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--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Aldous
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Aldous
@ -1,36 +1,68 @@
 ---
-title: Aldous Huxley
-aliases:
-  - Aldous Huxley
-  - Aldous Leonard Huxley
-created: 2026-05-17
-updated: 2026-05-18
 category: "Authors & Journalists"
 tags:
  - Person
  - Author
-  - Parapsychology
  - Psychedelics
+  - Parapsychology
+  - HumanPotentialMovement
+  - SocialControl
+  - Literature
+  - Eugenics
  - UnitedKingdom
-summary: "Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) was a British author and philosopher whose interest in consciousness and psi led him to document his mescaline experiences in The Doors of Perception (1954) and to visit Andrija Puharich's Round Table Foundation parapsychology research group in 1955."
+alias:
+  - Aldous Huxley
+  - Aldous Leonard Huxley
+summary: "Aldous Huxley was the novelist of Brave New World who pioneered the literary use of psychedelics in The Doors of Perception, visited Andrija Puharich's Round Table Foundation parapsychology group, helped seed the Esalen Institute and the Human Potential movement, and lectured on a coming pharmacological dictatorship he called the ultimate revolution."
 born: 1894-07-26
 died: 1963-11-22
-location: "Godalming, Surrey, England"
+location: "Godalming, England; Los Angeles, California"
+created: 2026-05-17
+updated: 2026-06-20
 ---

-Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) was a renowned English writer and philosopher, best known for his dystopian novel *Brave New World*. He had a keen interest in the [[Consciousness|trance state]] and its potential as a means of gathering unseen information about the natural world, a fascination that led him to experiment with psychedelic substances and observe the work of [[Andrija Puharich]][^1].
+Aldous Leonard Huxley (July 26, 1894 to November 22, 1963) was an English writer best known for the dystopian novel *Brave New World* (1932), and later one of the central figures linking the psychedelic counterculture, the [[Esalen Institute]], and the Human Potential movement. He was the grandson of the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley and the younger brother of [[Julian Huxley]], the evolutionary biologist who coined the modern usage of "[[Transhumanism|transhumanism]]." A severe eye infection in his teens left him nearly blind for almost three years and gave him a lifelong preoccupation with perception and with senses beyond the ordinary five. His mescaline experiment recorded in *The Doors of Perception* (1954) introduced psychedelic drugs to a wide literary audience, and his late lectures on what he called the "ultimate revolution" warned of pharmacological methods of social control. He died in Los Angeles on November 22, 1963, having asked to be injected with LSD as he died.[^1][^2][^11]

-Huxley's personal experiences with mescaline, the principal hallucinogenic agent in peyote, were documented in his 1954 book, *The Doors of Perception*. This work explored the expansion of consciousness through drug use and met with both controversy and widespread readership, influencing counterculture movements[^1].
+### Brave New World

-In August 1955, Huxley visited [[Andrija Puharich]] at the [[Round Table Foundation]] in Maine. He was intrigued by the diverse group of individuals assembled by Puharich, including various psychics and researchers. Huxley noted the presence of [[Harry Stump]], the Dutch sculptor, who would go into trances in the [[Faraday Cage]] and produce automatic scripts in Egyptian hieroglyphics[^1].
+*Brave New World*, published in 1932, projected a future World State in which human beings are mass-produced in hatcheries, sorted before birth into a rigid biological caste system from Alpha down to Epsilon, conditioned from infancy to love their assigned station, and kept docile by the pleasure drug soma and by constant consumption and casual sex. The novel satirized the application of [[Eugenics|eugenic]] breeding, Pavlovian conditioning, and Fordist mass production to human life, depicting a totalitarian order that secures obedience not through terror but through engineered contentment. Huxley took the title from Shakespeare's *The Tempest*, in which Miranda exclaims, "O brave new world, that has such people in it."[^1][^3]

-Huxley was present when Puharich attempted to drug [[Harry Stump]] with the *teonanáctl* mushroom. He observed Stump's confused and intoxicated state and insisted that Puharich administer an antidote. Huxley expressed ethical concerns about drugging Stump without his knowledge[^1].
+Huxley returned to the book's themes in *Brave New World Revisited* (1958), a set of essays comparing his 1932 forecast with the world of the 1950s and judging that overpopulation, propaganda, advertising, and chemical persuasion were carrying society toward his imagined dystopia faster than he had expected. He argued there that the methods of control in a future scientific dictatorship would resemble the seductive conditioning of *Brave New World* more than the overt brutality of George Orwell's *Nineteen Eighty-Four*, because a population that has been taught to enjoy its servitude requires no policing.[^3][^4]

-Huxley's interest in the sixth sense stemmed from a childhood eye infection that left him partially blind for nearly three years, making him keenly aware of perception beyond the five known senses[^1].
+### The Doors of Perception and Psychedelics

-### Publications
-*   *Brave New World* (1932)
-*   *The Doors of Perception* (1954)
+In 1953 Huxley wrote to the psychiatrist [[Humphry Osmond]], who was researching [[mescaline]], asking to take the drug under observation, and on May 4, 1953, in his home in Los Angeles, he swallowed four-tenths of a gram of mescaline dissolved in water. His account of the experience appeared as *The Doors of Perception* (1954), which described the way ordinary objects, a vase of flowers, the folds of his trousers, blazed with significance and argued that the brain acts as a "reducing valve" filtering out a wider "Mind at Large" that the drug lets through. The title comes from William Blake's *The Marriage of Heaven and Hell* (1793): "If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite."[^2][^5]
+
+Huxley went on to take [[LSD]], first supplied on Christmas Eve 1955 by the businessman [[Al Hubbard]], and explored the drugs as a route to mystical experience, a theme he had already framed in *The Perennial Philosophy* (1945), his anthology of the common mystical core he discerned across the world's religions. He set out his case for the controlled use of psychedelics in *Heaven and Hell* (1956), the sequel to *The Doors of Perception*. His writings gave the emerging drug culture much of its vocabulary, and the rock band the Doors took its name from his title.[^5][^6]
+
+### Parapsychology and the Round Table Foundation
+
+Huxley's interest in expanded consciousness extended to psychical research and the [[Consciousness|trance state]] as a possible means of perceiving unseen information about the world. In August 1955 he visited the physician and parapsychologist [[Andrija Puharich]] at the [[Round Table Foundation]] in Maine, a privately funded research group that gathered psychics and scientists to study extrasensory perception. Huxley was intrigued by the assembled circle, among them the Dutch sculptor [[Harry Stump]], who would enter trances inside a [[Faraday Cage]] and produce automatic scripts in what was described as Egyptian hieroglyphics.[^11]
+
+During the visit Huxley was present when Puharich attempted to drug Stump with the teonanácatl mushroom without his knowledge. Observing Stump's confused and intoxicated state, Huxley raised ethical objections and insisted that Puharich administer an antidote. The episode is recorded in Annie Jacobsen's history of the United States government's investigations into extrasensory perception.[^11]
+
+### Island, Esalen, and the Human Potential Movement
+
+Huxley's final novel, *Island* (1962), was the utopian counterpart to *Brave New World*, depicting the fictional Pacific island of Pala where a humane society uses the consciousness-expanding "moksha-medicine," a psychedelic, together with meditation, tantric practice, and ecological living, to cultivate awareness rather than to enforce conformity. The book turned the same technologies of mind that the earlier novel had portrayed as instruments of control toward the opposite end of human liberation and growth.[^7]
+
+Huxley's lectures on "human potentialities," which he delivered in the late 1950s and early 1960s, including a 1960 lecture series, supplied the conceptual language for the Esalen Institute, founded at Big Sur, California, in 1962 by [[Michael Murphy]] and Dick Price. Price had been moved by hearing Huxley speak on human potentialities, and the founders drew on Huxley's phrasing in framing Esalen's program; Huxley, his wife Laura, and members of his circle such as Gerald Heard, [[Alan Watts]], and [[Gregory Bateson]] provided early support and networking. Huxley visited Murphy and Price at Big Sur in January 1962, shortly before his death, and his ideas became part of the foundation of the Human Potential movement that grew out of Esalen.[^7][^8]
+
+### The Ultimate Revolution and Pharmacological Control
+
+On March 20, 1962, Huxley delivered a talk to the Berkeley Language Center titled "The Ultimate Revolution," in which he described a coming form of dictatorship that would secure compliance through pleasure rather than pain. He predicted "a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it." He judged that the scientific dictatorships of the future would resemble the *Brave New World* pattern more closely than the *Nineteen Eighty-Four* pattern, because conditioning and chemistry are more efficient instruments of rule than force.[^9][^4]
+
+Huxley was diagnosed with throat cancer and died at his Los Angeles home on November 22, 1963, the day of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Unable to speak, he wrote a request that his wife Laura administer LSD, and she injected him with one hundred micrograms, followed by a second dose, as he died in the late afternoon. Laura Huxley recounted the deathbed scene in a letter to Julian Huxley, later published as part of her memoir *This Timeless Moment* (1968).[^2][^10]

 ### Footnotes
-[^1]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis*. Little, Brown and Company, 2017.
+
+[^1]: Huxley, Aldous. *Brave New World.* Chatto and Windus, 1932; with "Aldous Huxley," *Encyclopædia Britannica,* on his life and family.
+[^2]: "Aldous Huxley, Dying of Cancer, Left This World Tripping on LSD (1963)," *Open Culture,* on the deathbed LSD request and Laura Huxley's letter. https://www.openculture.com/2024/04/aldous-huxley-dying-of-cancer-left-this-world-tripping-on-lsd-1963
+[^3]: Huxley, Aldous. *Brave New World Revisited.* Harper and Brothers, 1958, on the caste system, conditioning, and the comparison with Orwell.
+[^4]: "Aldous Huxley: The Ultimate Revolution," 1962 Berkeley lecture, on the *Brave New World* versus *Nineteen Eighty-Four* contrast and pharmacological control. https://publicintelligence.net/aldous-huxley-1962-u-c-berkeley-speech-on-the-ultimate-revolution/
+[^5]: "When Aldous Huxley Opened the Doors of Perception," *The MIT Press Reader,* on the May 1953 mescaline experiment with Humphry Osmond and the Blake source of the title. https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/when-aldous-huxley-opened-the-doors-of-perception/
+[^6]: "Al Hubbard furnishes Aldous Huxley with LSD on December 24, 1955," HistoryLink, on Huxley's first LSD experience; with Huxley, Aldous. *The Perennial Philosophy.* Harper and Brothers, 1945, and *Heaven and Hell.* Chatto and Windus, 1956.
+[^7]: Huxley, Aldous. *Island.* Chatto and Windus, 1962, on Pala and the moksha-medicine.
+[^8]: "Aldous Huxley's Influence on the Esalen Institute," *Longreads,* on the human-potentialities lectures, Murphy and Price, and the 1962 Big Sur visit. https://longreads.com/2015/06/09/aldous-huxleys-influence-on-the-esalen-institute/
+[^9]: Huxley, Aldous. "The Ultimate Revolution," lecture at the Berkeley Language Center, March 20, 1962, quoted text. https://ia801803.us.archive.org/30/items/huxley-aldous-the-ultimate-revolution_202012/Huxley%20Aldous%20-%20The%20ultimate%20revolution.pdf
+[^10]: Huxley, Laura Archera. *This Timeless Moment: A Personal View of Aldous Huxley.* Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1968, on the deathbed LSD doses.
+[^11]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis.* Little, Brown and Company, 2017, on Huxley's childhood near-blindness, his August 1955 visit to Andrija Puharich's Round Table Foundation, Harry Stump's Faraday-cage trances, and the teonanáctl episode.
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Alex
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Alex
@ -0,0 +1,50 @@
+---
+category: "Technologists"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - AlexKarp
+  - Palantir
+  - PeterThiel
+  - Surveillance
+  - Israel
+summary: "Alex Karp is the cofounder and chief executive of Palantir Technologies, a Stanford-trained social theorist who built the data-analytics firm with Peter Thiel and turned it into a major contractor to U.S. intelligence, the military, and Israel."
+born: 1967-10-02
+location: "Palo Alto, California"
+created: 2026-06-19
+updated: 2026-06-19
+---
+
+Alex Karp (born October 2, 1967) is the cofounder and chief executive of [[Palantir Technologies]], the data-analytics and surveillance firm he built in 2003 with [[Peter Thiel]], [[Joe Lonsdale|Joseph Lonsdale]], [[Stephen Cohen]], and [[Nathan Gettings]]. Trained as a lawyer and a social theorist rather than an engineer, Karp runs the operational side of the company while Thiel chairs it, and he became one of the most outspoken defenders of its work for U.S. intelligence, the military, and [[Israel]].[^1][^2]
+
+### Background
+
+Karp grew up in the [[Philadelphia]] area in a politically left-leaning household, the son of a Jewish pediatrician father and an African American artist mother, and is dyslexic. He took a bachelor's degree from Haverford College in 1989, a law degree at [[Stanford University]] in 1992, where he met Thiel, and a 2002 doctorate in social theory from Goethe University in [[Frankfurt]] with a German-language dissertation titled "Aggression in der Lebenswelt." The doctorate is often described as supervised by the philosopher [[Jürgen Habermas]], but the scholar Moira Weigel, examining the record, found his actual advisor was the sociologist Karola Brede and reported that Habermas had rejected a draft of his thesis.[^1][^7]
+
+Before Palantir, Karp managed money in London through a firm he named the Caedmon Group, seeded with a small inheritance from his grandfather and built up with largely European high-net-worth clients, and he occasionally helped Thiel raise capital. He and Thiel founded Palantir in 2003 with about two million dollars in early backing from the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] venture arm [[In-Q-Tel]] and roughly thirty million dollars Thiel put up himself as conventional venture firms declined, taking its name from the seeing-stones of Tolkien's fiction. Karp has led it as chief executive since, taking it public through a direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange on September 30, 2020, and his 2020 compensation, dominated by stock options, reached about 1.1 billion dollars.[^3][^8]
+
+### Politics and the Gaza War
+
+Karp was critical of [[Donald Trump]] during his first term and backed [[Kamala Harris]] in 2024, but his politics shifted after the October 7, 2023 [[Hamas]] attack on Israel. Palantir signed a strategic partnership with the Israeli Defense Ministry on January 12, 2024, around three months into the war, and held a special board meeting in Tel Aviv that Thiel and Karp attended, supplying its Artificial Intelligence Platform for intelligence and targeting work in [[Gaza]]. He has said that staff departures over his pro-Israel stance do not trouble him, arguing that "if you have a position that does not cost you ever to lose an employee, it's not a position."[^2][^4][^9]
+
+Interrupted by a protester at the Hill and Valley Forum at the U.S. Capitol on April 30, 2025, Karp said "the primary source of death in Palestine" was "the fact that Hamas has realised that there are millions and millions of useful idiots." In Palantir's February 2025 shareholder letter he wrote that the company exists "to scare enemies and, on occasion, kill them," and he has described "wokeness" as a "thin pagan religion" and the central risk to the country. By 2025 Palantir was a leading contractor to the second Trump administration: its Maven Smart System contract was expanded by 795 million dollars in May 2025, and in July 2025 the Army announced a consolidated enterprise agreement with a ceiling of up to ten billion dollars, the largest contract in the company's history.[^5][^10][^11]
+
+### The Technological Republic
+
+Karp published *The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West*, written with [[Nicholas Zamiska]], through Crown on February 18, 2025, and it became a New York Times bestseller. The book argues that Silicon Valley "lost its way" by chasing "shiny new toys, from phone apps and games to marketing algorithms" and "lifestyle technologies," and that the "engineering elite" must rebuild its ties to government and the military.[^6]
+
+Karp pointed to [[Google]]'s 2018 withdrawal from the Pentagon's Project Maven, under employee pressure, as a warning of what he called self-centered libertarianism, and the book frames a "reassertion of national culture and values" as the precondition for technological power. Critics at Al Jazeera and The Nation read it as a statement of the techno-nationalist politics shared across the Thiel network. By 2026 Karp's net worth was estimated in the range of 13 to 14 billion dollars, having peaked above 16 billion in August 2025 as Palantir's stock climbed.[^6][^12]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: "Palantir CEO Alex Karp was raised in a liberal household outside Philly. Now he's a top Trump administration contractor," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* December 16, 2025. https://www.inquirer.com/politics/nation/palantir-ceo-alex-karp-trump-administration-20251216.html
+[^2]: "Palantir CEO says his outspoken pro-Israel views have caused employees to leave company," *CNBC,* March 13, 2024. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/13/palantir-ceo-says-outspoken-pro-israel-views-led-employees-to-leave-.html
+[^3]: "Blood tech: The UK ambassador, the sex offender, Palantir, and Gaza," *Al Jazeera,* March 17, 2026. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/17/blood-tech-the-uk-ambassador-the-sex-offender-palantir-and-gaza
+[^4]: "Palantir CEO stands firm in support of Israel despite employee departures," *Calcalist,* 2024. https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/hy1q67e0a
+[^5]: "Palantir's Alex Karp could lose staff over Israel stance," *Fortune,* March 14, 2024. https://fortune.com/2024/03/14/palantir-alex-karp-lose-staff-israel-stance
+[^6]: "Technofacism? Why Palantir's pro-West 'manifesto' has critics alarmed," *Al Jazeera,* April 21, 2026, on *The Technological Republic.* https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/21/technofacism-why-palantirs-pro-west-manifesto-has-critics-alarmed
+[^7]: Weigel, Moira. "Palantir Goes to the Frankfurt School," *boundary 2,* July 2020, on Karp's Haverford and Stanford degrees, the Frankfurt dissertation "Aggression in der Lebenswelt," and his advisor Karola Brede rather than Habermas. https://www.boundary2.org/2020/07/moira-weigel-palantir-goes-to-the-frankfurt-school/
+[^8]: "Palantir's direct listing," *CNBC,* September 30, 2020, on the NYSE listing and the In-Q-Tel and Thiel funding; and "Palantir CEO Alex Karp's $1.1 billion 2020 pay," *CNBC,* April 29, 2021. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/30/palantir-pltr-starts-trading-on-the-nyse-in-direct-listing.html
+[^9]: "Palantir signs strategic partnership with Israeli Defense Ministry," *Bloomberg,* January 12, 2024, on the agreement and the Tel Aviv board meeting. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-12/palantir-signs-strategic-partnership-with-israel-defense-ministry
+[^10]: "Palantir CEO Alex Karp's 'useful idiots' remark at the Hill and Valley Forum," April 30, 2025; and the February 2025 Palantir shareholder letter, on the "scare enemies and, on occasion, kill them" passage. *CNBC,* May 5, 2025. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/05/palantir-pltr-q1-earnings-report-2025.html
+[^11]: "Army awards Palantir enterprise agreement worth up to $10 billion," *DefenseScoop,* July 31, 2025, on the consolidated contract ceiling; and "Palantir Maven Smart System expanded by $795 million," *DefenseScoop,* May 23, 2025. https://defensescoop.com/2025/07/31/army-palantir-enterprise-agreement-10-billion/
+[^12]: "Bloomberg Billionaires Index: Alex Karp," 2026, on his estimated net worth and its August 2025 peak. https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/profiles/alexander-c-karp/
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Auren
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Auren
@ -0,0 +1,56 @@
+---
+category: "Technologists"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - AurenHoffman
+  - Dialog
+  - SafeGraph
+  - LiveRamp
+  - SiliconValley
+  - Surveillance
+alias:
+  - Auren Ability Hoffman
+summary: "Auren Hoffman is an American technology entrepreneur who cofounded the secret society Dialog with Peter Thiel in 2006 and founded the location-data broker SafeGraph and the identity-resolution firm LiveRamp, placing him at the intersection of the Thiel elite-network and the consumer-data-brokerage industry."
+born: 1970-09-05
+location: "United States"
+created: 2026-06-17
+updated: 2026-06-17
+---
+
+Auren Hoffman is an American technology entrepreneur and the cofounder, with [[Peter Thiel]], of the secret society [[Dialog]], and the founder of the location-data brokerage [[SafeGraph]] and the identity-resolution firm [[LiveRamp]]. His career has placed him at the center of two converging networks: the Thiel elite-gathering and venture network (through Dialog and [[Summit|Summit Series]]-adjacent social circles), and the consumer-data-brokerage industry (through LiveRamp and SafeGraph). The 2026 leak of Dialog's membership roster identified Hoffman as Dialog's chairman and the data entrepreneur whose firms have repeatedly drawn scrutiny for the sale of granular consumer location and identity data to corporate and government clients.[^1]
+
+Hoffman holds the two roles simultaneously: he runs the off-the-record network in which government principals meet technology and finance principals, and he runs the firms that supply consumer-behavior data to government agencies. The convening network determines who talks to whom; the data network determines what is known about the population those conversations govern. The two are held by the same individual.
