very interested to read your b-money page," explaining that he was preparing "a paper that expands on your ideas into a complete working system," and that [[Adam Back]] of hashcash.org "noticed the similarities and pointed me to your site." Nakamoto asked for the year of publication so he could cite it, and Dai replied that b-money had been announced on the cypherpunks list in 1998.[^2][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
Nakamoto wrote to Dai again on January 10, 2009, the day after releasing the Bitcoin software, saying it "achieves nearly all the goals you set out to solve in your b-money paper" through a system "entirely decentralized, without any server or trusted parties." Dai has said the creator did not actually read his proposal before independently reinventing the idea, learning of it and crediting him only afterward, and that he believes Nakamoto arrived at the concept independently. The smallest unit of ether on [[Ethereum]], the "wei," equal to one quintillionth of an ether, is named after Dai.[^4][^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Crypto++ and the Rationalist Community
|
||||
|
||||
Dai released the first version of his Crypto++ open-source C++ cryptography library in June 1995 and worked as a programmer at the firm TerraSciences and then in Microsoft's cryptography research group, where he co-proposed the VMAC authentication algorithm and held cryptography patents, before turning the library over to the community in 2015.[^1][^7]
|
||||
|
||||
On LessWrong, the rationalist forum founded by [[Eliezer Yudkowsky]], Dai introduced updateless decision theory in his August 2009 post "Towards a New Decision Theory," a framework treating the decision-maker as an algorithm that does not update on observations, which resolves Newcomb's problem and counterfactual mugging and fed into the functional decision theory later developed at the [[Machine Intelligence Research Institute|MIRI]]. He is a pessimistic voice on artificial-intelligence safety, arguing that problems in metaethics and metaphilosophy should be solved before building artificial general intelligence, which places him within the same [[Extropianism|extropian]]-descended intellectual milieu that produced [[Hal Finney]] and [[Nick Szabo]].[^5][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: "Cypherpunks Write Code: Wei Dai and B-money," *Medium,* on Dai's biography, b-money, Crypto++, and LessWrong activity. https://medium.com/@Carrsos1/cypherpunks-write-code-wei-dai-and-b-money-or-a-coin-before-bitcoin-8bf5836bfb36
|
||||
[^2]: Nakamoto, Satoshi. "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System," 2008, citing Wei Dai's b-money. https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
|
||||
[^3]: Dai, Wei. "b-money," 1998. http://www.weidai.com/bmoney.txt
|
||||
[^4]: "Wei Dai/Satoshi Nakamoto 2009 Bitcoin emails," Gwern.net, on the 2008 correspondence and Back pointing Nakamoto to b-money. https://gwern.net/doc/bitcoin/2008-nakamoto
|
||||
[^5]: "The Extropian Roots of Bitcoin," *CCN,* on the extropian and cypherpunk overlap of Dai, Finney, and Szabo. https://www.ccn.com/extropian-roots-bitcoin/
|
||||
[^6]: Dai, Wei. "b-money," 1998, on the two protocols, proof-of-work issuance, and the bonded servers. https://nakamotoinstitute.org/library/b-money/ "Satoshi Nakamoto emails to Wei Dai, 2008-2009," Gwern.net, on the August 22, 2008 and January 10, 2009 messages. https://gwern.net/doc/bitcoin/2008-nakamoto
|
||||
[^7]: Crypto++ Library, weidai11/cryptopp, GitHub, on the June 1995 first release and the library's history. https://github.com/weidai11/cryptopp
|
||||
[^8]: Dai, Wei. "Towards a New Decision Theory," LessWrong, August 13, 2009. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/de3xjFaACCAk6imzv/towards-a-new-decision-theory
|
||||
53
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/William Burns.md
Normal file
53
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/William Burns.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Intelligence & Government"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- WilliamBurns
|
||||
- CIA
|
||||
- StateDepartment
|
||||
- JeffreyEpstein
|
||||
- Palantir
|
||||
- Biden
|
||||
- Intelligence
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- William J. Burns
|
||||
- Bill Burns
|
||||
summary: "William J. Burns is an American diplomat and intelligence official who served as U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, president of the Carnegie Endowment, and Director of Central Intelligence from 2021 to 2025 under Joe Biden, and whose multiple 2014 meetings with Jeffrey Epstein at the Epstein Manhattan townhouse were documented in the Wall Street Journal's 2023 review of the Epstein calendars."