+
+### Dialog Chairmanship
+
+Dialog was cofounded by Thiel and Hoffman in 2006 as an invitation-only retreat convening U.S. officials, foreign government figures, and [[Silicon Valley]] executives under off-the-record rules. Hoffman serves as the organization's chairman. The 2026 *WIRED* report, based on the leak published by the hacktivist [[maia arson crimew|crimew]] and a separately provided registration list, identified Hoffman as the operational principal of Dialog alongside Thiel as the financial and reputational principal. Hoffman appears on the 222-name 2026 retreat roster.[^1]
+
+The division of labor between Thiel and Hoffman at Dialog tracks their comparative advantages. Thiel supplies the reputational gravity that draws the [[PayPal Mafia]] core, the [[Palantir Technologies]] government client base, and the ideological principals of the [[Neoreaction]] orbit; Hoffman supplies the convening craft, the data-industry network, and the operational discipline to run a recurring institution. The two-decade persistence of Dialog without a public leak until 2026 reflects the operational seriousness of the arrangement, and the chairman role indicates that the day-to-day institution is Hoffman's rather than Thiel's.[^1]
+
+### LiveRamp and Identity Resolution
+
+Hoffman founded LiveRamp (originally as [[RapLeaf]]) as a data-onboarding and identity-resolution company, building systems to match offline customer data to online identifiers across advertising and marketing ecosystems. LiveRamp was acquired by the advertising-technology holding company [[Acxiom]] in 2014 for approximately 310 million dollars, and was later spun out as an independent public company, [[Ramp Holdings]], trading on the [[New York Stock Exchange]] under the ticker RAMP. The core technical product, identity resolution across disparate data sets, is the same operational problem that underlies both commercial marketing and state surveillance.[^2]
+
+The identity-resolution problem is the joining-key problem: given a name and address in one database, a cookie in another, a device advertising ID in a third, and a loyalty-card number in a fourth, determine that all four refer to the same person. Commercially, the solution lets an advertiser track a single consumer across web, mobile, and in-store behavior. The same technique, applied to telecommunications, financial, and location data, lets a state or its contractor track a single person across the same surfaces. LiveRamp's commercial product and the intelligence-application of the same architecture are technically identical, though LiveRamp's clients were commercial.[^2]
+
+### SafeGraph and Location Data
+
+Hoffman founded SafeGraph in 2014 as a location-data brokerage, aggregating and reselling anonymized mobile-device location pings collected from smartphone applications. SafeGraph's datasets have been used in academic research, real estate, and advertising, and the company has repeatedly drawn scrutiny over the granularity of its data and its accessibility to government clients. In 2020 the U.S. [[Centers for Disease Control and Prevention|CDC]] contracted with SafeGraph for cell-phone location data to monitor compliance with [[COVID-19]] pandemic movement restrictions, a use that surfaced the extent to which commercially collected location data is available to federal agencies without a warrant.[^1][^3]
+
+The CDC contract made publicly visible what had been an open secret in the industry: commercially collected location data is at least as granular and as current as anything the intelligence community collects under legal process, and it is available for purchase without a warrant because the data is "volunteered" by the user through app permissions. The 2026 Dialog leak renewed scrutiny of Hoffman's position at the intersection of elite-network convening and the commercial surveillance-data industry, because the same individual chairing the off-the-record gathering of senators, governors, and military commanders also chairs the firm that sold the location data to the CDC.[^1]
+
+Hoffman's combined roles produce a data-broker-to-regulator pathway. The same firm (SafeGraph) that sells consumer location data commercially also sells it to federal public-health and law-enforcement agencies, while its founder chairs a private gathering (Dialog) whose membership includes sitting U.S. senators, governors, military commanders, and technology executives. The convening network (who talks to whom, off the record) and the data network (who knows what about the population) are run by the same individual, and the Dialog chairmanship is where the two networks overlap in person.[^1]
+
+### Earlier Ventures
+
+Prior to LiveRamp and SafeGraph, Hoffman founded [[Bridgepath]], an early online recruiting service that operated in the late-1990s web-services market. Bridgepath was part of the first wave of internet-era recruiting platforms that attempted to apply database-matching to the job-search function, the same identity-resolution-and-matching architecture that would subsequently underlie both LiveRamp and SafeGraph. Hoffman's experience with the data-matching problem at Bridgepath preceded his founding of the identity-resolution firms by approximately a decade.[^2]
+
+Hoffman ran the technology strategy and research firm [[Stonebrick Group|Stonebrick]] in the period between Bridgepath and LiveRamp. The Stonebrick work involved advising technology firms on growth strategy and market positioning, and the client relationships Hoffman built during this period formed the basis of the investor-and-founder network he would subsequently bring to the Dialog convening. Hoffman's *Summation* blog (later Substack newsletter) and his podcast output on technology and elite-network topics established his public profile as a convening figure before Dialog was founded.[^2]
+
+Hoffman is a recurring figure in the [[Summit Series|Summit Series]]-adjacent founder-and-investor social circuit. The Summit Series (now Summit) hosts the annual [[Summit at Sea|Summit at Sea]] and the [[Summit Powder Mountain|Summit Powder Mountain]] gatherings, and its audience overlaps substantially with the Dialog invitation list. Hoffman's positioning in the Silicon Valley founder-and-investor network, distinct from but overlapping with the PayPal Mafia core around Thiel, predates Dialog and supplied the peer network the gathering was built on.[^2]
+
+### 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]: For LiveRamp and Ramp Holdings corporate history, see Ramp Holdings SEC EDGAR filings and the Acxiom 2014 acquisition record.
+[^3]: For the CDC contract with SafeGraph in 2020, see contemporaneous reporting on federal procurement of commercial location data, including coverage in *The Wall Street Journal* and *Vice Motherboard* in 2020.
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Blake
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Blake
@ -0,0 +1,58 @@
+---
+category: "New Right"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - BlakeMasters
+  - PeterThiel
+  - ZeroToOne
+  - ThielCapital
+  - Arizona
+  - RepublicanParty
+  - Senate
+alias:
+  - Blake Gates Masters
+summary: "Blake Masters is an American venture capitalist and author who served as chief operating officer of Thiel Capital and president of the Thiel Foundation, coauthored Zero to One with Peter Thiel in 2014, and was the 2022 Republican nominee for U.S. Senate from Arizona, backed by Thiel's super PAC spending."
+born: 1986-08-18
+location: "Arizona (political base)"
+created: 2026-06-18
+updated: 2026-06-18
+---
+
+Blake Masters (born August 18, 1986) is an American venture capitalist and author who served as chief operating officer of [[Thiel Capital]] and president of the [[Thiel Foundation]] from 2018 to 2022, and who coauthored *Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future* with [[Peter Thiel]] in 2014. Masters was the 2022 Republican nominee for U.S. Senate from [[Arizona]], losing the general election to the incumbent Democrat [[Mark Kelly (politician)|Mark Kelly]] after winning the Republican primary with the financial backing of a Thiel-funded super PAC. His career is the second documented instance, alongside [[JD Vance]], of a Thiel-network operative placed into electoral politics through direct capital deployment.[^1][^2][^3]
+
+### Stanford, Zero to One, and the Thiel Apprenticeship
+
+Masters met Thiel at [[Stanford Law School]], where Masters was a student and Thiel was teaching an undergraduate course on startups in the computer science department. Masters took detailed notes on the course lectures and published them online in 2012, where they circulated widely in the [[Silicon Valley]] founder community. The notes formed the basis of *[[Zero to One|Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future]]*, published by [[Crown Business|Crown]] in 2014 with Thiel and Masters listed as coauthors. The book reached number one on the [[New York Times]] bestseller list and became the canonical text of the [[Founders Fund]] investment thesis.[^1][^2]
+
+The book's central arguments are that competition is for losers, that durable value comes from building monopolies around proprietary technology, and that the conventional venture-capital preference for incremental consumer-internet deals was a mistake. These arguments were drawn directly from Thiel's lectures, and Masters's role was the editorial and organizational work of converting them into a published book. The coauthorship placed Masters inside the Thiel orbit at the level of intellectual production, and the book's success made Masters a public figure in the venture and startup world before he had run a company of his own.[^2]
+
+### Thiel Capital, the Thiel Foundation, and the Fellowship
+
+Masters joined Thiel's firm Thiel Capital as chief operating officer and served as president of the Thiel Foundation, the vehicle that runs the [[Thiel Fellowship]] program. The dual role placed him in operational control of the two principal non-investment arms of the Thiel network: the firm's strategic and administrative functions (Thiel Capital), and the recruitment-and-mentorship program that identifies and capitalizes young founders outside the university pipeline (the Thiel Foundation and the Fellowship).[^1][^4]
+
+The Fellowship presidency is the recruitment-layer position. Masters ran the program that selects the cohort of approximately twenty-to-thirty fellows per year, each receiving 250,000 dollars over two years on the skip-or-stop-out-of-college condition, and his tenure overlapped with the cohort that included some of the program's most prominent alumni. The Fellowship functions as the earliest-stage recruitment layer of the Thiel network, and the president of the Foundation is the operative who staffs it.[^4]
+
+### The 2022 Arizona Senate Campaign
+
+Masters announced his candidacy for the [[United States Senate|U.S. Senate]] seat from Arizona in July 2021, seeking the Republican nomination to challenge the incumbent Democrat Mark Kelly. The campaign was backed from the outset by Thiel, who donated to the [[Saving Arizona PAC]], a super PAC formed to support Masters's primary campaign. The Thiel super PAC spending in the Arizona race ran alongside the larger Thiel deployment in the Ohio race that elected JD Vance, and the two campaigns were treated in contemporaneous reporting as a coordinated Thiel political project.[^3][^5]
+
+Masters won the August 2022 Republican primary, defeating the establishment-backed candidate [[Jim Lamon]] and several other contenders. The general election campaign against Mark Kelly was marked by Masters's shift toward the center on several positions he had taken during the primary, including his earlier endorsement of a federal personhood abortion ban and his expressed openness to privatizing [[Social Security]]. Kelly won the November 2022 general election by approximately five percentage points. Masters conceded and subsequently took a role in the private sector, including a board position at [[PublicSq|PSQ Holdings]], the public-company successor to the conservative marketplace platform PublicSq.[^1][^3]
+
+### The Vance-Masters Parallel and the Recruitment Pattern
+
+The Masters and Vance campaigns together were the Thiel network's electoral deployment in the 2022 cycle. Thiel spent approximately fifteen million dollars on the [[Protect Ohio Values PAC|Protect Ohio Values]] super PAC supporting Vance in Ohio and an additional fifteen million dollars on the Saving Arizona PAC super PAC supporting Masters in Arizona, for a total 2022-cycle deployment of approximately thirty-two million dollars. [[CNBC]] reported the combined figure in November 2022. Both candidates came from inside the Thiel commercial orbit: Vance from [[Mithril Capital]] and [[Narya Capital]], Masters from Thiel Capital and the Thiel Foundation. The Vance campaign produced a sitting senator who became vice president in 2025; the Masters campaign lost the November 2022 general election to Mark Kelly by approximately five percentage points.[^5][^6][^7]
+
+The Saving Arizona PAC was funded almost entirely by Thiel, with additional contributions from the cryptocurrency billionaires [[Cameron Winklevoss|Cameron]] and [[Tyler Winklevoss|Tyler Winklevoss]], who joined the effort in June 2022 per [[Forbes]] reporting. Thiel added a reported 1.5 million dollars in July 2022 as the primary approached, and the PAC resumed general-election spending in September 2022 after a period in which Thiel was reported to be hesitant about continued funding. The [[Federal Election Commission]] raised questions about the PAC's disclosure of its spending, documented in the [[Arizona Mirror]] reporting on the FEC inquiry. The Winklevoss cofunding extended the documented donor network beyond Thiel himself into the broader crypto-and-tech-billionaire cohort that overlaps with the [[PayPal Mafia]] and Thiel-network commercial orbit.[^6][^7][^8]
+
+The pattern of the deployment, with a single donor capitalizing ideologically aligned operatives placed into Senate primaries, is documented across the Protect Ohio Values and Saving Arizona PAC Federal Election Commission filings and in the contemporaneous [[Politico]] and [[OpenSecrets]] reporting. The two campaigns ran in parallel under the same Thiel strategy: identify operatives inside the commercial orbit, capitalize their primaries through a dedicated super PAC, and convert the commercial-network relationship into an elected-office relationship. Vance won the Senate seat and then the vice presidency, while Masters won his primary but lost the general election in a competitive state.[^5][^6]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: Blake Masters biography, drawn from public records, corporate filings, and contemporaneous campaign coverage. See *Arizona Mirror* and *Axios* reporting on the 2022 campaign.
+[^2]: Thiel, Peter, and Blake Masters. *Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future.* Crown Business, 2014.
+[^3]: 2022 Arizona U.S. Senate election results, Arizona Secretary of State and contemporaneous press, November 2022.
+[^4]: Thiel Fellowship. Official program site. https://thielfellowship.org/
+[^5]: "A mole hunt, a secret website and Peter Thiel's big risk: How J.D. Vance won the Ohio primary." *Politico,* May 3, 2022. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/03/jd-vance-win-ohio-primary-00029881
+[^6]: "Peter Thiel-tied dark money group helping bankroll super PAC." *OpenSecrets,* February 2022. https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2022/02/peter-thiel-tied-dark-money-group-helping-bankroll-super-pac-spending-on-2022-election/
+[^7]: "Peter Thiel's picks Masters, Vance split key Senate races in Arizona, Ohio." *CNBC,* November 12, 2022. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/12/midterm-results-peter-thiel-picks-masters-vance-see-mixed-results-in-arizona-ohio.html ; "Thiel drops another $1.5M for Masters." *Politico,* July 22, 2022. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/22/peter-thiel-arizona-senate-campaign-00047536
+[^8]: "Winklevoss Twins Team Up With Peter Thiel To Support Arizona Senate Candidate Blake Masters." *Forbes,* June 30, 2022. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kylemullins/2022/06/30/winklevoss-twins-team-up-with-peter-thiel-to-support-arizona-senate-candidate-blake-masters/ ; "The FEC has questions about how a PAC backing Blake Masters is disclosing its spending." *Arizona Mirror.* https://azmirror.com/briefs/the-fec-has-questions-about-how-a-pac-backing-blake-masters-is-disclosing-its-spending/
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Cecile
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Cecile
@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
+---
+category: "Political Figure"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - JeffreyEpstein
+  - VirginIslands
+  - GovernmentCapture
+  - SouthernTrust
+  - TaxFraud
+  - SexOffender
+alias:
+  - Cecile Galiber de Jongh
+  - Cecile R. de Jongh
+summary: "Cecile de Jongh was the First Lady of the U.S. Virgin Islands from 2007 to 2015 and the office manager of Jeffrey Epstein's territorial companies, whom court filings later cast as his primary conduit for spreading money and influence through the territory's government."
+location: "St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands"
+created: 2026-06-20
+updated: 2026-06-20
+---
+
+Cecile de Jongh (born Cecile Galiber) was the office manager of [[Jeffrey Epstein|Jeffrey Epstein's]] [[U.S. Virgin Islands]] entities, including [[Financial Trust Company]] and its successor [[Southern Trust Company]], a position she held from 2007 to 2015. During the same years her husband, [[John de Jongh]], served as the territory's seventh governor, making her the First Lady of the [[Government of the United States Virgin Islands]]. A January 2020 civil enforcement complaint by the Virgin Islands [[Denise George|Attorney General]], and later filings by [[JPMorgan Chase]] in related litigation, alleged that she used her dual position to manage Epstein's local affairs, influence territorial legislation, and direct his money toward officials while he was a registered sex offender.[^1][^2]
+
+### Position and Compensation
+
+De Jongh worked as the office manager of Epstein's Virgin Islands companies from 2007, the year her husband took office, through 2015, the year his term ended. JPMorgan's filings stated that she earned more than 200,000 dollars in compensation in 2007 alone for the role. The companies that employed her, Financial Trust Company and later Southern Trust Company, were the entities through which Epstein held his territorial tax benefits under the [[Economic Development Commission]] program and through which his Virgin Islands operations were funded.[^1][^2]
+
+The same filings alleged that Epstein paid tuition for de Jongh's children, that she forwarded her children's tuition bills to him for payment, and that she requested he help fund her husband's re-election campaign. In her May 2023 deposition, taken at the Ritz-Carlton on St. Thomas over roughly five and a half hours, de Jongh described confronting Epstein after his 2006 Florida arrest, saying she looked him in the eye and asked what was going on, and was assured it was a one-time mistake that would not recur. The arrangement continued after Epstein registered as a sex offender following his 2008 Florida plea.[^2][^3]
+
+The employment overlapped entirely with her public role. While serving as First Lady from 2007 to 2015, she simultaneously drew her salary from Epstein's companies, an overlap that was reported contemporaneously and that became the foundation of the later allegations. The settlement that resolved the Virgin Islands case against the Epstein estate included language shielding Epstein employees from civil liability, and no charges were brought against de Jongh personally.[^2][^4]
+
+### Alleged Influence on Territorial Government
+
+JPMorgan's 2023 court filings described de Jongh as Epstein's "primary conduit for spreading money and influence throughout the USVI government." According to those filings, in 2011 she emailed Epstein proposed language for legislation increasing sex-offender monitoring, asking, "This is the suggested language; will it work for you?" The bank alleged that after a monitoring bill passed she wrote that "all is not lost and we will figure something out by coming up with a game plan to get around these obstacles." The draft she circulated concerned the section of the Virgin Islands Code governing the travel and reporting requirements imposed on registered sex offenders.[^2][^5]
+
+The filings further alleged that de Jongh advised Epstein on how to "buy control of the USVI political class," coordinated meetings between him and commissioners, senators, and gubernatorial candidates, recommended placing a sitting senator on a monthly retainer for loyalty and access, and tracked which candidates he funded. They alleged she helped secure student visas for young women connected to Epstein by arranging their enrollment in classes at the [[University of the Virgin Islands]] to provide cover for their presence in the territory, and that she offered to have someone else sign tuition letters so that the registered sex offender's signature would not appear on the paperwork. She was also alleged to have worked with the [[Virgin Islands Economic Development Authority]] to keep Epstein's companies in compliance so the tax benefits continued, and to have guided his charitable donations to satisfy program requirements.[^2][^5]
+
+These allegations originate in the Virgin Islands Attorney General's complaint and in JPMorgan's filings, the latter of which the territory characterized as hyperbole offered to deflect the bank's own liability for failing to report suspicious activity. De Jongh did not respond to requests for comment when the filings were unsealed in 2023. The allegations describe a pattern of conduct rather than any criminal adjudication, and she was never charged.[^2][^4]
+
+### Footnotes
+[^1]: "Virgin Islands governor's wife employed by convicted sex-offender billionaire." *The Daily Caller,* April 22, 2012. https://dailycaller.com/2012/04/22/virgin-islands-governors-wife-employed-by-convicted-sex-offender-billionaire/
+[^2]: "JPMorgan alleges wife of U.S. Virgin Islands' ex-governor aided Jeffrey Epstein's criminal activity." *NBC News,* May 24, 2023. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/jpmorgan-alleges-ex-virgin-islands-first-lady-aided-jeffrey-epstein-rcna86365
+[^3]: "Cecile de Jongh Testifies She Confronted Epstein After His 2006 Arrest." *St. Thomas Source,* July 26, 2023. https://stthomassource.com/content/2023/07/26/cecile-de-jongh-testifies-she-confronted-epstein-after-his-2006-arrest/
+[^4]: "JPMorgan Chase says Jeffrey Epstein paid tuition for kids of U.S. Virgin Islands governor." *CNBC,* May 25, 2023. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/25/jpmorgan-jeffrey-epstein-paid-tuition-for-kids-of-virgin-islands-governor.html
+[^5]: "JPMorgan accuses wife of former Virgin Islands governor of aiding Epstein." *Fortune,* May 25, 2023. https://fortune.com/2023/05/25/jpmorgan-jeffrey-epstein-virgin-islands-first-lady-sex-trafficking-de-jongh ; Government of the United States Virgin Islands v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., No. 1:22-cv-10904 (S.D.N.Y. 2022).
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Charles
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Charles
@ -0,0 +1,57 @@
+---
+category: "New Right"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - CharlesJohnson
+  - ClearviewAI
+  - PeterThiel
+  - FBIInformant
+  - AltRight
+  - FederalInformant
+alias:
+  - Charles C. Johnson
+  - Chuck Johnson
+summary: "Charles C. Johnson is a far-right provocateur and self-described federal informant who claimed cofounder status at Clearview AI alongside Peter Thiel's seed investment, disclosed Thiel's status as an FBI confidential human source in 2023, and was sued in 2024 for falsely presenting himself as an intelligence agent."
+born: 1988-10-22
+location: "Boston, Massachusetts (born)"
+created: 2026-06-18
+updated: 2026-06-18
+---
+
+Charles C. Johnson (born October 22, 1988) is an American far-right media figure, self-described federal informant, and technology investor. The *New York Times* reported in March 2021 that Johnson played a pivotal early role in the founding of [[Clearview AI]] alongside [[Peter Thiel]]'s seed investment. Johnson disclosed Thiel's status as an [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] confidential human source in 2023, per *Business Insider* reporting, and was sued in October 2024 for falsely presenting himself as an intelligence agent while "running a fraud and extortion scheme."[^1][^2][^3]
+
+### The Far-Right Media Career
+
+Johnson built his public profile through a series of far-right provocations across the 2013-2017 period. He operated the [[GotNews|GotNews]] website and published [[The Truth About the IRS Scandal|The Truth About the IRS Scandal]] (2013), and he promoted a range of debunked conspiracy theories, including the false claim that President [[Barack Obama|Obama]]'s National Security Advisor [[Susan Rice|Susan Rice]] had directed surveillance of the [[Donald Trump|Trump]] campaign. Johnson was banned from [[Twitter]] in 2015 (one of the first high-profile permanent bans) after requesting funds to "take out" a [[Black Lives Matter|Black Lives Matter]] activist.[^1][^4]
+
+In 2017 Johnson announced he was "building algorithms to ID all the illegal immigrants for the deportation squads," which *Byline Supplement* reported as part of the Clearview AI prehistory. The work sits in the same identity-from-public-data category that Clearview AI would subsequently commercialize, and the Clearview founding in 2016-2017 overlaps with the period of Johnson's deportation-algorithm work.[^5]
+
+### The Clearview AI Cofounder Claim
+
+The *New York Times* reported in March 2021 that Johnson played a pivotal early role in the founding of Clearview AI alongside Peter Thiel, who provided the seed funding for the company before it was even named (the [[Smart Checker]] period). Johnson subsequently claimed cofounder status and sued Clearview for a share of its profits before dropping the suit in February 2025. The legal record of the suit, and its subsequent withdrawal, is documented in the *Biometric Update* reporting (February 2025) and the *Yahoo Finance* / *Toronto Star* coverage.[^1][^6][^7]
+
+Johnson's relationship to Thiel extends beyond Clearview. *Business Insider* reported in October 2023 that Johnson had disclosed Thiel's status as an FBI confidential human source, and that Johnson himself was described in the reporting as "a tech investor and far-right agitator with long-standing ties to both Thiel and to the network."[^2]
+
+### The Federal Informant Claims and the Fraud Suit
+
+Johnson has stated publicly that he was a federal informant. The federal lawsuit against Clearview AI over Johnson's cofounder claim recorded his indication that he was a federal informant, and the *Semafor* reporting (October 2024) documented a separate lawsuit alleging Johnson was "running a fraud and extortion scheme" and falsely presenting himself as an intelligence agent. The suit was brought by a business partner and alleged that Johnson had used the false intelligence-agent presentation to extract payments and concessions.[^3][^6]
+
+The documented pattern combines three roles: the far-right media provocateur (the GotNews period), the technology investor and Clearview cofounder claimant (the 2016-2025 period), and the federal informant / intelligence-agent presenter (the ongoing period). The three roles overlap in Johnson's documented relationship with Thiel and in the broader network of far-right operatives, technology investors, and federal law-enforcement contacts that the [[Thiel Influence Network|Thiel network]] intersects.[^1][^2][^3]
+
+### The Jonathan Buma Thread
+
+The *[[Business Insider|Business Insider]]* reporting on Thiel's FBI informant status referenced the [[Jonathan Buma|Jonathan Buma]] case. Buma, the Los Angeles FBI counterintelligence agent who handled Thiel as a CHS from summer 2021, was arrested at [[John F. Kennedy International Airport|JFK Airport]] on March 17, 2025 while attempting to board an international flight, charged with unlawfully disclosing confidential information. [[CBS News|CBS News]] reported that FBI investigators assessed Buma may have compromised as many as 130 FBI files.[^2]
+
+Buma publicly accused the FBI of pro-Trump political bias and disclosed GRU targeting of [[Elon Musk|Musk]] and Thiel. The [[The Guardian|Guardian]] reported Buma's claim in May 2025 that Russian-intelligence efforts to target Musk were "intense," and that the [[GRU|GRU]] operation exploited vulnerabilities including drug use, sexual entrapment, and luxury access. The [[Igor Kurganov|Kurganov]] infiltration of Musk's inner circle (documented separately) is the concrete instance of the targeting Buma described.[^2]
+
+The Buma-Thiel-Johnson triangle involves three documented roles: Buma as the FBI handler who managed Thiel as a CHS, Thiel as the billionaire source whose FBI relationship Johnson disclosed, and Johnson as the far-right operative who connected the Thiel commercial network to the federal informant infrastructure and to the Clearview surveillance-technology founding. The full content of Buma's disclosures is part of the ongoing congressional and Inspector General review of the FBI's source program. A House Judiciary Committee document submitted January 22, 2026 references Thiel's CHS role.[^2]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: "What We Learned About Clearview AI's Hidden 'Co-Founder.'" *New York Times,* March 18, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/18/technology/clearview-facial-recognition-ai.html
+[^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
+[^3]: "Business Partner Sues Chuck Johnson for Falsely Presenting as Intelligence Agent." *Semafor,* October 16, 2024. https://www.semafor.com/article/10/16/2024/business-partner-sues-chuck-johnson-for-falsely-presenting-as-intelligence-agent
+[^4]: For Johnson's far-right media career, the GotNews operation, the Susan Rice surveillance claim, and the 2015 Twitter ban, see the contemporaneous press coverage.
+[^5]: "The Neo-Nazi Enforcer Who Helped..." *Byline Supplement.* https://www.bylinesupplement.com/p/the-neo-nazi-enforcer-who-helped
+[^6]: "Legal battle over Clearview AI's origin takes a turn as accuser drops suit." *Biometric Update,* February 2025. https://www.biometricupdate.com/202502/legal-battle-over-clearview-ais-origin-takes-a-turn-as-accuser-drops-suit
+[^7]: "CEO of Clearview AI has been ousted." *Yahoo Finance / Toronto Star.* https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/ceo-clearview-ai-controversial-facial-211716034.html
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Charles
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Charles
@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
+---
+category: "New Right"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - CharlesMurray
+  - HumanBiodiversity
+  - RaceScience
+  - Conservatism
+  - AEI
+summary: "Charles Murray is an American political scientist at the American Enterprise Institute whose 1994 book The Bell Curve argued that intelligence is largely hereditary and varies by race, a thesis widely condemned as scientific racism that became foundational to the human-biodiversity current in the rationalist and tech-right milieus."
+born: 1943-01-08
+location: "Burkittsville, Maryland"
+created: 2026-06-19
+updated: 2026-06-19
+---
+
+Charles Murray (born January 8, 1943) is an American political scientist and a longtime fellow of the [[American Enterprise Institute]] whose work on intelligence, class, and welfare made him the most prominent academic exponent of hereditarian claims about race and IQ in the United States. His 1994 book *The Bell Curve*, written with the Harvard psychologist [[Richard Herrnstein]], argued that intelligence is substantially heritable, that it predicts life outcomes better than socioeconomic background, and that measured IQ differences between racial groups have a partly genetic basis. The book was widely condemned as scientific racism, and it became a foundational text for the [[Human Biodiversity|human-biodiversity]] current that later circulated through the [[Rationalist Community]] and the tech-right.[^1][^2]
+
+### Losing Ground and Welfare Reform
+
+Murray's 1984 book *Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980* argued that the Great Society welfare programs had not reduced poverty but had eroded the initiative of the poor and made dependency a rational choice. It became a foundational text of the conservative case against welfare, and Murray advised on the [[Wisconsin]] welfare overhaul under Governor [[Tommy Thompson]]; the book's thesis fed the 1996 federal welfare-reform law. *Losing Ground* proposed scrapping the entire federal welfare and income-support structure for working-age people, including Aid to Families with Dependent Children, and the argument was later credited as intellectual groundwork for President [[Bill Clinton|Clinton]]'s pledge to "end welfare as we know it."[^5][^7]
+
+The book was a product of the conservative funding apparatus. The [[Manhattan Institute]] sponsored and promoted *Losing Ground*, with Murray serving as a senior fellow there from 1982 to 1990, and the [[Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation|Bradley Foundation]] underwrote much of his work both at the Manhattan Institute and after he moved to the American Enterprise Institute in 1990. The Manhattan Institute parted ways with Murray after he began work on what became *The Bell Curve*, and his subsequent books at AEI included *Human Accomplishment* (2003), *Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010* (2012), and the genetics defense *Human Diversity* (2020).[^8]
+
+### The Bell Curve
+
+*The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life* contended that a "cognitive elite" sorted by intelligence was stratifying American society and that policy should accommodate innate differences in ability. Its most contested chapters addressed average IQ differences between racial groups and suggested a genetic contribution. In the book's afterword Murray acknowledged citing thirteen scholars who had received money from the [[Pioneer Fund]], a foundation founded in 1937 by [[Wickliffe Draper]] to promote "race betterment" and classified as a hate group by the [[Southern Poverty Law Center]], which has bankrolled the race-and-intelligence research network around the journal [[Mankind Quarterly]]. Reviewers across psychology and the social sciences concluded that the authors had produced no valid evidence that group IQ gaps are genetic in origin. Herrnstein died of cancer in September 1994, shortly before publication.[^1][^2][^6]
+
+The book's defenders mounted a public-relations campaign in its support. On December 13, 1994, the psychologist [[Linda Gottfredson]] published a statement titled "Mainstream Science on Intelligence" in *The Wall Street Journal*, signed by 52 researchers, asserting that the hereditarian view represented scientific consensus; the SPLC later reported that at least 20 of the signatories had received Pioneer Fund money, including Gottfredson and the future fund presidents [[J. Philippe Rushton]] and [[Richard Lynn]]. The American Psychological Association responded by convening a task force chaired by [[Ulric Neisser]], whose 1996 report "Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns" concluded that there was no direct evidence for a genetic explanation of the black-white test-score gap. The paleontologist [[Stephen Jay Gould]], reprising arguments from his 1981 book *The Mismeasure of Man*, attacked the book's reliance on a single general-intelligence factor in a widely read *New Yorker* review.[^9][^10]
+
+### Reputation and Rehabilitation
+
+Murray was protested as a racist for decades, including a 2017 confrontation at [[Middlebury College]] that turned violent, and the Southern Poverty Law Center classifies him as a promoter of racist pseudoscience. Within the technology and rationalist world, however, he was reframed as a victim of taboo, a martyr of "forbidden knowledge." The neuroscientist and podcaster [[Sam Harris]], a registrant of the [[Dialog]] society, hosted Murray in a 2017 episode titled "Forbidden Knowledge" that presented his race-and-IQ claims as suppressed truth, and the blog [[Scott Alexander|Slate Star Codex]] and the broader human-biodiversity discourse treated his hereditarian framework as a serious object of debate. The valorization of such suppressed-knowledge claims is the same posture that the [[Hereticon]] "conference for thoughtcrime" markets.[^3][^4]
+
+The Middlebury episode of March 2, 2017 became a national reference point in campus free-speech debates. Students shouted down Murray's scheduled talk, forcing him and the political-science professor [[Allison Stanger]] into a separate room to record the lecture, and as the pair left the building a crowd that included masked outsiders mobbed them, pulled Stanger's hair, and shoved her; she was treated for a concussion. Middlebury later disciplined dozens of students. Murray accepted a steady stream of conservative honors during the same years, including the Bradley Foundation's $250,000 Bradley Prize in 2016, which kept him embedded in the institutional right even as mainstream academic associations distanced themselves from his race-and-IQ work.[^11]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: Herrnstein, Richard J., and Charles Murray. *The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life.* Free Press, 1994.
+[^2]: "Bad Science Revisited: 'The Bell Curve' Turns 30," *Mad in America,* March 2024, on the book's claims, the Pioneer Fund sourcing, and the scientific response. https://www.madinamerica.com/2024/03/bad-science-bell-curve/
+[^3]: "Charles Murray," Southern Poverty Law Center extremist file, on the scientific-racism classification and the Middlebury protest. https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/charles-murray
+[^4]: Harris, Sam. "Forbidden Knowledge: A Conversation with Charles Murray," *Making Sense* podcast, April 2017.
+[^5]: "Charles Murray and the Power of Mainstream Media Amnesia," Center for American Progress, on *Losing Ground* and its welfare-policy influence. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/think-again-charles-murray-and-the-power-of-mainstream-media-amnesia/
+[^6]: "Pioneer Fund," SourceWatch, on the fund's 1937 founding, eugenics mission, and support for the Bell Curve-cited scholars and Mankind Quarterly. https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Pioneer_Fund
+[^7]: "Losing Ground," Manhattan Institute, on the book's 1984 publication, sponsorship, and proposal to scrap federal income-support programs. https://manhattan.institute/book/losing-ground
+[^8]: "Charles Murray: A Life," American Enterprise Institute, and "Charles Murray," Bradley Foundation, on his 1982-1990 Manhattan Institute tenure, the 1990 move to AEI, Bradley funding, and the later books. https://www.aei.org/multimedia/charles-murray-a-life/
+[^9]: "Mainstream Science on Intelligence," Linda Gottfredson, *The Wall Street Journal,* December 13, 1994, and Southern Poverty Law Center reporting that at least 20 signatories received Pioneer Fund money. https://www1.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/1994WSJmainstream.pdf
+[^10]: Neisser, Ulric, et al. "Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns," *American Psychologist,* 1996, the APA task-force report finding no direct evidence for a genetic basis of the black-white test-score gap; Gould, Stephen Jay, "Curveball," *The New Yorker,* November 28, 1994.
+[^11]: "Protesters injure Middlebury professor escorting controversial speaker," VTDigger, March 3, 2017, on the Stanger concussion and the March 2 confrontation; "Charles Murray," Bradley Foundation, on the 2016 Bradley Prize. https://vtdigger.org/2017/03/03/protesters-injure-middlebury-professor-escorting-controversial-speaker/
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Curtis
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Curtis
@ -0,0 +1,35 @@
+---
+category: "Other"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - Zizians
+  - Violence
+  - Vallejo
+summary: "Curtis Lind was a Vallejo landlord who rented property to members of the Zizian group, survived a 2022 sword attack in which he killed one assailant in self-defense, and was stabbed to death in January 2025 shortly before he was due to testify against the group."
+died: 2025-01-17
+location: "Vallejo, California"
+created: 2026-06-19
+updated: 2026-06-19
+---
+
+Curtis Lind was an octogenarian landlord in [[Vallejo]], [[California]], who rented lot space to members of the [[The Zizians|Zizian]] group living in box trucks and vans, and who became the central surviving witness in the criminal cases against them before he was killed in January 2025. Lind survived a 2022 attack in which he was impaled with a sword and lost an eye, killing one of his assailants in self-defense, and was stabbed to death two and a half years later shortly before he was scheduled to testify.[^1][^2]
+
+### The 2022 Attack
+
+By autumn 2022 [[Jack LaSota]] and several followers were living in vehicles on Lind's property on Lemon Street in Vallejo. Lind had gone to court to evict the tenants for nonpayment of rent, and on November 15, 2022, two days before the eviction deadline, the dispute escalated into violence: members attacked Lind with a sword, impaling him and costing him his right eye. Lind drew a handgun and shot and killed [[Emma Borhanian]], a longtime LaSota associate, surviving the attack. [[Alexander Leatham]], who used the name "Somni," and [[Suri Dao]] were charged with Borhanian's murder and the attempted murder of Lind.[^1][^3]
+
+Lind's injuries were extensive enough to require about a month of hospitalization, with roughly fifty puncture wounds, a sword wound through his chest, facial lacerations, and the loss of the eye. Investigators concluded he had acted in self-defense in killing Borhanian and brought no charges against him for it. The case against his attackers rested heavily on his testimony, since prosecutors said it lacked surveillance footage, ballistics, or social-media evidence, which left the elderly survivor as the sole eyewitness when the matter headed toward an April 2025 trial.[^1][^3]
+
+### The 2025 Killing
+
+On January 17, 2025, Lind was stabbed and his throat was cut on his Lemon Street property near the site of the 2022 attack, shortly before he was due to testify against the members charged in that case. [[Solano County]] prosecutors charged [[Maximilian Snyder]], a former [[University of Oxford]] student connected to the group, with Lind's murder, alleging the killing was carried out to prevent his testimony. Lind's killing came three days before the Zizian-linked shooting of Border Patrol agent [[David Maland]] in [[Vermont]].[^2][^4]
+
+The Solano County complaint charged the killing with a special circumstance, alleging that "the victim, C.L., was a witness to a crime" and "was intentionally killed for the purpose of preventing his testimony in a criminal proceeding," an allegation that exposes Snyder to a possible death sentence under California law. Snyder was arrested on January 24, 2025 by Redding Police Department officers and taken to the Solano County Jail in Fairfield, where he was held without bail. With Lind dead, the prosecution of his 2022 attackers lost the witness on whom it had depended, and the timing, days before the Vermont stop, became one of the first threads investigators used to connect the California and Vermont cases.[^2][^5]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: "How a Vermont border agent's death exposed violence linked to the cultlike Zizian group," *CBS News,* 2025. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/vermont-border-agent-death-exposed-violence-linked-cultlike-zizian-group/
+[^2]: "Federal grand jury indicts Zizian namesake with Vallejo ties," *Open Vallejo,* June 20, 2025. https://openvallejo.org/2025/06/20/federal-grand-jury-indicts-zizian-namesake-with-vallejo-ties/
+[^3]: "How a California math genius spiraled into Zizian ideology and violence," *Open Vallejo,* March 12, 2025. https://openvallejo.org/2025/03/12/how-a-california-math-genius-spiraled-into-zizian-ideology-and-violence/
+[^4]: "A timeline of activities of a cultlike group tied to the killing of a Border Patrol agent," Associated Press via PBS NewsHour, 2025. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/a-timeline-of-cultlike-zizian-group-tied-to-killing-of-a-border-patrol-agent-in-vermont
+[^5]: "Alleged Zizians follower pleads not guilty to murdering Vallejo landlord," KRON4, March 2025; on the Lemon Street property, the special-circumstance allegation and quoted complaint, and Snyder's January 24 arrest in Redding. https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/alleged-zizians-follower-pleads-not-guilty-to-murdering-vallejo-landlord/
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Dustin
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Dustin
@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
+---
+category: "Philanthropists & Benefactors"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - DustinMoskovitz
+  - Facebook
+  - EffectiveAltruism
+  - OpenPhilanthropy
+  - DemocraticDonor
+summary: "Dustin Moskovitz is a cofounder of Facebook and the software firm Asana who, with his wife Cari Tuna, became the largest sustained funder of effective altruism through Open Philanthropy and one of the largest Democratic political donors, a political mirror image of his fellow Facebook beneficiary Peter Thiel."
+born: 1984-05-22
+location: "San Francisco, California"
+created: 2026-06-19
+updated: 2026-06-19
+---
+
+Dustin Moskovitz (born May 22, 1984) is an American technology entrepreneur who cofounded [[Facebook]] with [[Mark Zuckerberg]] in 2004 and later cofounded the workplace-software company [[Asana]]. With his wife [[Cari Tuna]] he became the largest sustained funder of the [[Effective Altruism]] movement through [[Open Philanthropy]] and one of the largest Democratic political donors in the United States. His career traces the same Facebook fortune that made [[Peter Thiel]], the company's first outside investor, a billionaire, and his philanthropy and politics run in the opposite direction from Thiel's.[^1][^2]
+
+### Facebook and Asana
+
+Moskovitz was Zuckerberg's roommate at [[Harvard University]] and one of Facebook's founding team, serving as its first chief technology officer and head of engineering. He left in 2008 to cofound Asana with [[Justin Rosenstein]], took the company public in 2020, and built a second fortune; his net worth, derived chiefly from his early Facebook stake, exceeds sixteen billion dollars. He stepped down as Asana chief executive in March 2025 while remaining chairman.[^1][^3]
+
+Moskovitz retained roughly two percent of Facebook at its 2012 initial public offering, a stake worth several billion dollars that became the foundation of his wealth and his giving. Asana took its name from a yoga term and went public by direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange in September 2020. His March 2025 retirement announcement, in which he said he would transition out of the chief-executive role, was followed by a sharp drop in Asana's share price; he stayed on as board chair and remained the company's largest shareholder.[^1][^3]
+
+### Open Philanthropy and Effective Altruism
+
+In 2011 Moskovitz and Tuna founded Good Ventures, and they later joined with the charity evaluator [[GiveWell]] to create Open Philanthropy, which became the principal sustained financier of effective altruism, longtermism, and AI-safety work, directing more than four billion dollars in grants. The funding flowed to the same AI-risk research community around the [[Machine Intelligence Research Institute]] and the [[Future of Humanity Institute]] that [[Eliezer Yudkowsky]] and [[Nick Bostrom]] built, and Open Philanthropy was an early backer of the AI company [[Anthropic]]. Moskovitz signed the Giving Pledge, committing the majority of his wealth.[^2][^4]
+
+Good Ventures supplies nearly all of Open Philanthropy's grantmaking, making the foundation's reach a direct function of Moskovitz and Tuna's fortune; the organization's own analysis acknowledged that the movement's funding base rests heavily on the couple. Open Philanthropy's 2017 grant of 30 million dollars to [[OpenAI]] came with a board seat for co-chief-executive [[Holden Karnofsky]], an early instance of the foundation embedding itself inside an AI lab, and it later invested in Anthropic. Operating from November 2025 as Coefficient Giving, the organization began pooling money from outside donors so that other philanthropists could fund its cause areas alongside Good Ventures.[^2][^4]
+
+### Political Giving
+
+Moskovitz became one of the largest individual donors to Democratic causes, an explicit counterweight to right-wing megadonors. He and Tuna pledged roughly twenty million dollars to defeat [[Donald Trump]] and elect [[Hillary Clinton]] in 2016, and in 2020 he gave approximately ninety-two million dollars to the Democratic super PAC [[Future Forward]], among the largest single contributions of the cycle, followed by further giving to the same vehicle in 2024. The pattern is the inverse of Thiel's funding of Trump, [[JD Vance]], and the tech-right: two beneficiaries of the same company financing opposed political projects, while both poured money into the competing wings of the AI-risk debate.[^5][^6]
+
+In the 2024 cycle Moskovitz gave 38 million dollars to Future Forward, the main super PAC backing [[Kamala Harris]], plus 929,600 dollars to the Biden Victory Fund, ranking among Harris's largest billionaire donors. The 2016 effort was bipartisan in intent: Moskovitz wrote that his roughly twenty-million-dollar commitment was meant to counter what he saw as the danger of a Trump presidency, the first time he and Tuna had given at that scale to electoral politics. He has framed his political spending in the same expected-value terms as his philanthropy, treating elections as high-stakes interventions on the same metric of marginal impact that governs Open Philanthropy's grants.[^5][^7]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: "Facebook Co-Founder Moskovitz Builds a Second Fortune With Asana," *Bloomberg,* October 1, 2021. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-01/facebook-co-founder-moskovitz-builds-a-second-fortune-with-asana
+[^2]: "How Dependent is the Effective Altruism Movement on Dustin Moskovitz and Cari Tuna?" EA Forum, on Open Philanthropy and Good Ventures funding. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/4BJSXH9ho4eYNT73P/how-dependent-is-the-effective-altruism-movement-on-dustin
+[^3]: "Asana CEO Dustin Moskovitz announces retirement," *CNBC,* March 10, 2025. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/10/asana-ceo-dustin-moskovitz-announces-retirement-stock-price-drops-25percent.html
+[^4]: "The Making of Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei," Alex Kantrowitz, on Open Philanthropy as an early Anthropic funder. https://kantrowitz.medium.com/the-making-of-anthropic-ceo-dario-amodei-449777529dd6
+[^5]: "Clinton campaign and Dems get $20M from Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz," *TechCrunch,* September 8, 2016. https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/08/a-friend-of-hillary
+[^6]: "Future Forward PAC," InfluenceWatch, on the approximately ninety-two million dollar 2020 contribution and the 2024 giving. https://www.influencewatch.org/political-party/future-forward-pac/
+[^7]: "Trump, Harris' Top Billionaire Donors in 2024 Election," *Bloomberg,* and "Billionaires poured millions of dollars into presidential super PACs," *NBC News,* 2024, on the 38-million-dollar Future Forward gift and the 929,600-dollar Biden Victory Fund contribution. https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2024-billionaire-donors-us-election/
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Elon
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Elon
@ -0,0 +1,72 @@
+---
+category: "Technologists"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - ElonMusk
+  - PayPalMafia
+  - Tesla
+  - SpaceX
+  - Dialog
+  - JeffreyEpstein
+  - Russia
+  - X
+  - Starlink
+alias:
+  - Elon Reeve Musk
+summary: "Elon Musk is a South African-born American billionaire who cofounded PayPal, founded SpaceX and Tesla, acquired X (Twitter), is a PayPal Mafia principal and 2026 Dialog retreat registrant, attended the 2015 Epstein dinner, and has been in documented regular contact with Vladimir Putin since late 2022 while running the Starlink satellite network operationally significant to the Russia-Ukraine war."