|
||||
born: 1956-04-11
|
||||
location: "Fort Bragg, North Carolina (born)"
|
||||
created: 2026-06-18
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-18
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
William J. Burns (born April 11, 1956, at [[Fort Bragg|Fort Bragg, North Carolina]]) is an American diplomat and intelligence official who served as the [[Director of Central Intelligence]] from March 2021 to January 2025 under President [[Joe Biden|Joe Biden]]. Burns's career spans the [[United States Foreign Service|Foreign Service]] (ambassador to [[Jordan]] 1998-2001, assistant secretary of state for [[Near Eastern Affairs]] 2001-2005, ambassador to [[Russia]] 2005-2008, deputy secretary of state 2011-2014), the think-tank sector (president of the [[Carnegie Endowment for International Peace]] 2015-2021), and the intelligence community (CIA director 2021-2025). The [[Wall Street Journal]] reported in 2023, on the basis of the [[Epstein Files|Epstein calendars]], that Burns met with [[Jeffrey Epstein]] on multiple occasions in 2014 at the Epstein Manhattan townhouse, while Burns was between the deputy-secretary-of-state tenure and the Carnegie Endowment presidency. Burns stated through a spokesperson that he "deeply regrets" the meetings and was unaware of Epstein's 2008 conviction at the time.[^1][^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Career and the Diplomatic-to-Intelligence Trajectory
|
||||
|
||||
Burns entered the Foreign Service in 1982 and rose through the Near Eastern Affairs and policy-planning ranks under both Republican and Democratic administrations. His ambassadorial assignments in Jordan and Russia and his tenure as assistant secretary for Near Eastern Affairs placed him at the operational center of U.S. Middle East policy across the [[September 11 attacks|9/11]] period, the [[Iraq War|Iraq War]], and the post-[[Arab Spring|Arab Spring]] regional realignment. His 2011-2014 tenure as deputy secretary of state under [[Hillary Clinton|Hillary Clinton]] and [[John Kerry|John Kerry]] covered the [[Benghazi|Benghazi]] period, the [[Iran nuclear deal|Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA)]] negotiations, and the early stages of the [[Syrian Civil War|Syrian conflict]].[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
The 2014 transition from deputy secretary of state to the [[Carnegie Endowment]] presidency is the gap during which the Epstein meetings occurred. Burns left government in November 2014 and took the Carnegie Endowment presidency in February 2015, and the WSJ-reported Epstein meetings fall within the 2014 window when Burns was a private citizen but still the most recently retired deputy secretary of state. Burns spent the six years (2015-2021) between the State Department departure and the CIA directorship at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Epstein Meetings
|
||||
|
||||
The Wall Street Journal's May 2023 report on the Epstein calendars documented that Burns met with Jeffrey Epstein on multiple occasions in 2014, including at the Epstein Manhattan townhouse. The reporting was based on the schedules and emails obtained from the Epstein files, which the WSJ reviewed. The meetings occurred after Epstein's 2008 federal non-prosecution agreement but before the 2019 federal sex-trafficking charges. Burns stated through a spokesperson that he was unaware of Epstein's 2008 conviction at the time and that he cut ties with Epstein upon learning of it. [[The Guardian]] reported Burns's statement that he "deeply regrets ever meeting" with Epstein.[^1][^2]
|
||||
|
||||
The Carstensen EFTA index documents additional Epstein file entries relevant to the Burns-Epstein relationship. The Tommy Carstensen aggregator cross-references the EFTA releases to document the Thiel-Epstein-Burns overlap: [[Peter Thiel]]'s documented 2014 meetings at the Epstein townhouse overlap chronologically with Burns's, placing the chairman of a major [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] contractor ([[Palantir Technologies|Palantir]], whose government business includes the CIA as a client) and the future CIA director in the same Epstein-mediated setting within the same calendar year. Burns became CIA director in March 2021, seven years after the meetings.[^3][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Palantir Overlap
|
||||
|
||||
Palantir Technologies received early funding from the CIA venture arm [[In-Q-Tel]] in 2004 and is a documented CIA platform supplier through its [[Palantir Gotham|Gotham]] product. Burns's CIA directorship (2021-2025) postdated his 2014 Epstein meetings by seven years. The Carstensen EFTA index documents that Peter Thiel's 2014 meetings at the Epstein townhouse overlap chronologically with Burns's, placing the future CIA director and the Palantir chairman on the same Epstein-mediated social terrain within the same calendar year.[^3][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
The substantive question of what was discussed at the Burns-Epstein meetings, and whether any of it touched on Palantir or on intelligence matters, is not documented in the primary sources currently available. Burns's spokesperson's statement framed the meetings as relating to Burns's transition to the Carnegie Endowment and to geopolitics, and the WSJ reporting did not establish that intelligence or contracting matters were discussed. The Epstein calendars and the Carstensen-indexed EFTA entries are the primary record; they document the co-presence but not the meeting content.[^1][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### The CIA Directorship and the Biden Tenure
|
||||
|
||||
Burns was nominated for the CIA directorship by President Biden in November 2020 and confirmed by the Senate in March 2021. His tenure covered the [[Withdrawal from Afghanistan|2021 Afghanistan withdrawal]], the [[Russian invasion of Ukraine|2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine]] (Burns had met with [[Sergei Naryshkin|Russian SVR chief Sergei Naryshkin]] in Moscow in November 2021 in a documented attempt to dissuade the invasion), the [[Hamas-Israel war|2023 Hamas-Israel war]], and the broader [[China|China]]-Russia strategic realignment. Burns returned to private life in January 2025 at the end of the Biden administration.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
The 2023 disclosure of the 2014 Epstein meetings surfaced the connection after Burns had already become CIA director, placing a sitting CIA director in the publicly disclosed Epstein relationship. Burns's spokesperson's framing (unaware of the conviction, regrets the meetings, cut ties on learning) is the official position. The underlying primary documents are the Epstein calendars and the Carstensen-indexed EFTA entries.[^1][^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: "Jeffrey Epstein's Private Calendar: CIA Director William Burns..." *Wall Street Journal,* May 2023. https://www.wsj.com/us-news/jeffrey-epstein-calendar-cia-director-goldman-sachs-noam-chomsky-c9f6a3ff ; For Burns's career and the CIA directorship, see the CIA official biography and the contemporaneous confirmation and tenure coverage.
|
||||
[^2]: "Jeffrey Epstein messaged with former CIA director Bill Burns, files show." *The Guardian,* February 2026. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/04/jeffrey-epstein-bill-burns-cia-messages
|
||||
[^3]: Tommy Carstensen Epstein Files index, "Peter Thiel," cross-referencing the EFTA releases. https://tommycarstensen.com/epstein/people/peter-thiel.html
|
||||
[^4]: For the Palantir Technologies-In-Q-Tel relationship and the CIA client base, see the Palantir Technologies page and the underlying SEC EDGAR filings.
|
||||
59
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/maia arson crimew.md
Normal file
59
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/maia arson crimew.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,59 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Technologists"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Person
|
||||
- MaiaArsonCrimew
|
||||
- TillieKottmann
|
||||
- Hacker
|
||||
- Leak
|
||||
- Verkada
|
||||
- NoFlyList
|
||||
- APT69420
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Tillie Kottmann
|
||||
- crimew
|
||||
- maia arson crimew
|
||||
summary: "maia arson crimew (formerly Tillie Kottmann) is a Swiss hacker from Lucerne who led the collective APT69420, leaked the U.S. No Fly List in January 2023 from a misconfigured CommuteAir server, and in June 2026 published the membership directory of Peter Thiel's secret Dialog society."
|
||||
born: 2000-08-19
|
||||
location: "Lucerne, Switzerland"
|
||||
created: 2026-06-17
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-17
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
maia arson crimew (formerly known as Tillie Kottmann) is a Swiss hacker and software developer from [[Lucerne]], [[Switzerland]], who led the hacker collective [[APT69420]] (Arson Cats) and is known for a series of high-profile data disclosures including the 2021 [[Verkada]] security-camera breach, the January 2023 leak of the U.S. [[No Fly List]] from a misconfigured [[CommuteAir]] server, and the June 2026 publication of the membership directory of [[Peter Thiel]]'s secret society [[Dialog]]. crimew was indicted by a U.S. federal grand jury in the [[Western District of Washington]] in March 2021 on charges of conspiracy, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft related to the 2019-2021 source-code-leak activity, but has not been sentenced because Switzerland does not extradite its own citizens.[^1][^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
crimew produced the 2026 leak that generated the first primary record of Dialog's membership, and the disclosure extends a documented pattern of high-impact releases of sensitive institutional data held by inadequately secured servers. crimew occupies a specific role in the disclosure ecosystem: not a whistleblower with internal access but an external intruder who exploits misconfigured infrastructure, and whose releases are selected for political and public-interest effect rather than for financial gain.