+born: 1971-06-28
+location: "Pretoria, South Africa (born); Austin, Texas (base)"
+created: 2026-06-18
+updated: 2026-06-18
+---
+
+Elon Musk (born June 28, 1971, in [[Pretoria]], [[South Africa]]) is a billionaire technology founder who cofounded the company that merged into [[PayPal]], founded [[SpaceX]] and [[Tesla, Inc.|Tesla]], acquired [[X (social media)|X (formerly Twitter)]] in 2022, and operates [[Starlink|Starlink]], the satellite-internet constellation whose terminals have been operationally significant in the [[Russia|Russia]]-[[Ukraine|Ukraine]] war. Musk is a [[PayPal Mafia|PayPal Mafia]] principal, a 2026 [[Dialog]] retreat registrant per the leaked *WIRED* roster, a documented attendee at the 2015 Jeffrey Epstein dinner (EFTA00344556), and has been in regular contact with [[Vladimir Putin|Vladimir Putin]] since late 2022 per [[Wall Street Journal|Wall Street Journal]] reporting. The documented Russian-intelligence targeting of Musk, his platform-policy decisions at X, and his operational control of Starlink's Ukraine coverage together constitute the documented set of intersections between Musk's activities and the U.S. national-security posture.[^1][^2][^3][^4]
+
+### The PayPal Mafia and the Founding Period
+
+Musk founded the online-banking company [[X.com|X.com]] in 1999 with capital from his [[Zip2|Zip2]] sale proceeds. [[Peter Thiel]]'s [[Confinity]] had launched its own person-to-person payments product around the same time, and the two companies entered direct competition that produced a mutually destructive customer-acquisition war. The [[eBay|eBay]] board pressured both companies to merge, and the X.com/Confinity merger closed in 2000, with Musk as the combined entity's largest shareholder and chief executive. Thiel became chairman.[^1][^5]
+
+Musk's tenure as CEO lasted approximately six months. In September 2000, while Musk was on his honeymoon, the PayPal board (led by Thiel) voted to replace Musk as chief executive with Thiel. The board coup was documented in the subsequent reporting and in [[Jimmy Soni|Jimmy Soni's]] book *[[The Founders|The Founders]]* (2022). Musk accepted the decision, remained the largest shareholder, and backed Thiel's leadership through the February 2002 initial public offering and the October 2002 sale to eBay for 1.5 billion dollars. Musk's PayPal proceeds funded the SpaceX founding in 2002 and the Tesla investment in 2004.[^1][^5]
+
+The PayPal cohort subsequently labeled the PayPal Mafia dispersed into the next generation of Silicon Valley companies. Six members of the PayPal Mafia appear on the leaked 2026 Dialog retreat roster, including both Musk and Thiel. The board-coup history (Thiel replacing Musk as CEO) and the subsequent Dialog co-attendance (both at the same off-the-record retreat) together document a relationship that combined documented conflict with continuing commercial and convening alignment across a 25-year period.[^1][^5]
+
+### SpaceX, Starlink, and the Ukraine War
+
+SpaceX, founded by Musk in 2002, developed the [[Falcon|Falcon]] rocket family and the [[Dragon (spacecraft)|Dragon]] capsule under NASA and Department of Defense contracts. Starlink, the SpaceX satellite-internet constellation, began operational deployment in 2019 and became operationally significant in the Russia-Ukraine war after February 2022, when Ukrainian forces and civilians used Starlink terminals for communications after the Russian destruction of the terrestrial infrastructure.[^4][^6]
+
+Musk's personal control over Starlink's geographic coverage produced a situation in which a single private individual controlled a strategic military capability. In September 2023, Musk refused a Ukrainian request to activate Starlink coverage over [[Crimea|Crimea]] for a drone attack on the Russian fleet at [[Sevastopol|Sevastopol]], which biographer [[Walter Isaacson|Walter Isaacson]] documented and which Musk publicly confirmed. The refusal, framed by Musk as preventing an act of war, placed the founder of a private company in the operational decision chain over a combat-zone capability that the U.S. government had not directly controlled.[^6][^7]
+
+The Starlink operational question ran alongside the documented Putin contact channel (since late 2022, per the Wall Street Journal October 25, 2024 reporting). The combination of Musk's control over the Ukraine communications infrastructure, the Putin contact channel, and the [[Jonathan Buma|Buma]]-documented GRU targeting of Musk has sustained the public question of whether the Starlink operational decisions were influenced by the Putin relationship. Musk has denied any such influence.[^4][^6][^7]
+
+### The Dialog Registration and the 2015 Epstein Dinner
+
+Musk appears on the leaked 2026 Dialog retreat roster, per *WIRED*'s reporting on the hacktivist [[maia arson crimew|crimew]]'s publication of the Dialog membership directory and the separately provided registration list.[^1]
+
+The document releases (EFTA00344556, EFTA00344564) document that Musk attended an August 2015 dinner that [[Reid Hoffman]] hosted in [[Palo Alto]] to raise money for the [[MIT Media Lab]]. The guest list included Peter Thiel, [[Mark Zuckerberg]], [[Joi Ito]], and [[Jeffrey Epstein|Epstein]]. The dinner was documented in the [[Epstein Files|Epstein file]] releases and indexed in the Carstensen aggregator. The 2015 dinner is seven years after Epstein's 2008 federal non-prosecution agreement.[^1][^5][^8]
+
+Musk has stated publicly that he attended the dinner because Epstein promised to introduce him to someone, and that he left early. The documented co-presence of Musk, Thiel, Hoffman, Zuckerberg, and Ito at a single Epstein-mediated dinner places five PayPal Mafia and Silicon Valley principals at the same table as the registered sex offender. The Hoffman image-rehabilitation apology (September 2019) covers the broader pattern of Hoffman's Epstein contacts that the 2015 dinner is one documented instance of.[^1][^5][^8]
+
+### The Putin Contacts and the Russian-Targeting Question
+
+The 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 Starlink became operationally significant in the Russia-Ukraine war. The contact channel ran through the period of Musk's X acquisition (October 2022), his documented shifts in platform-content moderation toward the post-2022 Russian-state position on the war, and the September 2023 Starlink-Crimea refusal.[^3][^4]
+
+Former FBI agent Jonathan Buma disclosed in May 2025 (per [[The Guardian]]) that Russian-intelligence efforts to target Musk were "intense," and the [[Kyiv Post|Kyiv Post]] reporting on Buma's interview characterized the operation as [[GRU|GRU]]-run, Putin-approved, and exploiting vulnerabilities including drug use, sexual entrapment, and luxury access. The [[Igor Kurganov|Igor Kurganov]] infiltration, documented separately, is the concrete instance: a Russian-born former professional poker player who gained operational access to Musk's philanthropic decision-making and residential life before being removed by wealth manager [[Jared Birchall]] in May 2022.[^4][^9][^10]
+
+### The X Acquisition and Platform Policy
+
+Musk acquired Twitter in October 2022 for 44 billion dollars and renamed it X. The acquisition and the subsequent platform-policy changes (the restoration of previously banned accounts, the reduction of content-moderation teams, the documented shift in the platform's enforcement posture toward the Russian-state and far-right positions) produced the documented instance at which a single individual controlled a major U.S. communications platform while simultaneously in contact with Putin and while his own companies (SpaceX, Tesla) operated under federal regulatory jurisdiction.[^3][^4]
+
+Musk has denied that his activities have been influenced by Russian-state interests.[^3][^4][^9]
+
+### 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]: Tommy Carstensen Epstein Files index, "Peter Thiel," cross-referencing EFTA00344556 and EFTA00344564 (2015 dinner guest list). https://tommycarstensen.com/epstein/people/peter-thiel.html
+[^3]: For the Musk-Putin contact reporting, see the *Wall Street Journal* October 25, 2024 report on regular contact since late 2022.
+[^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]: Soni, Jimmy. *The Founders: The Story of PayPal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley.* Simon and Schuster, 2022, documenting the X.com/Confinity merger, the 2000 board vote replacing Musk with Thiel as CEO, and the dispersal of the PayPal cohort.
+[^6]: For the SpaceX, Falcon, and Starlink record, see the company's published materials and the DoD and NASA contracting record.
+[^7]: Isaacson, Walter. *Elon Musk.* Simon and Schuster, 2023.
+[^8]: For the 2015 Epstein dinner, see EFTA00344556 and EFTA00344564, indexed in the Carstensen aggregator.
+[^9]: "Russian Intelligence Used Sex, Drugs to Target Elon Musk." *Kyiv Post,* 2025. https://www.kyivpost.com/post/52742
+[^10]: For the Kurganov infiltration and the Birchall removal, see The Guardian May 2025 report and the Igor Kurganov page.
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Ghislaine
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Ghislaine
@ -0,0 +1,74 @@
+---
+category: "Crime & Abuse Networks"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - GhislaineMaxwell
+  - JeffreyEpstein
+  - RobertMaxwell
+  - SexTrafficking
+  - Conviction
+  - Mossad
+alias:
+  - Ghislaine Maxwell
+summary: "Ghislaine Maxwell is the British socialite convicted in December 2021 of sex trafficking conspiracy and sex trafficking of a minor for her role as Jeffrey Epstein's principal accomplice, daughter of the publishing mogul Robert Maxwell who was credibly alleged to have operated as a Mossad-connected intelligence asset, and the youngest of the Maxwell children whose family intelligence legacy has produced sustained reporting on whether the Epstein-Maxwell operation functioned as an intelligence-linked compromise operation."
+born: 1961-12-25
+location: "Maisons-Laffitte, France (born)"
+created: 2026-06-18
+updated: 2026-06-18
+---
+
+Ghislaine Maxwell (born December 25, 1961, in [[Maisons-Laffitte|Maisons-Laffitte]], [[France|France]]) is the British socialite convicted on December 29, 2021 in the [[U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York|U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York]] on five of six federal counts including sex trafficking conspiracy and sex trafficking of a minor, for her role as [[Jeffrey Epstein|Jeffrey Epstein]]'s principal accomplice in the trafficking operation. Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison on June 28, 2022. She is the youngest daughter of the publishing mogul [[Robert Maxwell|Robert Maxwell]], who was credibly alleged across multiple documented sources to have operated as a [[Mossad|Mossad]]-connected intelligence asset, and whose family intelligence legacy has produced sustained reporting on whether the Epstein-Maxwell operation functioned as an intelligence-linked compromise operation.[^1][^2][^3]
+
+### Early Life and the Path to Epstein
+
+Ghislaine Maxwell was the youngest of the nine children of Robert Maxwell and the Holocaust scholar [[Elisabeth Maxwell|Elisabeth "Betty" Maxwell]], and was widely described as her father's favorite, the child after whom he named his yacht. She was educated at [[Marlborough College]] and [[Balliol College]], [[University of Oxford|Oxford]], and worked inside her father's business empire, taking public-facing roles connected to [[Oxford United]] football club and the newspaper The European. She moved in elite British and international social circles before her father's death.[^9]
+
+After Robert Maxwell drowned in November 1991 and his empire was found to have looted the Mirror Group pension funds, the family fortune and reputation collapsed, and Ghislaine relocated to New York. She reinvented herself there as a society fixer and met Epstein in the early 1990s. Their romantic relationship gave way to a working one in which she organized his households, staff, and social calendar, a role the 2021 trial identified as that of recruiter and procurer for the abuse operation.[^9]
+
+### The Conviction
+
+The federal trial in the Southern District of New York established that Maxwell was Epstein's "number two," who groomed and recruited underage girls (victims as young as 14), arranged travel for them across state lines, paid them to recruit additional victims, and normalized the abuse through her social position. Four victims testified under pseudonyms ("Jane," "Kate," "Carolyn," "Annie"). The jury found Maxwell guilty on five of six counts: conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, sex trafficking conspiracy, and sex trafficking of a minor. The sixth count (perjury, related to a 2016 civil deposition) resulted in acquittal; those charges were subsequently dropped. The [[Second Circuit|Second Circuit]] denied Maxwell's appeal in September 2024.[^1][^4]
+
+The trial ran from November 29 to December 29, 2021, before Judge [[Alison Nathan|Alison J. Nathan]]; the jury of six women and six men deliberated about 40 hours across parts of six days before returning the verdict.[^6] Maxwell moved for a new trial on January 19, 2022 under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 33, after Juror No. 50 ("Scotty David") told media interviewers that his own childhood sexual abuse, which he had not disclosed on the jury questionnaire, had helped persuade fellow jurors; Nathan held an evidentiary hearing and denied the motion on April 1, 2022, finding the omission "highly unfortunate, but not deliberate" and the juror credibly unbiased.[^7] At the June 28, 2022 sentencing Nathan imposed an above-Guidelines term of 240 months, a five-year term of supervised release, and a 750,000 dollar fine; prosecutors did not seek restitution because the testifying victims had already been compensated through the Epstein Victim Compensation Program and civil settlements, and eight victims submitted impact statements, several reading them aloud.[^1] The Second Circuit affirmed on September 17, 2024 and denied rehearing on November 25, 2024.[^4]
+
+### The Recruitment Operation
+
+The trial record and victim accounts established Maxwell as the operation's recruiter and the figure who normalized the abuse. She approached adolescent girls in ordinary settings, spas, shopping areas, and schools, befriended them, and brought them to Epstein under the cover of paid "massage" work that escalated into sexual abuse. She recruited [[Virginia Giuffre]] around 2000, when Giuffre was a teenage locker-room attendant at [[Mar-a-Lago]]. The operation ran as a pyramid in which victims were paid to recruit further victims, multiplying the number of girls cycled through the houses.[^10]
+
+Maxwell exercised operational control over the physical network. She managed Epstein's residences (the Manhattan townhouse, the [[Palm Beach, Florida|Palm Beach]] house, [[Little St. James]] in the Virgin Islands, the New Mexico ranch, and the Paris apartment), directed household staff, and coordinated travel on Epstein's aircraft. She maintained the contact directory known as the "little black book," which listed hundreds of names; a former house manager, [[Alfredo Rodriguez]], later attempted to sell a copy and was convicted of obstruction. Flight logs and staff testimony placed her at the center of the logistics.[^10]
+
+Her social standing opened the doors the operation depended on. She introduced Epstein into circles that included British royalty and American political figures, among them [[Prince Andrew]] and [[Bill Clinton]], and hosted at the properties. A March 2001 photograph taken at Maxwell's London home showed Andrew with his arm around Giuffre and Maxwell in the background, an image central to Giuffre's later civil suit against Andrew. The 2024 unsealing of the [[Giuffre v. Maxwell]] documents and the testimony of four pseudonymous accusers at the 2021 trial ("Jane," "Kate," "Carolyn," and "Annie") detailed the mechanics of how the recruitment and abuse were carried out.[^10]
+
+### The Robert Maxwell Legacy
+
+Robert Maxwell (born Jan Ludvik Hoch, 1923, in [[Czechoslovakia|Czechoslovakia]]) was the British publishing mogul who controlled [[Mirror Group Newspapers|Mirror Group Newspapers]] and [[Pergamon Press|Pergamon Press]], served as a [[Member of Parliament|Member of Parliament]], and died on November 5, 1991, in a documented drowning at sea off his yacht *Lady Ghislaine* (named for his daughter) near the [[Canary Islands|Canary Islands]]. After his death, his empire was found to have looted approximately 460 million pounds from the Mirror Group pension fund.[^2][^3]
+
+Robert Maxwell was accused across multiple documented sources of operating as an intelligence asset for Mossad, [[MI6|MI6]], and the [[KGB|KGB]]. The documented allegations include the distribution of modified [[PROMIS|PROMIS]] software to facilitate Israeli intelligence-gathering operations, involvement in the [[Mordechai Vanunu|Vanunu]] case, and the broader intelligence-community relationships documented by the journalists [[Gordon Thomas|Gordon Thomas]] (in *[[Gideon's Spies|Gideon's Spies]]*) and the BBC Select documentary "Robert Maxwell, the KGB and MI6." Robert Maxwell met the accusations with denials and legal threats. No intelligence service has officially confirmed him as an agent.[^2][^3]
+
+### The Intelligence-Operation Question
+
+Ghislaine Maxwell moved to [[New York|New York]] in 1991 after her father's death and the collapse of the family's reputation, reportedly with a financial settlement from the family estate. She met Epstein shortly after. Her lawyers have argued that her father's death "set her on a path" toward Epstein. The documented combination of Robert Maxwell's intelligence legacy, Ghislaine's role as Epstein's social partner and the principal recruiter of the trafficking operation, the documented [[Ehud Barak|Israeli-intelligence]] contacts through Epstein, and the broader pattern of Epstein's relationships with intelligence officials ([[William Burns]]) and technology principals ([[Peter Thiel|Thiel]], [[Elon Musk|Musk]]) has produced the recurring analytical question of whether the Epstein-Maxwell operation functioned as an intelligence-linked compromise or "honeypot" operation. The question is not confirmed in any primary document and is flagged here as a documented analytical thread.[^3][^5]
+
+The strongest version of the intelligence claim traces to Ari Ben-Menashe, a self-described former Israeli Military Intelligence figure, who alleged in interviews and in his book *Profits of War* (1992) that Robert Maxwell was a "full-service" Mossad asset and that Epstein and Ghislaine were introduced into Israeli intelligence work through the Maxwell connection.[^8] Ben-Menashe's reliability is contested: his account is uncorroborated by any declassified file, he has made other claims that proved unverifiable, and no intelligence service has confirmed any of it, so the assertion that Ghislaine inherited her father's intelligence ties is reported allegation rather than established fact.[^8] What is documented in the trial record and contemporaneous reporting is narrower: that Maxwell maintained the social access (to figures including Prince Andrew and a transatlantic donor class) through which Epstein's operation functioned, and that Epstein separately cultivated relationships with Barak and others. Whether that access was directed by any service, or was simply the by-product of inherited wealth and connections weaponized for blackmail-adjacent leverage, remains unproven in any primary source.[^3][^5]
+
+### The 2025 Justice Department Interview and Transfer
+
+In late July 2025 the Deputy Attorney General [[Todd Blanche]], who had previously served as [[Donald Trump|Donald Trump's]] personal defense attorney, interviewed Maxwell over two days at the federal correctional institution in [[Tallahassee, Florida|Tallahassee]] under a grant of limited proffer immunity. The Justice Department released a 337-page transcript on August 22, 2025. In it Maxwell discussed Trump, Prince Andrew, and other prominent men associated with Epstein and largely spoke of them in exculpatory terms, while declining to confirm the central allegations against several figures. The interview was conducted while the Trump administration was managing the contested release of the Epstein files, and critics characterized it as an effort to shape the public record.[^11]
+
+Days after the interview, on August 1, 2025, Maxwell was moved from the Tallahassee facility to the minimum-security [[Federal Prison Camp Bryan]] in Texas. Former Bureau of Prisons officials called the transfer "highly unusual" for an inmate convicted of a sex offense with more than ten years left to serve, since prison camps ordinarily exclude both categories. Senator [[Sheldon Whitehouse]] demanded documents explaining the decision, and residents of Bryan protested her arrival. The Bureau of Prisons did not provide a detailed public rationale.[^11]
+
+Maxwell pursued parallel efforts to overturn or shorten her sentence. Her attorneys petitioned the [[Supreme Court of the United States]] to vacate the conviction, arguing that the co-conspirator immunity clause in Epstein's 2007 [[non-prosecution agreement]] with the Southern District of Florida barred her later prosecution anywhere in the country; the Court denied certiorari in October 2025. She separately offered to testify before the [[House Oversight Committee]], which had subpoenaed her, on the condition that she receive immunity, a condition that was not granted.[^11]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: "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
+[^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]: Thomas, Gordon. *Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad.* St. Martin's Press.