|
||||
|
||||
### The Verkada Breach and APT69420
|
||||
|
||||
crimew led the hacker collective APT69420 (styled Advanced Persistent Threat 69420, a parody of nation-state threat-actor naming conventions), which in March 2021 breached the U.S. security-camera company Verkada. The breach accessed live and archived surveillance footage from approximately 150,000 cameras deployed across hospitals, schools, prisons, police departments, corporate offices, and [[Tesla]] facilities, including cameras inside a Tesla warehouse, the [[Halifax Health]] medical center, and the [[Madison County Jail]] in [[Alabama]]. The access was obtained through a [[super admin]] account found exposed on the company's internal network.[^2][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
A single compromise of the Verkada platform operator exposed footage from thousands of geographically dispersed and functionally unrelated installations. crimew and the APT69420 collective published selected footage and shared access with journalists, framing the release as an exposure of the surveillance infrastructure that organizations had built without adequate awareness of its concentration. The breach prompted Verkada to restructure its access controls and drew regulatory attention to the surveillance-camera-as-a-service industry.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### The No Fly List Leak
|
||||
|
||||
In January 2023 crimew disclosed that, while "bored" in late 2022, they had accessed the U.S. government's No Fly List on an unsecured CommuteAir server (a misconfigured [[Amazon Web Services|AWS]] instance operated by the regional airline). The list, a 2019 version containing approximately 1.5 million entries of individuals barred from boarding commercial flights into or within the United States, was shared with the journalism publication *[[Daily Dot|Daily Dot]]* and subsequently published on a hacking forum. crimew noted in the release that the list "trends towards almost exclusively Arabic sounding names," a finding that became part of the public record of the documented racial and religious disproportion in the watchlisting system.[^3][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
The No Fly List leak placed a copy of a previously secret government watchlist in the public domain and permitted independent analysis of its composition. The release fed into ongoing litigation over the due-process deficiencies of the federal watchlisting system and into academic and journalistic analysis of the list's demographics. The legal status of the list itself remains contested; crimew's release, by making it analyzable, converted a secret instrument of administrative control into a public artifact.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
### Federal Indictment and the Extradition Bar
|
||||
|
||||
In March 2021 crimew was indicted by a U.S. federal grand jury in the Western District of Washington on charges of conspiracy to commit computer fraud and abuse, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft, related to alleged hacking activity between 2019 and 2021 (the source-code-leak cases including [[Intel]], [[Nissan]], and other firms, not the later Verkada or No Fly List disclosures). The conspiracy-to-commit-computer-fraud count carries a maximum of five years; the wire-fraud and aggravated-identity-theft counts carry additional penalties.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
crimew has not been sentenced and is not in U.S. custody, because Switzerland does not extradite its own citizens under its federal constitution. The practical effect is a lifetime travel restriction: crimew cannot leave Switzerland without risk of arrest and extradition to the United States from any third country that does extradite. crimew has spoken publicly about the restriction and continues to live and work in Switzerland. The case is one of a recurring pattern in which European hackers indicted under U.S. computer-fraud statutes remain outside U.S. custody due to national extradition limits, and the pattern is part of the broader jurisdictional friction the U.S. Computer Fraud and Abuse Act produces when applied extraterritorially.[^1][^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Dialog Disclosure
|
||||
|
||||
In June 2026 crimew published a membership directory of the Dialog secret society that had been embedded in the source code of the Dialog website, reflecting the site's access controls. The published list named approximately 113 affiliates. A source separately provided the complete 2026 retreat registration list (222 names) to *WIRED*, which published the combined reporting. crimew's release was the website-source disclosure; the registration list came through a different channel.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
The Dialog disclosure used the same method as the prior releases: external access to inadequately secured infrastructure (the website source code containing the membership directory), a release selected for its political and public-interest weight, and framing language that emphasizes the disclosure function. The target differed from Verkada and the No Fly List: a private convening network rather than a surveillance vendor or a government watchlist, and a network whose secrecy posture had been reinforced by the Thiel-funded [[Bollea v. Gawker|Gawker]] litigation.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: U.S. Department of Justice, Western District of Washington. "Swiss Hacker Indicted for Conspiracy, Wire Fraud, and Aggravated Identity Theft." March 2021. https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdwa/pr/swiss-hacker-indicted-conspiracy-wire-fraud-and-aggravated-identity-theft
|
||||
[^2]: Coverage of the Verkada breach and APT69420 in *Bloomberg,* *The Verge,* and *Wired,* March 2021.
|
||||
[^3]: Coverage of the No Fly List leak in *Daily Dot,* *BleepingComputer,* and *Fortune,* January 2023.
|
||||
[^4]: For the Verkada breach technical detail, see the published APT69420 release materials and contemporaneous security-press coverage.
|
||||
[^5]: crimew, maia arson. No Fly List release statement, January 2023, via the *Daily Dot* publication of the analyzed list.
|
||||
[^6]: For the Swiss non-extradition of citizens and crimew's resulting travel restriction, see *WRS (World Radio Switzerland)* reporting and crimew's own public statements.
|
||||
[^7]: Cameron, Dell, and Yulia Almazova. "Leak Exposes Members of Peter Thiel's Secretive 'Dialog' Society." *WIRED,* June 16, 2026. https://www.wired.com/story/leak-exposes-members-of-peter-thiels-secretive-dialog-society/
|
||||
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Reference in a new issue