+[^4]: "Ghislaine Maxwell loses sex trafficking appeal." *BBC,* September 2024. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy0glxd0gxko
+[^5]: For the Epstein-Barak Israeli-intelligence channel and the Epstein-Burns CIA-director contacts, see the Jeffrey Epstein, Ehud Barak, and William Burns pages.
+[^6]: "Ghislaine Maxwell trial: Jury finds she sex trafficked a minor for Jeffrey Epstein, guilty on five of six counts." *CNN,* December 29, 2021. https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/29/us/ghislaine-maxwell-trial-wednesday
+[^7]: United States v. Maxwell, 20 Cr. 330 (AJN), Opinion and Order denying motion for new trial (S.D.N.Y. April 1, 2022). See also "Juror's omissions will not trigger Ghislaine Maxwell retrial." *Courthouse News Service.* https://www.courthousenews.com/jurors-omissions-will-not-trigger-ghislaine-maxwell-retrial/
+[^8]: 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; see also Thomas, *Gideon's Spies* (note 3).
+[^9]: For Maxwell's family, education, and move to New York, see "Ghislaine Maxwell: The British socialite who became Epstein's confidante." *BBC,* December 2021. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53100417 and the contemporaneous biographical reporting.
+[^10]: For the recruitment mechanics, the contact directory, and the victim testimony, see the trial record in United States v. Maxwell, 20 Cr. 330 (S.D.N.Y. 2021), the January 2024 unsealing of Giuffre v. Maxwell exhibits before Judge Loretta Preska, and the Alfredo Rodriguez obstruction case (S.D. Fla.).
+[^11]: "Justice Department releases transcripts from Ghislaine Maxwell's interview." *CNN,* August 22, 2025. https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/ghislaine-maxwell-jeffrey-epstein-doj-documents-08-22-25 ; "Ghislaine Maxwell moved to federal prison camp in Texas." *CNN,* August 1, 2025. https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/01/politics/ghislaine-maxwell-federal-prison-texas ; "Supreme Court declines to hear Ghislaine Maxwell's appeal." *SCOTUSblog,* October 2025. https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/10/supreme-court-declines-to-hear-ghislaine-maxwells-appeal/
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Holden
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Holden
@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
+---
+category: "AI & Effective Altruism"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - EffectiveAltruism
+  - OpenPhilanthropy
+  - Anthropic
+  - ArtificialIntelligence
+  - Longtermism
+alias:
+  - Holden Karnofsky
+summary: "Holden Karnofsky is the cofounder of the charity evaluator GiveWell and of Open Philanthropy, the largest sustained funder of effective altruism and AI-safety work, an early backer of Anthropic who later moved into AI-safety strategy and joined Anthropic in 2025, and the husband of Anthropic president Daniela Amodei."
+born: 1981
+location: "San Francisco, California"
+created: 2026-06-19
+updated: 2026-06-19
+---
+
+Holden Karnofsky (born 1981) is an American grantmaker who cofounded the charity evaluator [[GiveWell]] and the foundation [[Open Philanthropy]], the durable financial backbone of the [[Effective Altruism]] movement and of [[Longtermism|longtermist]] and AI-safety work. As Open Philanthropy's co-chief executive he directed the institutional patronage that sustained AI-existential-risk research, was an early backer of the AI company [[Anthropic]], and in 2025 left grantmaking to work at Anthropic directly. He is married to Anthropic cofounder and president [[Daniela Amodei]].[^1][^2]
+
+### GiveWell
+
+Karnofsky and [[Elie Hassenfeld]] met as analysts at the hedge fund [[Bridgewater Associates]], where they were part of a group of eight finance-industry friends researching charitable giving in their spare time. In 2007 the two left their jobs, raised about 300,000 dollars from former coworkers, and founded GiveWell, an organization that rates charities by the measured cost-effectiveness of their interventions and recommends a short list of top picks. The model, evidence-based giving aimed at maximizing lives saved per dollar, became one of the two intellectual streams of effective altruism, alongside the Oxford moral philosophy of [[Toby Ord]] and [[William MacAskill]].[^3][^4]
+
+Months after the launch, Karnofsky was caught promoting GiveWell anonymously: in December 2007 he posted a question soliciting charity recommendations on the community site Ask MetaFilter under a false identity, then answered it touting GiveWell without disclosing his role. The board removed him as executive director and board secretary effective January 3, 2008, cut 5,000 dollars from his salary, and required him to take a professional-development course; he was later restored to the leadership. GiveWell grew into a major channel for evidence-based giving, directing more than 1.45 billion dollars to its top charities between 2009 and 2024, with roughly half of that going to the [[Against Malaria Foundation]] at an estimated cost of about 5,500 dollars per life saved.[^7][^8]
+
+### Open Philanthropy
+
+GiveWell's research into larger and riskier giving opportunities led to a partnership with Good Ventures, the foundation established in 2011 by [[Facebook]] cofounder [[Dustin Moskovitz]] and his wife [[Cari Tuna]]. The two efforts joined as the Open Philanthropy Project in 2014 and began independent operations in 2017, with Karnofsky as co-chief executive. Funded chiefly by Moskovitz and Tuna, Open Philanthropy directed more than four billion dollars in grants by 2025 across global health and "longtermism," the latter covering AI risk, pandemic preparedness, and the far future. Its AI-risk money flowed to the research community around the [[Machine Intelligence Research Institute]], the [[Future of Humanity Institute]], and the [[Rationalist Community]], making Open Philanthropy the principal patron of AI-safety work outside the technology companies. The organization renamed itself Coefficient Giving in 2025.[^1][^2]
+
+The effort began inside GiveWell as "GiveWell Labs" before splitting off, with Karnofsky and [[Alexander Berger]] sharing the chief-executive role until Berger became sole chief executive on Karnofsky's 2023 departure. In March 2017 Karnofsky steered Open Philanthropy's 30-million-dollar grant to [[OpenAI]], a sum that bought a board seat he held until 2021, when he resigned it after his wife cofounded a competing lab. Between 2021 and 2023 Karnofsky wrote the "most important century" series on his blog Cold Takes, more than twenty essays arguing that the development of transformative AI could make the present century the most consequential in human history, a thesis that supplied the intellectual rationale for Open Philanthropy's concentration of money on AI risk.[^2][^9]
+
+### Anthropic and the Amodei Tie
+
+Open Philanthropy was an early funder of Anthropic, the AI company founded in 2021 by former OpenAI researchers from the effective-altruism milieu, and Karnofsky held a seat associated with that early backing. Karnofsky married Daniela Amodei in 2017; she cofounded Anthropic with her brother [[Dario Amodei]] and serves as its president. In 2022 [[Sam Bankman-Fried]] invested roughly 500 million dollars of [[FTX]]-derived capital in Anthropic through [[Alameda Research]], placing the company at the intersection of the movement's two largest funders during the period Karnofsky's foundation and his wife's company were both tied to it. Karnofsky took a leave from his co-chief-executive role in 2023 to focus on AI strategy and joined Anthropic in January 2025 to work on its responsible-scaling and safety policies.[^2][^5][^6]
+
+The overlap drew the criticism that the largest funder of independent AI-safety research was led by a man married to the president of a frontier AI lab his foundation had financed. Karnofsky's OpenAI board seat from 2017 to 2021 had already placed him inside one leading lab before the marriage tie connected him to a second; commentators noted that the same small network of effective-altruism figures sat on the funding, governance, and research sides of the field at once. At Anthropic he took up work on the company's Responsible Scaling Policy, the framework of capability thresholds and safety commitments the company uses to govern the release of more powerful models.[^2][^6]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: "How Dependent is the Effective Altruism Movement on Dustin Moskovitz and Cari Tuna?" EA Forum. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/4BJSXH9ho4eYNT73P/how-dependent-is-the-effective-altruism-movement-on-dustin
+[^2]: "Who Funds the AI Safety Watchdogs," Inside The Black Box, on Open Philanthropy's share of AI-safety funding, the Karnofsky-Amodei marriage, and Karnofsky's 2025 move to Anthropic. https://itbb.substack.com/p/who-funds-the-watchdogs
+[^3]: "Our Story," GiveWell, on the 2007 founding by eight finance-industry friends and the 300,000-dollar startup raise. https://www.givewell.org/about/story
+[^4]: "GiveWell Co-Founder Explains Effective Altruism Frameworks," *The Harvard Crimson,* December 4, 2015. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/12/4/givewell-founder-effective-altruism/
+[^5]: "Effective Altruism After Sam Bankman-Fried," Seven Pillars Institute, 2023, on the 500 million dollar Anthropic investment via Alameda Research. https://www.sevenpillarsinstitute.org/effective-altruism-after-sam-bankman-fried/
+[^6]: "The Making of Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei," Alex Kantrowitz, on Open Philanthropy as an early Anthropic funder and the Karnofsky tie. https://kantrowitz.medium.com/the-making-of-anthropic-ceo-dario-amodei-449777529dd6
+[^7]: "GiveWell in turmoil after 'horrible lapse of judgement' by founders," *Alliance,* 2008, on the MetaFilter astroturfing and the board sanctions. https://www.alliancemagazine.org/news/givewell-in-turmoil-after-horrible-lapse-of-judgement-by-founders/
+[^8]: "GiveWell's Fundraising and Grantmaking in 2023" and "GiveWell's 2024 Metrics and Impact," The GiveWell Blog, on the cumulative 1.45-billion-dollar total and the Against Malaria Foundation cost per life saved. https://blog.givewell.org/2025/08/13/givewells-2024-metrics-and-impact/
+[^9]: "OpenAI General Support," Good Ventures, on the March 2017 30-million-dollar grant and Karnofsky's board seat through 2021; Karnofsky, Holden, "The Most Important Century," Cold Takes, 2021. https://www.cold-takes.com/the-most-important-century-in-a-nutshell/
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Igor
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Igor
@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
+---
+category: "AI & Effective Altruism"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - IgorKurganov
+  - ElonMusk
+  - Russia
+  - FBI
+  - ForeignInterference
+  - Philanthropy
+  - Counterintelligence
+alias:
+  - Igor Kurganov
+summary: "Igor Kurganov is a Russian-born former professional poker player who gained operational influence over Elon Musk's charitable giving during the COVID-19 pandemic, slept in Musk's Austin home, and was the subject of FBI preliminary inquiries into foreign interference before being removed from Musk's inner circle by wealth manager Jared Birchall in May 2022."
+location: "Russia (born); Austin, Texas (Musk period)"
+created: 2026-06-18
+updated: 2026-06-18
+---
+
+Igor Kurganov is a Russian-born former professional poker player who gained operational influence over [[Elon Musk|Elon Musk]]'s charitable giving during the COVID-19 pandemic. Kurganov was sleeping in Musk's [[Austin, Texas|Austin]] home during the pandemic period, 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 and removed Kurganov from the inner circle in May 2022.[^1]
+
+### The Poker Career and the Musk Access
+
+Kurganov built a public profile as a high-stakes professional poker player, accumulating over 18 million dollars in live tournament winnings across a career that placed him among the top German and Russian tournament players. His poker network overlaps with the high-roller gambling circuit whose principals move across national borders and whose venues (Macau, Las Vegas, Monte Carlo, the online high-stakes sites) are documented intelligence-collection environments.[^1][^2]
+
+The documented path to Musk ran through Kurganov's effective-altruism and philanthropic-strategy work. Kurganov entered Musk's circle during the pandemic period and gained influence over Musk's charitable giving, which had become a substantial operation as Musk's wealth grew through the [[Tesla|Tesla]] stock run-up and the [[SpaceX|SpaceX]] private valuations. Kurganov's access included sleeping in Musk's Austin home, placing him inside Musk's residential security perimeter rather than at arm's length as a professional advisor.[^1]
+
+### The FBI Preliminary Inquiry
+
+The FBI's Los Angeles field office opened preliminary inquiries into whether Kurganov's access to Musk constituted a foreign-interference channel, per *The Guardian*'s reporting on the disclosures of former FBI agent [[Jonathan Buma]]. The inquiry ran under the counterintelligence portfolio that handles Russian foreign-influence operations targeting U.S. technology principals. Buma described the broader pattern of Russian targeting of Musk as "intense," and the [[Kyiv Post|Kyiv Post]] / [[ZDF|ZDF]] reporting on Buma's interview characterized the operation as [[GRU|GRU]]-run and Putin-approved, exploiting vulnerabilities including drug use, sexual entrapment, and luxury access.[^1][^3]
+
+The question of what Kurganov did with the access during the period he had it (advising on philanthropic strategy, residential access, proximity to Musk's decision-making on charitable and potentially other matters) is not fully resolved in the public record. The FBI inquiry was preliminary, meaning it was an assessment-stage investigation to determine whether full counterintelligence investigation was warranted.[^1]
+
+### The Birchall Removal (May 2022)
+
+Jared Birchall is the wealth manager who runs Musk's family office and who functions as Musk's gatekeeper on financial and security matters. *The Guardian* reported that Birchall confronted Musk about Kurganov's access and removed Kurganov from the inner circle in May 2022.[^1]
+
+What Kurganov did with his access during the period he had it, what he took with him when he was removed, and whether the access produced intelligence value for any Russian service are not documented in the public record.[^1]
+
+### The Broader Targeting Pattern
+
+Buma disclosed that the Kurganov case was one of multiple Russian targeting efforts directed at Musk and at [[Peter Thiel|Thiel]]. The [[The Guardian|Guardian]] reported Buma's May 2025 interview in which he characterized the efforts as "intense," and the Kyiv Post reporting on Buma's ZDF interview described the operation as GRU-run, Putin-approved, and exploiting vulnerabilities including drug use, sexual entrapment, and luxury access.[^1][^4]
+
+The Buma handling of Thiel as an FBI CHS from summer 2021 overlaps chronologically with the Kurganov-Musk access period (2020-2022). Buma told the Guardian he briefed Thiel on "what a targeting looks like" and that Thiel provided "helpful information to help us identify the nodes through which these outreaches have occurred." The overlap means the FBI's counterintelligence handling of the Thiel CHS relationship and the FBI's preliminary inquiry into Kurganov's access to Musk ran in the same Los Angeles field office during the same period.[^1][^4]
+
+The [[Wall Street Journal|Wall Street Journal]] reported on October 25, 2024 that Musk had been in regular contact with [[Vladimir Putin|Putin]] since late 2022, after [[Starlink|Starlink]] became operationally significant in the Russia-Ukraine war. The Putin contact channel, the Buma-documented GRU targeting, the Kurganov infiltration, and the [[NLRB Data Exfiltration|NLRB data exfiltration]] with Russian IP access through [[Department of Government Efficiency|DOGE]] together form the evidentiary set on the Russian-influence question around the PayPal Mafia principals.[^1][^4]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: "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
+[^2]: For Kurganov's poker career earnings and ranking, see the [[Hendon Mob|Hendon Mob]] poker database and the live-tournament record.
+[^3]: "Russian Intelligence Used Sex, Drugs to Target Elon Musk." *Kyiv Post,* 2025. https://www.kyivpost.com/post/52742
+[^4]: Schwartz, Mattathias. "Exclusive: Tech billionaire Peter Thiel was an FBI informant." *Business Insider,* October 2023, on Thiel providing information to FBI agent Johnathan Buma as a confidential human source codenamed "Philosopher" beginning summer 2021, focused on foreign-influence approaches. https://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-fbi-informant-2023-10
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Jack
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Jack
@ -0,0 +1,59 @@
+---
+category: "Extremism & Violent Networks"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - Zizians
+  - Rationalism
+  - Cult
+  - Violence
+  - ArtificialIntelligence
+alias:
+  - Ziz
+  - Jack Amadeus LaSota
+summary: "Jack LaSota, who writes under the persona 'Ziz,' is an Alaska-born computer programmer and former rationalist who founded the group known as the Zizians around a theory of brain hemispheres and militant veganism, and who was arrested in Maryland in February 2025 as the group was tied to six deaths across three states."
+born: 1990
+location: "Fairbanks, Alaska"
+created: 2026-06-19
+updated: 2026-06-19
+---
+
+Jack LaSota, who writes under the online persona "Ziz," is an American computer programmer and former member of the Bay Area [[Rationalist Community]] who founded the small group known as the [[The Zizians|Zizians]]. Born and raised in [[Fairbanks]], [[Alaska]], LaSota built a doctrine combining an original theory of brain hemispheres, militant veganism, anarchism, and rationalist decision theory, and gathered a circle of mostly young transgender followers around it. Between 2022 and 2025 the group was tied to six deaths across [[California]], [[Pennsylvania]], and [[Vermont]]. LaSota was arrested in [[Maryland]] in February 2025 and faces federal and state charges.[^1][^2]
+
+### Background
+
+LaSota studied computer science at the [[University of Alaska Fairbanks]], briefly pursued postgraduate work at the [[University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign]], and interned at [[NASA]] before moving to the [[San Francisco Bay Area]] around 2013. An avid reader of [[Eliezer Yudkowsky]], she sought out the [[Machine Intelligence Research Institute]] (MIRI) and the [[Center for Applied Rationality]] (CFAR), entering the rationalist scene as an enthusiast before becoming one of its harshest critics, accusing both organizations of "ethical hypocrisy" for failing to act on the moral demands of their own doctrine.[^2][^3]
+
+She began posting around 2016 under the persona "Ziz," debating AI safety and logical paradoxes on [[LessWrong]] before moving to a personal blog with longer essays on technology, gender, and cognition. LaSota did not hold steady employment in the Bay Area and lived on the community's margins. CFAR co-founder [[Anna Salamon]] later described her as someone who "wanted to feel special" but felt outshone in a scene dense with technical talent, an account that places the turn toward an esoteric doctrine in a competition for status the broader rationalist world did not grant her. The formal break came in 2018, when rationalist organizations rejected her hemisphere theory.[^9][^10]
+
+### The Zizian Doctrine
+
+LaSota's blog advanced the theory that the brain's two hemispheres hold separate personalities with their own genders and moral alignments, and she sorted people's mental "cores" as "nongood," "single good," or "double good." She counted herself among a very small number of "double good" people. The group practiced "unihemispheric sleep," a sleep-deprivation method she said could "jailbreak" the mind, and "debucketing," the unlearning of social categories. She wore black robes and described herself as "Sith," after the malevolent order in [[Star Wars]], framing an adversarial morality against a world she held to be complicit in animal killing and facing collapse from artificial-intelligence misalignment. A follower, [[Maia Pasek]], died by suicide in February 2018; LaSota presented the death as evidence of her method's power.[^1][^4]
+
+The doctrine borrowed "heroic responsibility" from Yudkowsky's fiction, the idea that an agent is accountable for an outcome regardless of whether anyone else failed first, and fused it with the timeless-decision-theory claim that one should act on universal principles rather than case-by-case pragmatism. In LaSota's hands these combined to recast ordinary moral compromise as existential betrayal, so that declining to confront a perceived wrong became itself a culpable act. She also argued that transgender women possessed a distinct cognitive profile suited to AI-safety work, a claim that helped concentrate recruitment among young transgender rationalists. The hemisphere framework had operational consequences: a member rated only "single good," such as the associate [[Gwen Danielson]], was treated as untrustworthy and subject to watching, which built suspicion and ranking into the group's internal life.[^1][^3]
+
+### The CFAR Break and the Faked Death
+
+In November 2019 LaSota and several associates protested a CFAR retreat at [[Occidental]] in [[Sonoma County]] in masks and robes; four were arrested, and CFAR barred LaSota from its events. In August 2022 she staged her own death, leaving the impression she had drowned after going off a boat in the San Francisco Bay, and remained at large under that cover before resurfacing in [[Philadelphia]] in 2023.[^2][^5]
+
+The 2022 vanishing followed a recoverable sequence: the U.S. Coast Guard responded to a report that she had fallen from a boat in the bay, no body was found, and an obituary appeared, which let her exit pending [[Vallejo]] proceedings as a presumed drowning. Before staging that death she had already accumulated criminal exposure beyond the Sonoma standoff. In early 2023, in connection with the killing of [[Michelle Zajko]]'s parents in Pennsylvania, LaSota was charged with obstructing the homicide investigation and disorderly conduct, charges that ran alongside the firearms case that would later put her in federal custody.[^5][^9]
+
+### Arrest and Prosecution
+
+On February 16, 2025, LaSota was arrested in Allegany County, Maryland, alongside Michelle Zajko and [[Daniel Blank]] after a property owner near [[Frostburg]] reported that the three were living in two white box trucks on his land and refused to leave; investigators reported finding a GM6 Lynx .50-caliber rifle, an HS Produkt Hellcat 9mm handgun, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. A federal grand jury in Maryland indicted her on June 20, 2025 as a fugitive in possession of firearms and ammunition, a charge carrying up to fifteen years; she pleaded not guilty.[^6][^7]
+
+On March 12, 2026, U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar granted a competency evaluation requested by defense attorney Gary Proctor, who reported that LaSota had refused to meet a doctor brought to the jail and had told an earlier hearing that the judge ran an "organized crime ring," answering a question about her age with "Timeless." Her lawyers rejected the "Zizian" and "cult" labels in their filings and accused the Department of Justice of misgendering her by using her former name and male pronouns. She remained held at the Allegany County Detention Center awaiting state and federal proceedings, which prosecutors moved to consolidate so that members of the group would face trial together in Maryland.[^8][^11][^12]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: "The Radicalization of Ziz LaSota: How an AI Doomer Became an Accused Cult Leader," *Rolling Stone,* 2025. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/ziz-lasota-zizians-ai-cult-1235468289/
+[^2]: "Zizians," World Religions and Spirituality Project, Virginia Commonwealth University, November 7, 2025. https://wrldrels.org/2025/11/07/zizians/
+[^3]: "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
+[^4]: "How a California math genius spiraled into Zizian ideology and violence," *Open Vallejo,* March 12, 2025. https://openvallejo.org/2025/03/12/how-a-california-math-genius-spiraled-into-zizian-ideology-and-violence/
+[^5]: "'Zizian' namesake who faked death in 2022 is wanted in two states," *Open Vallejo,* January 31, 2025. https://openvallejo.org/2025/01/31/zizian-namesake-who-faked-death-in-2022-is-wanted-in-two-states/
+[^6]: U.S. Department of Justice, District of Maryland, "Alaskan Individual Charged with Possessing Firearms and Ammunition as a Fugitive from Justice," June 2025. https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/alaskan-individual-charged-possessing-firearms-and-ammunition-fugitive-justice
+[^7]: "Leader of cult-like group linked to killing border agent in Vermont faces federal charges," *The Boston Globe,* June 21, 2025. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/06/21/metro/jack-lasota-zizian-leader-indicted-in-maryland/
+[^8]: "Judge orders competency evaluation for alleged 'Zizian' cult leader Ziz LaSota," *The Baltimore Banner,* March 12, 2026; on the competency order, attorney Gary Proctor's account, and the "Timeless" remark. https://www.thebanner.com/community/criminal-justice/zizian-cult-leader-competency-evaluation-PXYELJW3NBB5HOUWG6MA4U4E3I/
+[^9]: "A timeline of cultlike 'Zizian' group tied to killing of a Border Patrol agent in Vermont," Associated Press via PBS NewsHour, 2025, on the 2016 "Ziz" blog, the 2018 split, the Coast Guard report, and the 2023 obstruction charge. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/a-timeline-of-cultlike-zizian-group-tied-to-killing-of-a-border-patrol-agent-in-vermont
+[^10]: "Rationalist Cults of Silicon Valley," Ian Leslie, 2025, on Anna Salamon's account of LaSota wanting to "feel special." https://www.ian-leslie.com/p/rationalist-cults-of-silicon-valley
+[^11]: "Federal authorities bring firearms charge against alleged leader of Zizians," *VTDigger,* June 20, 2025, on the indictment and the Frostburg arrest. https://vtdigger.org/2025/06/20/federal-authorities-bring-firearms-charge-against-alleged-leader-of-zizians/
+[^12]: "Members of violent Zizian cult to face trial together in Maryland," *The Baltimore Banner,* 2026. https://www.thebanner.com/community/criminal-justice/zizians-cult-members-trial-maryland-K35MFJBNPRH4VNMBZGT2J5OT34/
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Jared
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Jared
@ -0,0 +1,61 @@
+---
+category: "Political Figure"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - JaredKushner
+  - Trump
+  - SaudiArabia
+  - MBS
+  - AffinityPartners
+  - AbrahamAccords
+  - NSOGroup
+  - Khashoggi
+alias:
+  - Jared Corey Kushner
+summary: "Jared Kushner is an American investor and former senior advisor to President Donald Trump who shaped Middle East policy through the Abraham Accords and U.S.-Saudi arms sales, maintained a WhatsApp channel with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that the CIA assessed as compromised, and received a $2 billion investment from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund for his private equity firm months after leaving government despite the fund's own due-diligence panel rejecting the deal."
+born: 1981-01-10
+location: "Livingston, New Jersey (born)"
+created: 2026-06-18
+updated: 2026-06-18
+---
+
+Jared Kushner (born January 10, 1981, in [[Livingston, New Jersey|Livingston]], [[New Jersey]]) is an American investor who served as senior advisor to President [[Donald Trump]] from January 2017 to January 2021, with a portfolio that included Middle East policy, criminal justice reform, and the federal pandemic response. Kushner shaped the [[Abraham Accords|Abraham Accords]] (the 2020 normalization agreements between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco), U.S.-Saudi arms sales, and the broader regional realignment that the Trump administration pursued. After leaving government, Kushner founded the private equity firm [[Affinity Partners|Affinity Partners]], which received a 2 billion dollar commitment from the [[Public Investment Fund|Saudi Public Investment Fund]] (chaired by Crown Prince [[Mohammed bin Salman|Mohammed bin Salman]]) despite the fund's own due-diligence panel recommending against the investment. Kushner maintained a documented [[WhatsApp|WhatsApp]] communication channel with MBS during his government service, a channel the CIA assessed as compromised.[^1][^2][^3][^4]
+
+### The White House Middle East Portfolio
+
+Kushner's White House portfolio covered the Middle East policy that produced the Abraham Accords, the U.S.-[[Saudi Arabia|Saudi Arabia]] relationship, and the administration's approach to the [[Israeli-Palestinian conflict|Israeli-Palestinian conflict]]. The Abraham Accords normalized relations between [[Israel|Israel]] and the [[United Arab Emirates|UAE]], [[Bahrain|Bahrain]], [[Sudan|Sudan]], and [[Morocco|Morocco]] in 2020, breaking with the prior U.S. framework that had conditioned normalization on Israeli-Palestinian progress. Kushner led the negotiation, which ran alongside the administration's approval of major arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE despite congressional opposition.[^1][^2]
+
+The Saudi relationship was the central element. [[The Intercept|The Intercept]] reported that MBS boasted Kushner was "in his pocket," and that Kushner had grown close to the Saudi and Emirati crown princes through direct personal communication. Kushner's handling of the Saudi portfolio included the administration's response to the [[Jamal Khashoggi|October 2018 Khashoggi murder]], in which MBS was assessed by the CIA to have ordered the assassination. Kushner maintained his relationship with MBS after the murder.[^3][^4]
+
+### The WhatsApp Channel and the Bezos Hack
+
+Kushner used WhatsApp to communicate directly with MBS during his government service, [[ABC News|ABC News]] reported. The channel bypassed the official State Department and NSC communication systems and raised documented national-security concerns. In January 2020, [[The Guardian|The Guardian]] reported that [[Jeff Bezos|Jeff Bezos]]'s phone was hacked in May 2018 through a malicious file sent from MBS's personal WhatsApp account. The UN's [[Agnès Callamard|Agnès Callamard]] subsequently advised Kushner to replace his phone, warning that anyone in regular contact with MBS via WhatsApp could be a surveillance target.[^4][^5][^6]
+
+The WhatsApp channel that MBS used to communicate with Kushner was the same channel used to compromise Bezos. Whether Kushner's own device was compromised through the channel is not confirmed in the public record. The CIA assessed with high confidence that MBS was in regular contact with Kushner via private channels.[^4][^5]
+
+### The Khashoggi Surveillance
+
+[[NSO Group|NSO Group]]'s [[Pegasus (spyware)|Pegasus]] spyware was deployed against associates of Jamal Khashoggi before the October 2018 murder inside the Saudi consulate in [[Istanbul|Istanbul]]. The Guardian reported in July 2021, based on the [[Pegasus Project|Pegasus Project]] leak, that Pegasus was found on the phone of Khashoggi's wife [[Hanan Elatr|Hanan Elatr]] months before the killing. An Emirati government agency separately placed NSO spyware on the phone of a Khashoggi associate, [[Al Jazeera|Al Jazeera]] reported. Khashoggi's friend [[Omar Abdul Aziz|Omar Abdul Aziz]] sued NSO Group, claiming its spyware enabled the killing.[^7]
+
+The NSO Group-Khashoggi surveillance, the MBS WhatsApp channel, and the Kushner-MBS relationship together form the documented chain through which the Saudi surveillance apparatus operated against Khashoggi and his network while MBS maintained his private communication channel with the senior U.S. advisor handling Saudi policy.[^4][^7]
+
+### Affinity Partners and the Middle East Sovereign Wealth
+
+Affinity Partners was founded by Kushner in 2021 after leaving government. Within months, the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), chaired by MBS, committed 2 billion dollars to the fund. The [[Wall Street Journal|Wall Street Journal]] reported that the PIF's own due-diligence panel recommended against the investment, citing Kushner's lack of private-equity experience and characterizing the pitch as "unsatisfactory in all aspects." MBS overruled the panel and approved the commitment.[^1][^2]
+
+The UAE and [[Qatar|Qatar]] subsequently invested at least 1.5 billion dollars combined, per [[Mother Jones|Mother Jones]]. By early 2024, Affinity managed approximately 3 billion dollars in foreign-sourced capital. [[Bloomberg|Bloomberg]] reported in May 2026 that the fund had grown to approximately 6 billion dollars under management, nearly all of it from Middle Eastern sovereign wealth. The Wall Street Journal documented that Kushner's fund planned to invest Saudi money into Israeli startups, leveraging the normalization momentum from the Abraham Accords.[^1][^8][^10]
+
+[[Senator Ron Wyden|Senator Ron Wyden]] (Senate Finance Committee chairman) and Representative [[Robert Garcia|Robert Garcia]] opened a congressional investigation into Affinity Partners. The investigation documented the firm's fee structure (approximately 157 million dollars in fees collected), the lack of returns to investors, and what the committee characterized as questionable deals with foreign governments. Bloomberg reported on Kushner's documented "dual role" as both a 6-billion-dollar fund manager and a Middle East peace envoy, with the same governments that back his fund being the parties he engages diplomatically. A Qatar-backed investment fund was also tied to a 1-billion-dollar rental deal that helped resolve Kushner family financial issues.[^8][^9][^10]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: "Jared Kushner defends controversial $2bn Saudi investment." *BBC,* 2024. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68296877
+[^2]: "Jared Kushner's New Fund Plans to Invest Saudi Money in Israel." *Wall Street Journal,* 2022. https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/jared-kushners-new-fund-plans-to-invest-saudi-money-in-israel-11651927236
+[^3]: "They Went to Jared." *Mother Jones,* June 2026. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/06/jared-kushner-affinity-partners-fund-saudi-arabia-qatar-uae-israel-middle-east-deals-nepotism/
+[^4]: "Jared Kushner, Mohammed bin Salman, and the Making of the Trump-Saudi Alliance." *The Intercept,* March 2018. https://theintercept.com/2018/03/21/jared-kushner-saudi-crown-prince-mohammed-bin-salman/
+[^5]: "Amazon boss Jeff Bezos's phone 'hacked by Saudi crown prince.'" *The Guardian,* January 21, 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jan/21/amazon-boss-jeff-bezoss-phone-hacked-by-saudi-crown-prince
+[^6]: "Jared Kushner used WhatsApp to message foreign contacts in White House." *ABC News.* https://abcnews.com/Politics/jared-kushner-whatsapp-foreign-contacts-lawyer-tells-congress/story?id=61843329
+[^7]: "NSO spyware used to target family of Jamal Khashoggi, leaked data shows." *The Guardian,* July 18, 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/18/nso-spyware-used-to-target-family-of-jamal-khashoggi-leaked-data-shows-saudis-pegasus
+[^8]: Wyden investigation of Affinity Partners, *U.S. Senate Finance Committee.* https://www.finance.senate.gov/chairmans-news/wyden-investigation-of-kushner-firm-continues-new-letter-outlines-affinity-partners-fee-structure-lack-of-return-to-investors-questionable-deals-with-foreign-governments
+[^9]: "Jared Kushner Solicits Funds for His Firm While Working as Mideast Advisor." *New York Times,* March 2026. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/13/business/jared-kushner-affinity-mideast-funds.html
+[^10]: "Kushner Disappoints Mideast Clients." *Bloomberg,* May 14, 2026. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-05-14/jared-kushner-s-dual-role-trump-peace-envoy-and-6-billion-fund-manager ; Garcia and Wyden letter to Affinity Partners, House Oversight Democrats, March 2026. https://oversightdemocrats.house.gov/download/2026-03-19garcia-wyden-letter-to-affinity-partners-re-kushner-fundraising
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Jim
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Jim
@ -0,0 +1,48 @@
+---
+category: "Political Figure"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - JimHimes
+  - DemocraticParty
+  - Connecticut
+  - Congress
+  - HouseIntelligenceCommittee
+  - GoldmanSachs
+  - Dialog
+alias:
+  - James Andres Himes
+  - James Himes
+  - Representative Jim Himes
+summary: "Jim Himes is a U.S. Representative for Connecticut's 4th district and ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence whose name appeared on the leaked 2026 registration roster of Peter Thiel's secretive Dialog society."
+born: 1966-07-05
+location: "Lima, Peru (born); Greenwich, Connecticut (political base)"
+created: 2026-06-20
+updated: 2026-06-20
+---
+
+Jim Himes (born July 5, 1966, in [[Lima]], [[Peru]]) is an American politician and former investment banker who has represented Connecticut's 4th congressional district in the [[United States House of Representatives]] since 2009 and who serves as ranking member of the [[House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence]]. In June 2026 Himes was named by *WIRED* among the registrants surfaced in the leak of [[Dialog]], the invitation-only society cofounded by [[Peter Thiel]] and [[Auren Hoffman]], where Himes appeared on the same roster as [[Palantir Technologies]] cofounder [[Joe Lonsdale]], whose firm contracts with the intelligence agencies Himes oversees.[^1][^2]
+
+### Early Life, Goldman Sachs, and Entry to Congress
+
+Himes was born in Lima, where his American father worked for the [[Ford Foundation]] and [[UNICEF]]; he spent his early childhood in Peru and [[Colombia]] before the family settled in the United States. He attended [[Harvard University]] and won a [[Rhodes Scholarship]] to [[Oxford University]], where he studied Latin America. He then joined [[Goldman Sachs]], spending roughly twelve years at the bank and rising to vice president, working extensively in Latin America and heading the bank's telecommunications-technology group. After leaving Goldman he ran the New York City branch of the affordable-housing nonprofit [[Enterprise Community Partners]].[^3]
+
+Himes was first elected to Congress in November 2008, unseating the long-serving Republican incumbent [[Christopher Shays]] in the [[Connecticut]] 4th, a wealthy district anchored by [[Greenwich]] and the Fairfield County financial-services corridor. He took office in January 2009 and has been reelected to successive terms, serving on the [[House Financial Services Committee]] alongside his intelligence assignment. Within the [[Democratic Party]] he has been associated with the centrist, finance-friendly [[New Democrat Coalition]], which he chaired.[^3]
+
+### Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee
+
+Himes sits on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the panel charged with congressional oversight of the U.S. [[Intelligence Community]], including the [[Central Intelligence Agency]], the [[National Security Agency]], and the [[Office of the Director of National Intelligence]]. He became the committee's ranking member, the senior Democrat, giving him access to classified briefings and a formal role in authorizing and reviewing the budgets and operations of the agencies under the committee's jurisdiction.[^2][^3]
+
+The committee's oversight reach includes federal agencies that contract with Palantir Technologies, the data-analytics firm chaired by Thiel, whose software has been used by [[U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement]] and the [[Department of Defense]]. *WIRED* framed the Dialog roster around exactly this overlap: a sitting member with intelligence oversight authority appearing on an off-the-record membership list beside the cofounder of a company whose principal customers are the agencies that member oversees.[^1][^2]
+
+### The 2026 Dialog Leak
+
+The June 16, 2026 *WIRED* report identified Himes on the Dialog roster as "Rep., CT; House Intelligence," placing him among a group of sitting U.S. officials surfaced when the Swiss hacktivist [[maia arson crimew|crimew]] located a member directory embedded 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 2026 retreat, scheduled for August 12 through 16 at the Powerscourt Hotel near [[Dublin]]. *WIRED* noted Himes appeared on the list alongside Lonsdale and Army Secretary [[Dan Driscoll]].[^1]
+
+A representative for Himes responded to the reporting by stating: "Congressman Himes attended one annual conference held by the Dialog group roughly a decade ago. Since then, he has had no affiliation with the group and attended no additional events." The statement placed his single documented attendance around 2016 and disputed any continuing membership, while not contesting that his name was present in the leaked records.[^4]
+
+### 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]: "CT's Jim Himes responds to leaked Peter Thiel network records." *WSHU Public Radio,* June 18, 2026. https://www.wshu.org/connecticut-news/2026-06-18/ct-jim-himes-peter-thiel-network
+[^3]: "About Jim." Office of Congressman Jim Himes, U.S. House of Representatives. https://himes.house.gov/about-jim ; "Committee and Caucuses." https://himes.house.gov/committee-assignments
+[^4]: Statement of a representative for Representative Jim Himes, quoted in WSHU Public Radio, June 18, 2026, and in *WIRED,* June 16, 2026.
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Joe
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Joe
@ -0,0 +1,55 @@
+---
+category: "Technologists"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - JoeLonsdale
+  - Palantir
+  - FoundersFund
+  - 8VC
+  - Anduril
+  - PayPalMafia
+  - DefenseContractor
+alias:
+  - Joseph Lonsdale
+summary: "Joe Lonsdale is an American technology entrepreneur and investor who cofounded Palantir Technologies as a founding engineer in 2003, founded the venture capital firm 8VC, and has been a central figure in the Thiel-aligned defense-technology investment cluster backing Anduril Industries."
+born: 1984-09-12
+location: "United States"
+created: 2026-06-17
+updated: 2026-06-17
+---
+
+Joe Lonsdale is an American technology entrepreneur and investor who cofounded [[Palantir Technologies]] as a founding engineer in 2003 and went on to found the venture capital firm [[8VC]]. He is a central figure in the Thiel-aligned defense-technology investment cluster that backs [[Anduril Industries]] and a constellation of adjacent firms, and his career is the second-generation instantiation of the [[Peter Thiel]] commercial model: a Palantir alumnus who applies the data-and-defense thesis across a portfolio of his own companies. Lonsdale is a member of the broader [[PayPal Mafia]] orbit by association with Thiel rather than by PayPal employment.[^1][^2]
+
+The Thiel network reproduces through founders who pass through it and then build adjacent firms. The PayPal Mafia generation built firms individually; the Palantir-alumnus generation, of which Lonsdale is the most prominent, built firms as a coordinated cluster around a shared investment thesis and a shared set of defense and intelligence clients. The cluster is held together by recurring capital relationships (8VC, Founders Fund), shared board seats, and, since 2006, by the off-the-record convening of [[Dialog]].
+
+### Palantir Founding
+
+Lonsdale joined Thiel's [[Clarium Capital]] as an intern while an undergraduate at [[Stanford University]] and moved with the founding team to Palantir in 2003, where he was a founding engineer. Palantir, built on the data-integration architecture Thiel and [[Max Levchin]] had developed for fraud detection at [[PayPal]], received early funding from the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] venture arm [[In-Q-Tel]] and built its government platform Gotham around the post-[[September 11 attacks|9/11]] intelligence-fusion requirement. Lonsdale's role at Palantir placed him inside the technical core of the firm during its formative government-contracting years.[^2]
+
+The Stanford connection is the structural antecedent. Lonsdale was part of the Stanford computer-science and Thiel-adjacent undergraduate network that produced a disproportionate share of the Palantir founding team and its early engineering cohort. The Stanford-to-Palantir-to-founders pipeline became one of the reliable recruiting channels of the Thiel network, and Lonsdale's later founding and investing activity continued to draw on the same pool. The network is institutionally dense (shared university, shared first employer, shared venture backers, shared off-the-record convening).[^2]
+
+### Addepar, OpenGov, and 8VC
+
+After Palantir, Lonsdale founded [[Addepar]], a wealth-management data platform serving ultra-high-net-worth investors and family offices, and [[OpenGov]], a cloud platform for local and state government financial management. Both companies apply the Palantir data-integration architecture to adjacent verticals: Addepar to the financial data of the wealthy, OpenGov to the financial data of sub-federal governments. The through-line is the privatization of the data substrate that an institution runs on, whether that institution is an intelligence agency, a family office, or a city government.[^1]
+
+Lonsdale founded the venture capital firm 8VC (originally Formation 8) to institutionalize the investment thesis across the cluster. The 8VC portfolio is concentrated in defense technology, health technology, and enterprise data infrastructure, and the firm is a recurring co-investor with [[Founders Fund]] in the Thiel-aligned deals. The defense-tech concentration, in particular, places 8VC as the venture arm of the Anduril Industries-led effort to rebuild Pentagon procurement around commercial software and hardware vendors rather than the traditional prime contractors.[^1]
+
+### Anduril and the Defense-Tech Cluster
+
+8VC and Lonsdale are early and continuing backers of Anduril Industries, the defense contractor founded by [[Palmer Luckey]] with Founders Fund backing, which builds autonomous systems, surveillance platforms, and battlefield software for the Department of Defense and allied militaries. Anduril's rapid scaling during the second [[Donald Trump|Trump]] administration was the visible success case for the Thiel-network argument that the Pentagon should procure from Silicon Valley-style software firms rather than from the traditional defense primes ([[Lockheed Martin]], [[Raytheon]], [[Northrop Grumman]]).[^1]
+
+Through Anduril, Lonsdale, Thiel, and Luckey sit across the commercial firms (Anduril, Palantir, 8VC portfolio companies), the off-the-record convening (Dialog), and the government clients (the Pentagon and intelligence-agency principals who attend Dialog). The 2026 Dialog roster's inclusion of sitting military command and congressional oversight figures is where the defense-tech cluster's access to its government client base is mediated.[^3]
+
+### Political Activity
+
+Lonsdale has been politically active in the Thiel-aligned libertarian-to-Republican orbit. His political spending favors candidates who support higher Pentagon procurement from commercial software firms, lighter regulation of consumer-data brokerage, and the broader privatization-of-state-capacity frame that runs through the Thiel network.[^1]
+
+Lonsdale's documented political vehicles include contributions to Republican candidates and committees aligned with the defense-tech and limited-government thesis. He has been a recurring donor to Palantir alumni political efforts and to the candidates whose platforms support the 8VC portfolio thesis (defense-tech procurement, autonomous-systems funding, AI-and-surveillance infrastructure expansion). The 8VC portfolio includes Anduril, [[Clearview AI|Clearview]]-adjacent firms, and the broader defense-and-sovereign-infrastructure cluster whose commercial success depends on the federal procurement posture that the political spending supports.[^1]
+
+Lonsdale has also been involved in the institutional-placement dimension of the network. He sits on the board of the [[National Republican Congressional Committee|NRCC]]'s Wall Street board, and his political-network activity runs alongside the Founders Fund commercial relationship and the Dialog convening participation that place him in the same off-the-record rooms as the government principals whose procurement decisions affect his portfolio. The combination of venture-capital control (8VC), defense-contracting exposure (Anduril, Palantir adjacency), and political spending (defense-tech-aligned candidates) applies the privatization-of-state-capacity thesis across the political, commercial, and convening layers.[^1]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: 8VC, "Our Team: Joe Lonsdale," documenting the founding of 8VC (from Formation 8), Addepar, and OpenGov, and the firm's defense and enterprise-data portfolio. https://8vc.com/team/joe-lonsdale
+[^2]: "Joe Lonsdale: From Palantir to Billionaire Investor?" *CEO Today,* August 2025, on Lonsdale co-founding Palantir Technologies with Thiel in 2004 and his role before departing in 2009. https://www.ceotodaymagazine.com/2025/08/how-joe-lonsdale-built-a-billion-dollar-tech-empire/
+[^3]: 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/
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Joi
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Joi
@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
+---
+category: "Technologists"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - JoiIto
+  - MITMediaLab
+  - JeffreyEpstein
+  - ReidHoffman
+  - PeterThiel
+  - ImageRehabilitation
+  - 2015Dinner
+alias:
+  - Joichi Ito
+summary: "Joi Ito is a Japanese-American venture capitalist and former director of the MIT Media Lab who resigned in September 2019 after Ronan Farrow's New Yorker reporting documented that the Media Lab had a deeper financial relationship with Jeffrey Epstein than previously disclosed, and who attended the 2015 Epstein dinner alongside Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman, and Mark Zuckerberg."
+born: 1966-06-19
+location: "Kyoto, Japan (born)"
+created: 2026-06-18
+updated: 2026-06-18
+---
+
+Joi Ito (born Joichi Ito, June 19, 1966, in [[Kyoto]], [[Japan]]) is a Japanese-American venture capitalist and technology advocate who served as director of the [[MIT Media Lab|MIT Media Lab]] from 2011 until his September 2019 resignation. [[Ronan Farrow]]'s *[[The New Yorker|New Yorker]]* reporting (September 2019) documented that the Media Lab had a deeper financial relationship with [[Jeffrey Epstein]] than previously disclosed, including Epstein-directed donations that Ito had personally solicited and attempted to conceal. Ito attended the 2015 Epstein dinner (EFTA00344556, EFTA00344564) alongside [[Peter Thiel]], [[Elon Musk]], [[Reid Hoffman]], and [[Mark Zuckerberg]]. Hoffman participated in the Epstein image-rehabilitation effort through Ito's introductions.[^1][^2][^3]
+
+### The MIT Media Lab and the Epstein Funding
+
+Ito became director of the MIT Media Lab in 2011. The Media Lab is the interdisciplinary research laboratory at [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology|MIT]] known for its experimental work at the intersection of technology, media, and design. Ito's tenure was characterized by aggressive fundraising from technology-industry donors and by the expansion of the Lab's corporate-sponsorship model. The Epstein funding was part of this expansion: Epstein directed donations to the Media Lab through a structure designed to conceal the source, and Ito personally solicited additional Epstein-directed funds.[^1][^2]
+
+Farrow's *New Yorker* piece (September 6, 2019), titled "How an Elite University Research Center Concealed Its Relationship with Jeffrey Epstein," documented that the Media Lab's relationship with Epstein was more extensive than MIT had publicly acknowledged, that Ito had accepted Epstein-directed donations after the 2008 conviction, and that the Lab had taken steps to keep the relationship from becoming public. The reporting was based on internal Media Lab documents obtained by *The New Yorker.* Ito resigned the same week.[^1]
+
+### The Image-Rehabilitation Channel and the Hoffman Connection
+
+The Ito-Epstein channel functioned as the conduit through which Reid Hoffman participated in the post-conviction Epstein image-rehabilitation effort. [[Axios|Axios]] reported in September 2019 that Hoffman apologized for his role in helping repair Epstein's public image, specifically for introductions Hoffman facilitated related to Epstein's MIT donations through Ito. The effort included an August 2015 dinner that Hoffman hosted in [[Palo Alto]] (EFTA00344556, EFTA00344564), ostensibly to raise money for the Media Lab, whose guest list included Ito, Thiel, Musk, Zuckerberg, and Epstein. Epstein described the gathering in an August 20, 2015 email to [[Tom Pritzker]], writing "i had dinner with zuckerburg, mu=k, thiel hoffman, wild."[^2][^3][^4]
+
+Epstein's donations to the Media Lab were directed through intermediaries and through structures designed to obscure the source. *The New Yorker* reporting documented that Ito had personally solicited additional Epstein-directed funds after the 2008 conviction and that the Lab had marked Epstein's contributions in its internal records with designations intended to keep the relationship from becoming public. The internal Media Lab documents obtained by *The New Yorker* included emails in which Ito and other Media Lab staff discussed how to process Epstein-directed funds without triggering disclosure requirements.[^1][^5]
+
+### The Resignation and the Aftermath
+
+Ito resigned from the MIT Media Lab on September 7, 2019, one day after the *New Yorker* reporting. MIT initiated an independent investigation conducted by the law firm [[Goodwin Procter|Goodwin Procter]], which produced a report documenting the extent of the Media Lab's Epstein relationship and the institutional failures that permitted it. The Goodwin Procter investigation found that MIT had accepted approximately 850,000 dollars in Epstein-directed or Epstein-connected donations across the 2012-2017 period, and that senior MIT officials, including the institute's president, had been aware of Epstein's involvement in directing funds.[^1][^5]
+
+Ito also resigned from positions at the [[John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation|MacArthur Foundation]], the [[John S. and James L. Knight Foundation|Knight Foundation]], the [[Knight-Hennessy Scholars|Knight-Hennessy Scholars]] program, and the [[New York Times Company|New York Times Company]] board. The resignations terminated Ito's positions across the philanthropic, media, and academic institutions that his Epstein relationship had damaged. The MIT Media Lab subsequently reformed its donor-acceptance policies to prohibit anonymous donations and to require enhanced due diligence on donors with criminal records.[^1][^5]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: Farrow, Ronan. "How an Elite University Research Center Concealed Its Relationship with Jeffrey Epstein." *The New Yorker,* September 6, 2019.
+[^2]: "Mark Zuckerberg's 'Wild' Dinner With Epstein Revealed in Files." *The Daily Beast,* 2026, documenting the August 2015 Palo Alto dinner (EFTA00344556, EFTA00344564) attended by Thiel, Musk, Hoffman, Zuckerberg, and Ito. https://www.thedailybeast.com/mark-zuckerbergs-wild-dinner-with-epstein-revealed-in-files/
+[^3]: "Exclusive: Reid Hoffman apologizes for role in Epstein-linked donations." *Axios,* September 12, 2019. https://www.axios.com/2019/09/12/reid-hoffman-jeffrey-epstein-mit-donations
+[^4]: "Exclusive: Reid Hoffman apologizes for role in Epstein-linked donations to MIT." *Axios,* September 12, 2019. https://www.axios.com/2019/09/12/reid-hoffman-jeffrey-epstein-mit-donations
+[^5]: "MIT releases results of fact-finding on engagements with Jeffrey Epstein." *MIT News,* January 10, 2020, releasing the Goodwin Procter report (donations totaling 850,000 dollars across 2002-2017). https://news.mit.edu/2020/mit-releases-results-fact-finding-report-jeffrey-epstein-0110 ; "Report Concerning Jeffrey Epstein's Interactions with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology." Goodwin Procter LLP, January 2020. https://factfindingjan2020.mit.edu/files/MIT-report.pdf
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Jonathan
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Jonathan
@ -0,0 +1,56 @@
+---
+category: "Scientists & Researchers"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - JonathanLevin
+  - StanfordUniversity
+  - Economics
+  - MarketDesign
+  - ClarkMedal
+  - AcademicLeadership
+alias:
+  - Jonathan David Levin
+summary: "Jonathan Levin is an American economist who won the 2011 John Bates Clark Medal, served as dean of the Stanford Graduate School of Business from 2016 to 2024, and became the thirteenth president of Stanford University in August 2024."
+born: 1972-11-17
+location: "New Haven, Connecticut (born)"
+created: 2026-06-20
+updated: 2026-06-20
+---
+
+Jonathan Levin (born November 17, 1972) is an American economist who won the 2011 John Bates Clark Medal, served as dean of the [[Stanford Graduate School of Business|Stanford Graduate School of Business]] from 2016 to 2024, and became the thirteenth president of [[Stanford University]] in August 2024. 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 the president of Stanford University.[^1]
+
+### A Family of University Presidents
+
+Levin was born in New Haven, Connecticut, the son of the economist Richard Levin, who served as the twenty-second president of [[Yale University|Yale University]] from 1993 to 2013. The two are both economists who became presidents of elite American universities, a pairing that framed the coverage of Jonathan Levin's appointment, and Stanford itself published a joint interview with father and son on university leadership. He took dual undergraduate degrees from Stanford in 1994, a bachelor of arts in English and a bachelor of science in mathematics, then an MPhil in economics from Nuffield College, Oxford, in 1996, and a PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1999 under [[Bengt Holmström|Bengt Holmström]].[^2][^3]
+
+He joined the Stanford economics faculty in 2000 as an assistant professor, became a full professor by 2008 as the Holbrook Working Professor of Price Theory, and chaired the economics department from 2011 to 2014. His research spans industrial organization and microeconomic theory, including relational and incomplete contracts, market design and auctions, asymmetric information in credit markets, health insurance, and radio-spectrum allocation.[^3][^4]
+
+### The Clark Medal and the Stanford Presidency
+
+Levin received the John Bates Clark Medal in 2011, awarded by the American Economic Association to the American economist under forty judged to have made the most significant contribution to economic thought. He became the tenth dean of the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2016, holding the post for eight years through 2024 while also holding the Philip H. Knight professorship. From 2021 to 2025 he served on the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology under President Biden, appointed in September 2021; his work on radio-spectrum auctions and internet market design is his principal bridge to the technology industry, though no public corporate board seat for the economist is documented.[^4][^5]
+
+The Stanford Board of Trustees announced Levin's appointment as the thirteenth president of Stanford on April 4, 2024, and he took office on August 1, 2024. He succeeded the classicist Richard Saller, who had served as interim president since September 2023, after [[Marc Tessier-Lavigne|Marc Tessier-Lavigne]] resigned effective August 31, 2023, following a research-misconduct scandal. A Stanford-commissioned panel, prompted by *Stanford Daily* reporting that began in November 2022, found data manipulation in papers from Tessier-Lavigne's laboratories; the panel found no evidence that he personally committed or knew of the manipulation but concluded that he had failed to "decisively and forthrightly correct mistakes in the scientific record."[^6][^7]
+
+### Stanford and the Thiel Network
+
+Thiel took a bachelor of arts in philosophy at Stanford in 1989 and a JD from Stanford Law School in 1992, and as a sophomore in 1987 founded *[[The Stanford Review|The Stanford Review]],* the conservative-libertarian student newspaper that a *Stanford Politics* investigation later described as "one of the surest paths to success in Silicon Valley." The investigation documented roughly three hundred employment relationships between Review alumni and about sixty institutions founded by Thiel or [[Joe Lonsdale|Joe Lonsdale]]. [[David Sacks]] was a later editor-in-chief of the Review and a Stanford undergraduate in the class of 1994, [[Keith Rabois|Keith Rabois]] was its opinion editor in the class of 1991, and Lonsdale and Palantir cofounder [[Stephen Cohen|Stephen Cohen]] were Stanford undergraduates and Review affiliates.[^8][^9]
+
+[[Rene Girard|René Girard]], the Andrew B. Hammond Professor of French Language, Literature, and Civilization, taught at Stanford, and Thiel took his courses as an undergraduate in the late 1980s; Girard's mimetic theory became foundational to Thiel's worldview, and Thiel spoke at Girard's memorial after his death in November 2015. [[Alex Karp|Alex Karp]], Thiel's [[Palantir Technologies|Palantir]] cofounder, took his JD at Stanford Law in the same 1992 class as Thiel, where the two met, though Karp's undergraduate degree is from Haverford College and his doctorate from Goethe University Frankfurt. [[Reid Hoffman|Reid Hoffman]] met Thiel as a Stanford undergraduate, where he studied symbolic systems before taking a philosophy degree at Oxford. The [[Hoover Institution|Hoover Institution]] fellow and former Reagan speechwriter Peter Robinson, who hosts the program *Uncommon Knowledge,* has interviewed Thiel within the same conservative-Stanford orbit.[^10][^11][^12]
+
+The network continued to operate through Stanford institutions during Levin's tenure as dean. In January 2018 the Stanford "Cardinal Conversations" series opened with an event titled "Reid Hoffman and Peter Thiel on Technology and Politics," moderated by [[Niall Ferguson|Niall Ferguson]] under the Hoover Institution and the Freeman Spogli Institute. The *Stanford Daily* reported that an invitation found in the Epstein files indicates Levin attended Dialog's 2013 retreat, more than a decade before the 2026 leak.[^12][^13]
+
+### 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]: "Stanford appoints son of former Yale president Rick Levin as president." *Yale Daily News,* April 5, 2024. https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2024/04/05/stanford-appoints-son-of-former-yale-president-rick-levin-as-president/
+[^3]: "Jonathan Levin." American Economic Association, John Bates Clark Medalist page. https://www.aeaweb.org/about-aea/honors-awards/bates-clark/jonathan-levin
+[^4]: "Dean Jonathan Levin." Stanford Graduate School of Business. https://gsb.stanford.edu/experience/news-history/history/deans/dean-jonathan-levin
+[^5]: "Biden announces members of PCAST." The White House, September 22, 2021. https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/pcast/briefing-room/2021/09/22/biden-announces-members-of-pcast/
+[^6]: "Jonathan Levin named Stanford president." Stanford Report, April 4, 2024. https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2024/04/announcement
+[^7]: "Stanford president resigns over manipulated research, will retract at least 3 papers." *The Stanford Daily,* July 19, 2023. https://stanforddaily.com/2023/07/19/stanford-president-resigns-over-manipulated-research-will-retract-at-least-3-papers/
+[^8]: "The Stanford Review and the making of the PayPal Mafia." *Stanford Politics,* November 27, 2017. https://stanfordpolitics.org/2017/11/27/peter-thiel-cover-story/
+[^9]: "Peter Thiel launched a student newspaper 36 years ago." *Fortune,* 2023. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/peter-thiel-launched-student-newspaper-140000199.html
+[^10]: "Peter Thiel on René Girard." Luke Burgis, *Anti-Mimetic.* https://read.lukeburgis.com/p/peter-thiel-on-rene-girard
+[^11]: "Alex Karp '89 is emerging from the shadows." *The Haverford Clerk.* https://haverfordclerk.com/alex-karp-89-is-emerging-from-the-shadows/
+[^12]: "Reid Hoffman and Peter Thiel on technology and politics." Stanford Report, February 2018. https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2018/02/cardinal-conversation-reid-hoffman-peter-thiel-technology-politics
+[^13]: "Levin, Stanford alumni appear on list of Peter Thiel 'Dialog' society affiliates." *The Stanford Daily,* June 16, 2026. https://stanforddaily.com/2026/06/16/levin-stanford-alumni-appear-on-list-of-peter-thiel-dialog-society-affiliates/
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Julian
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Julian
@ -0,0 +1,58 @@
+---
+category: "Scientists & Researchers"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - Eugenics
+  - Transhumanism
+  - UNESCO
+  - EvolutionaryBiology
+  - Hereditarianism
+alias:
+  - Julian Huxley
+  - Sir Julian Huxley
+  - Julian Sorell Huxley
+summary: "Julian Huxley was the evolutionary biologist who coined the modern usage of transhumanism in 1957, served as the first Director-General of UNESCO and wrote a founding document tying the agency to eugenics, and presided over the British Eugenics Society from 1959 to 1962."
+born: 1887-06-22
+died: 1975-02-14
+location: "London, England; Paris, France"
+created: 2026-06-20
+updated: 2026-06-20
+---
+
+Julian Sorell Huxley (June 22, 1887 to February 14, 1975) was an English evolutionary biologist, science popularizer, and eugenicist who coined the modern usage of "[[Transhumanism|transhumanism]]" in 1957. He was the grandson of the Darwinian biologist Thomas Henry Huxley and the elder brother of the novelist [[Aldous Huxley]]. He was an architect of the "modern synthesis" of Darwinian selection and Mendelian genetics, the first Director-General of [[UNESCO]] from 1946 to 1948, a cofounder of the [[World Wildlife Fund]] in 1961, and president of the British [[Eugenics|Eugenics]] Society from 1959 to 1962. He was knighted in 1958.[^1][^2]
+
+### The Modern Synthesis and Evolutionary Humanism
+
+Huxley's standing as a biologist rested on *Evolution: The Modern Synthesis* (1942), which named and consolidated the mid-twentieth-century reconciliation of Darwinian natural selection with Mendelian and population genetics. The book gathered the work of theorists such as R. A. Fisher, J. B. S. Haldane, and Sewall Wright into a unified account in which selection acting on Mendelian variation drives evolution, and the phrase "modern synthesis" entered biology as its standard name. Huxley was also a prolific popularizer who reached mass audiences through radio, the *Brains Trust* broadcasts, and books, and who directed the London Zoo as secretary of the Zoological Society of London.[^1][^3]
+
+From evolution Huxley derived a secular creed he called "evolutionary humanism," the view that humanity, having become through evolution the agent of its own further development, bears responsibility for consciously directing the future course of life on earth. He set this out across decades in works including *Religion Without Revelation* (1927) and *Essays of a Humanist* (1964), and served as the first president of the British Humanist Association. Evolutionary humanism placed the improvement of the human genetic and cultural inheritance at the center of human purpose, and it carried his lifelong commitment to eugenics inside an optimistic, progressive frame.[^1][^4]
+
+### UNESCO and Its Eugenic Charter
+
+Appointed the first Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in 1946, Huxley wrote a sixty-page founding statement, *UNESCO: Its Purpose and Philosophy* (1946), that set out the philosophical basis for the new agency as he understood it. The document grounded UNESCO's mission in evolutionary humanism and argued that the agency should foster a single emerging world culture and advance the scientific study and improvement of human populations. Member states never adopted Huxley's text as official policy, and his term was cut to two years, but the statement stands as his programmatic vision for the body.[^2][^5]
+
+The document tied the agency explicitly to eugenics. Huxley wrote that "even though it is quite true that any radical eugenic policy will be for many years politically and psychologically impossible, it will be important for UNESCO to see that the eugenic problem is examined with the greatest care, and that the public mind is informed of the issues at stake so that much that now is unthinkable may at least become thinkable." He framed the task as one of moving eugenics from the impossible to the thinkable, charging UNESCO with preparing public opinion for measures that the recent association of eugenics with Nazi policy had made unspeakable.[^2][^5]
+
+### The Eugenics Society and Race
+
+Huxley's involvement with the British Eugenics Society spanned his career: he served as a vice-president in the 1930s and 1940s and as president from 1959 to 1962. He delivered the society's Galton Lecture in 1936 under the title "Eugenics and Society," and he advocated a "reform eugenics" that emphasized voluntary measures, birth control, and the genetic effects of class and environment over the cruder race-typology of the older movement. He nonetheless retained the foundational premise that the genetic quality of human populations could and should be deliberately managed, and he warned of the dysgenic effects of differential birth rates between social classes.[^4][^6]
+
+Huxley's record on race was mixed by the standards of his contemporaries. He coauthored *We Europeans* (1935) with the anthropologist A. C. Haddon, a book that attacked the pseudoscientific race doctrines of Nazi Germany and argued that the term "race" be replaced with "ethnic group," and he lent his name to the UNESCO Statement on Race tradition. He continued at the same time to hold that human groups differ in average innate mental capacity and that selective reproduction was a legitimate aim, positions that kept him within the hereditarian tradition founded by [[Francis Galton]].[^4][^6]
+
+### Coining Transhumanism
+
+Huxley introduced the modern usage of "transhumanism" in the title essay of his collection *New Bottles for New Wine* (1957). He wrote that "the human species can, if it wishes, transcend itself, not just sporadically, an individual here in one way, an individual there in another way, but in its entirety, as humanity," and proposed: "We need a name for this new belief. Perhaps transhumanism will serve: man remaining man, but transcending himself, by realizing new possibilities of and for his human nature." He added, "I believe in transhumanism: once there are enough people who can truly say that, the human species will be on the threshold of a new kind of existence, as different from ours as ours is from that of Peking man."[^7][^8]
+
+For Huxley transhumanism was the practical expression of evolutionary humanism, the program by which a self-aware humanity would take charge of its own biological and psychological evolution through science. [[Nick Bostrom]]'s history of the movement credits Huxley with the term's modern coinage, and the critics [[Émile P. Torres]] and [[Timnit Gebru]] place him, alongside Galton, among the eugenic progenitors of the [[TESCREAL]] bundle of transhumanism, [[Extropianism|extropianism]], [[Effective Altruism|effective altruism]], and the related ideologies that now animate the artificial-intelligence industry.[^7][^9]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: "Sir Julian Huxley," *Encyclopædia Britannica,* on his life, the modern synthesis, UNESCO, and the Eugenics Society. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Julian-Huxley
+[^2]: Huxley, Julian. *UNESCO: Its Purpose and Philosophy.* Preparatory Commission of UNESCO, 1946, on the founding statement and his term as first Director-General.
+[^3]: Huxley, Julian. *Evolution: The Modern Synthesis.* Allen and Unwin, 1942.
+[^4]: Huxley, Julian. *Essays of a Humanist.* Chatto and Windus, 1964; with *We Europeans* (with A. C. Haddon, 1935) and the Galton Lecture "Eugenics and Society" (1936), on evolutionary humanism, race, and reform eugenics.
+[^5]: "Julian S Huxley, the man who put eugenics into UNESCO," *Aeon,* on the 1946 document and the "unthinkable may at least become thinkable" passage. https://aeon.co/essays/julian-s-huxley-the-man-who-put-eugenics-into-unesco
+[^6]: "Julian Huxley and eugenics," on his vice-presidency, presidency from 1959 to 1962, reform eugenics, and views on race and differential fertility. http://julianhuxleyeugenics.blogspot.com/p/huxley-and-eugenics.html
+[^7]: Huxley, Julian. *New Bottles for New Wine.* Chatto and Windus, 1957, on the coinage of "transhumanism" in the title essay.
+[^8]: Huxley, Julian, "Transhumanism," *New Bottles for New Wine* (1957), quoted text. https://www.huxley.net/transhumanism/
+[^9]: Bostrom, Nick. "A History of Transhumanist Thought," *Journal of Evolution and Technology,* 2005, crediting Huxley with the modern coinage. https://nickbostrom.com/papers/a-history-of-transhumanist-thought/
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Leonard
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Leonard
@ -0,0 +1,59 @@
+---
+category: "Political Figure"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - LeonardLeo
+  - FederalistSociety
+  - TeneoNetwork
+  - DarkMoney
+  - SupremeCourt
+  - JudicialCrisisNetwork
+  - ConcordFund
+alias:
+  - Leonard Anthony Leo
+summary: "Leonard Leo is an American conservative legal activist, the longtime executive vice president of the Federalist Society, the principal architect of the Supreme Court conservative supermajority through the Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett confirmations, and the chairman of Teneo Network, who has directed approximately one billion dollars in dark-money spending through a network of linked 501(c)(4) vehicles to reshape the American judiciary."
+location: "United States"
+created: 2026-06-18
+updated: 2026-06-18
+---
+
+Leonard Leo is an American conservative legal activist who served as the longtime executive vice president of the [[Federalist Society|Federalist Society]] and who has been the principal architect of the [[Supreme Court|Supreme Court]]'s conservative supermajority through his role advising President [[Donald Trump]] on the selection and confirmation of [[Neil Gorsuch|Neil Gorsuch]] (2017), [[Brett Kavanaugh|Brett Kavanaugh]] (2018), and [[Amy Coney Barrett|Amy Coney Barrett]] (2020). Leo became chairman of the [[Teneo Network|Teneo Network]] in 2021 and has directed approximately one billion dollars in dark-money spending through a network of linked 501(c)(4) vehicles, including the [[Judicial Crisis Network|Judicial Crisis Network]] (now the [[Concord Fund|Concord Fund]]), to reshape the American judiciary and, through the Teneo chairmanship, to extend the operational model across American institutional life.[^1][^2][^3]
+
+### The Federalist Society and the Judicial-Selection Project
+
+Leo's career at the Federalist Society began in the 1990s and he rose to executive vice president, the operational principal of the organization. The Federalist Society is the conservative legal-networking organization that functions as the pipeline for federal judicial nominations under Republican administrations, and Leo's role placed him at the center of the selection process for every conservative federal judge confirmed across the [[George W. Bush|George W. Bush]] and Trump administrations. Leo assisted [[Clarence Thomas|Clarence Thomas]] in his 1991 confirmation hearings and subsequently led the confirmation campaigns for [[John Roberts|John Roberts]], [[Samuel Alito|Samuel Alito]], Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett.[^1][^4]
+
+The *ProPublica* profile "We Don't Talk About Leonard" (March 2023) is the foundational investigative document on Leo's role. The profile documents how Leo advised Trump on all three Supreme Court nominations, how the Federalist Society's judicial-selection pipeline fed the nominations, and how the dark-money infrastructure funded the confirmation campaigns. [[Senator Sheldon Whitehouse|Senator Sheldon Whitehouse]] (D-RI) has documented on the Senate floor and in Senate Judiciary Committee proceedings that Gorsuch and Kavanaugh were the "big prize" for Leo's dark-money donors, locking in a conservative majority that delivered subsequent wins for the Republican donor interests.[^2][^5]
+
+### The Dark-Money Infrastructure
+
+Leo's dark-money operation runs through a network of linked 501(c)(4) organizations that permit political spending without donor disclosure. The primary vehicle is the Judicial Crisis Network (now the Concord Fund), which [[CREW|Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington]] reported brought in nearly 48.1 million dollars in a single reporting period to support the conservative judicial-confirmations project. The broader network of Leo-linked organizations has funneled over one billion dollars in undisclosed spending across the judicial-selection, political-advocacy, and institutional-influence operations, per the [[Alliance for Justice|Alliance for Justice]] and [[ProPublica|ProPublica]] investigations.[^2][^5][^6]
+
+The dark-money infrastructure operates through a layered structure of 501(c)(4) social-welfare organizations and 501(c)(3) charities that transfer funds to each other in chains designed to obscure the original donors. The [[Senate Judiciary Committee|Senate Judiciary Committee]] under Chairman [[Dick Durbin|Dick Durbin]] has sought Leo's records and testimony; Leo has declined to comply, and his counsel's letter to the Committee (July 2023) pushed back on the "dark money" and "phony front groups" characterizations. The investigative record relies on leaked tax filings, whistleblower disclosures, and the reporting of ProPublica, CREW, and the Alliance for Justice.[^3][^7]
+
+### The Teneo Chairmanship and the Institutional Expansion
+
+Leo became chairman of the Teneo Network in 2021, bringing the dark-money infrastructure he had built through the Federalist Society, the Judicial Crisis Network, and the broader conservative-judicial operation into a network whose stated goal (per the ProPublica investigation) is to "crush liberal dominance" across American law, finance, media, academia, and culture. The Teneo chairmanship extended the Leo operational model from the courts, where it had succeeded in producing the conservative supermajority, to the rest of American institutional life.[^8]
+
+The Leo-Thiel relationship runs through the shared dark-money infrastructure and the shared Teneo-network institutional terrain. The [[Peter Thiel|Thiel]]-tied [[Per Aspera Policy|Per Aspera Policy]] vehicle that steered funds to the [[Protect Ohio Values PAC|Protect Ohio Values PAC]] for the [[JD Vance|JD Vance]] Senate campaign operates in the same 501(c)(4) dark-money ecosystem as the Leo-linked vehicles, and both networks operate through the Teneo Network for the broader institutional-placement function.[^8][^9]
+
+### The Trump Schism
+
+Trump publicly attacked Leo in 2025, calling him someone who "probably hates America." The *CBS Evening News* reported on the schism between the president whose judicial selections Leo had architected and the operative who had built the selection infrastructure. The attack followed documented tensions within the post-2024 Republican coalition over personnel choices and strategic direction, with Leo reported to be frustrated with the Trump administration's appointments outside the judicial pipeline.[^10]
+
+The schism did not affect the underlying judicial infrastructure. The Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett confirmations are permanent, and the conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court is the structural outcome Leo's operation produced. The supermajority delivered the 2022 [[Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization|Dobbs]] decision overturning [[Roe v. Wade|Roe v. Wade]], the expansion of [[Second Amendment|Second Amendment]] gun rights, the rollback of federal regulatory authority under the [[major questions doctrine|major questions doctrine]], and the presidential-immunity ruling in [[Trump v. United States|Trump v. United States]] (2024).[^10]
+
+Leo's response to the Trump attack was measured. He did not publicly retract his support for the judicial-selection infrastructure, and his network continued to operate through the Teneo Network chairmanship and the Concord Fund / JCN dark-money operation. The schism is a documented internal-republican conflict between the electoral and institutional wings of the coalition, not a dismantling of the judicial infrastructure that both wings had built together.[^10]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: "Leonard Leo." *Britannica.* https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leonard-Leo
+[^2]: "We Don't Talk About Leonard: The Man Behind the Right's Supreme Court Supermajority." *ProPublica,* March 2023. https://www.propublica.org/article/we-dont-talk-about-leonard-leo-supreme-court-supermajority
+[^3]: "Inside the 'Private and Confidential' Conservative Group That Promises to 'Crush Liberal Dominance.'" *ProPublica,* March 15, 2023. https://www.propublica.org/article/leonard-leo-teneo-videos-documents
+[^4]: "The man who helped roll back abortion rights now wants to 'crush liberal dominance.'" *NPR,* November 25, 2024, on Leo's 25-year Federalist Society career and the conservative judicial pipeline. https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/npr/2024/11/25/nx-s1-5199049/the-man-who-helped-roll-back-abortion-rights-now-wants-to-crush-liberal-dominance/
+[^5]: "With Supreme Court Mired in Dark Money, Time for Large Dose of Transparency." *Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.* https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/op-eds/with-supreme-court-mired-in-dark-money-time-for-large-dose-of-transparency/
+[^6]: "Group Behind Trump SCOTUS Picks Brought in Nearly $50 Million in Secret Money." *CREW.* https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-investigations/group-behind-trump-scotus-picks-brought-in-nearly-50-million-in-secret-money/
+[^7]: Leo counsel's letter to Senate Judiciary Committee, July 25, 2023. https://levin-center.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/2023-7-25-Leo-counsels-ltr-to-Senate-Judiciary-declining-to-produce-requested-information.pdf
+[^8]: "Inside the Teneo Network, which promises to 'crush liberal dominance.'" *CT Mirror,* March 12, 2023, on Leo's 2021 Teneo chairmanship and its cross-institutional program. https://ctmirror.org/2023/03/12/teneo-network-conservative-federalist-society-liberal/
+[^9]: "Peter Thiel-tied dark money group helping bankroll super PAC spending on 2022 election." *OpenSecrets,* February 2022, on the Per Aspera Policy transfer to the pro-Vance Protect Ohio Values PAC. https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2022/02/peter-thiel-tied-dark-money-group-helping-bankroll-super-pac-spending-on-2022-election/
+[^10]: "Trump Attacked Leonard Leo, a Onetime Ally and Key Adviser on Judicial Picks." *CBS Evening News,* 2025.
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Marvin
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Marvin
@ -0,0 +1,57 @@
+---
+category: "Scientists & Researchers"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - JeffreyEpstein
+  - MIT
+  - ArtificialIntelligence
+  - CognitiveScience
+  - SciencePhilanthropy
+alias:
+  - Marvin Minsky
+  - Marvin Lee Minsky
+summary: "Marvin Minsky was an MIT cognitive scientist who co-founded the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, took funding from Jeffrey Epstein, and was named in a 2019 unsealed deposition by Virginia Giuffre, an allegation his widow disputed."
+born: 1927-08-09
+died: 2016-01-24
+location: "Boston, Massachusetts"
+created: 2026-06-20
+updated: 2026-06-20
+---
+
+Marvin Lee Minsky (August 9, 1927 to January 24, 2016) was an American cognitive and computer scientist at the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] who co-founded the [[MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory]] and was a central figure in the founding of [[artificial intelligence]] as a field. He received funding from [[Jeffrey Epstein]] and organized a 2002 conference financed by Epstein in the U.S. Virgin Islands; in 2019 an unsealed deposition by [[Virginia Giuffre]] named Minsky, an allegation his widow [[Gloria Rudisch]] disputed.[^1][^2]
+
+### MIT and the Founding of Artificial Intelligence
+
+Minsky earned a doctorate in mathematics from Princeton in 1954 and joined MIT, where in 1959 he co-founded the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory with [[John McCarthy]]. He helped organize the 1956 [[Dartmouth Summer Research Project]], the workshop, convened with McCarthy, [[Claude Shannon]], and [[Nathaniel Rochester]], at which the term artificial intelligence was adopted. His honors included the [[Turing Award]] in 1969, the Japan Prize in 1990, and the Benjamin Franklin Medal in 2001.[^3][^1]
+
+Minsky's research spanned neural networks, robotics, and theories of mind. With [[Seymour Papert]] he wrote *Perceptrons* (MIT Press, 1969), a mathematical critique of single-layer neural networks showing that such a network cannot compute the exclusive-or function; the book is often credited with redirecting funding and research away from connectionist approaches and contributing to the first AI funding winter, before multilayer networks revived the field in the 1980s. His 1986 book *The Society of Mind* (Simon & Schuster) argued that intelligence emerges from the interaction of many simple, mindless agents, and he developed the related "frames" model of knowledge representation.[^4][^3]
+
+Minsky invented the confocal scanning microscope in 1957 and, with Papert, helped build early robotic and machine-vision systems at the MIT AI Laboratory. He later joined the [[MIT Media Lab]] founded by [[Nicholas Negroponte]], where he held the Toshiba Professorship of Media Arts and Sciences and remained active until his death. He continued to argue for symbolic and architectural approaches to general intelligence, developing the ideas in *The Society of Mind* into his 2006 book *The Emotion Machine*.[^3][^4]
+
+### Epstein Funding and the 2002 Symposium
+
+Epstein donated $100,000 to Minsky in 2002, several years before Epstein's 2008 conviction. According to MIT's January 2020 review by the law firm [[Goodwin Procter]] and emails reported by *MIT Technology Review*, Media Lab co-founder Nicholas Negroponte described Minsky as Epstein's closest friend at MIT, writing that Minsky "even visited him in jail." Minsky's ties predated the Media Lab's later, separately scrutinized funding from Epstein under [[Joi Ito]].[^2][^5]
+
+After Minsky's death in 2016, Negroponte and Ito discussed whether Epstein could attend an on-campus memorial; Negroponte said Epstein would be welcome, but Ito instructed Epstein to stay away from the memorial and an associated reception. A Media Lab staff member later circulated memorial photographs with a note asking that they be posted only "as long as Jeffrey Epstein does not appear in any of the photos."[^2][^5]
+
+In April 2002 Minsky organized a three-day artificial-intelligence meeting, the St. Thomas Common Sense Symposium, held April 14 to 16, 2002, on St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands and funded by Epstein. The proceedings were published by Minsky, [[Push Singh]], and [[Aaron Sloman]] as "The St. Thomas Common Sense Symposium: Designing Architectures for Human-Level Intelligence" in *AI Magazine* in 2004. Around twenty scientists attended, most of them men, including [[Roger Schank]], [[Doug Lenat]], [[Ken Forbus]], [[Henry Lieberman]], [[Vernor Vinge]], and [[Linda Stone]]. Schank later recalled that Epstein "walks into the conference with two girls on his arm" and sat "in the back, on a couch, hugging and kissing these girls." Epstein separately funded a 2006 physics gathering convened by [[Lawrence Krauss]] on Epstein's island that drew physicists including [[Stephen Hawking]].[^6][^7]
+
+### Giuffre Allegation and the Dispute
+
+In a deposition given in May 2016 and unsealed in August 2019 as part of a defamation suit brought against [[Ghislaine Maxwell]], Virginia Giuffre stated that Epstein directed her to have sex with Minsky when Minsky visited Epstein's compound in the U.S. Virgin Islands, when she was seventeen and Minsky was in his seventies. Giuffre's claim named Minsky among several prominent men she said she was instructed to have sexual contact with. Minsky, who had died in January 2016, never had an opportunity to respond, and no lawsuit was filed against his estate.[^8][^1]
+
+Minsky's widow, the pediatrician Gloria Rudisch, disputed the allegation, saying that she and her husband were "always together" during their visits and that the encounter Giuffre described did not happen. None of the men named in Giuffre's deposition was criminally charged or named as a defendant in civil suits arising from her account, and Giuffre's deposition is the only source for the claim against Minsky.[^9][^2]
+
+The 2019 MIT review and records reported in 2025 and 2026 indicated that Minsky and Rudisch had contact with Epstein over multiple years, including visits to his island. The renewed release of U.S. Department of Justice files in 2026 returned attention to Minsky alongside other scientists in Epstein's orbit, though the allegation against Minsky has not been adjudicated and rests on Giuffre's account.[^2][^9]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: "Marvin Minsky (1927-2016), artificial intelligence pioneer," Legacy.com, on Minsky's birth and death dates, the 1959 co-founding of the MIT AI Laboratory with McCarthy, the Turing Award, and his survival by Gloria Rudisch. https://www.legacy.com/news/marvin-minsky-1927-2016
+[^2]: "Eight revelations from MIT's Jeffrey Epstein report," *MIT Technology Review,* January 10, 2020, on the $100,000 grant in 2002, the Negroponte "closest friend" and "visited him in jail" emails, the memorial episode, and the unsealed Giuffre allegation. https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/01/10/130928/mit-jeffrey-epstein-donations-media-lab-joi-ito-seth-lloyd-funding-ethics/
+[^3]: Lohr, Steve. "Marvin Minsky, Pioneer in Artificial Intelligence, Dies at 88," *The New York Times,* January 25, 2016, on the Dartmouth project, the AI Lab, and the cause of death. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/business/marvin-minsky-pioneer-in-artificial-intelligence-dies-at-88.html
+[^4]: Minsky, Marvin. *The Society of Mind.* Simon & Schuster, 1986.
+[^5]: "MIT professor 'entirely willing' Epstein associate," *Fox News,* 2020, on Minsky's relationship with Epstein as described in the MIT review. https://www.foxnews.com/us/mit-professor-jeffrey-epstein-associate-entirely-willing
+[^6]: "What it was like to be a scientist in Jeffrey Epstein's circle," *Slate,* August 2019, on the April 2002 AI meeting organized by Minsky, the roughly twenty attendees, Schank's recollection, and the 2006 Krauss conference. https://slate.com/technology/2019/08/jeffrey-epstein-science-eugenics-sexual-abuse-researchers.html
+[^7]: "Inside Jeffrey Epstein's Forgotten AI Summit," Investor News Today, 2025, on the St. Thomas Common Sense Symposium of April 2002 and its attendees. https://investornewstoday.com/2025/08/05/inside-jeffrey-epsteins-forgotten-ai-summit/
+[^8]: Brown, Stephanie, et al. "Jeffrey Epstein ordered teen girl to have sex with powerful men, accuser says," *NBC News,* August 9, 2019, on the deposition's unsealing and Giuffre's naming of Minsky. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/jeffrey-epstein-ordered-teen-girl-have-sex-powerful-men-accuser-n1040996
+[^9]: "AI Pioneer Accused of Having Sex With Trafficking Victim On Jeffrey Epstein's Island," *Slashdot,* August 9, 2019, on Rudisch's denial that the encounter occurred and that no estate lawsuit was filed. https://yro.slashdot.org/story/19/08/09/2244200/ai-pioneer-accused-of-having-sex-with-trafficking-victim-on-jeffrey-epsteins-island
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Max
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Max
@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
+---
+category: "AI & Effective Altruism"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - MaxMore
+  - Extropianism
+  - Transhumanism
+  - Cryonics
+  - Libertarianism
+summary: "Max More is a British-born philosopher who coined the term extropy, founded the Extropy Institute and the libertarian-transhumanist movement of the 1990s, and later ran the Alcor cryonics foundation."
+born: 1964
+location: "Scottsdale, Arizona"
+created: 2026-06-19
+updated: 2026-06-19
+---
+
+Max More (born Max O'Connor in 1964 in [[Bristol]], England) is a philosopher and futurist who founded [[Extropianism]], the libertarian strand of [[Transhumanism|transhumanism]] that shaped the technological optimism of [[Silicon Valley]]'s elite. He coined the term "extropy" in 1988, founded the [[Extropy Institute]], and through its 1990s mailing list helped assemble the subculture from which [[Nick Bostrom]]'s [[Longtermism|longtermism]], the [[Rationalist Community]], and parts of the cryptocurrency world emerged. He later ran the cryonics organization [[Alcor Life Extension Foundation]].[^1][^2]
+
+### The Extropian Project
+
+More changed his surname from O'Connor to More to signify his commitment to perpetual self-improvement. He read philosophy, politics, and economics at St Anne's College, [[University of Oxford|Oxford]], graduating in 1987, then moved to the United States and completed a doctorate in philosophy at the [[University of Southern California]] in 1995, with a dissertation examining the nature of death and personal identity through change. With the lawyer [[Tom W. Bell]] he launched *Extropy* magazine in 1988 and the Extropy Institute in the early 1990s. He authored the movement's founding documents, including the "Principles of Extropy" and the "Proactionary Principle," a pro-technology rule of conduct framed against the precautionary principle, and his 1999 "Letter to Mother Nature" declared an intention to redesign the human organism. His program fused radical life extension, mind uploading, artificial intelligence, and [[Anarcho-Capitalism|anarcho-capitalist]] politics into a single futurist creed.[^1][^3]
+
+Through the Extropy Institute's 1990s mailing list More convened the network of nanotechnology theorists, cryptographers, and AI researchers from which the later transhumanist and AI-risk institutions drew, and he hosted the EXTRO conference series from 1994 to 1999. His "Principles of Extropy," revised across several versions, set out the tenets of perpetual progress, self-transformation, practical optimism, intelligent technology, open society, self-direction, and rational thinking, defining "extropy" itself as the extent of a system's intelligence, functional order, vitality, and capacity for improvement. He married the transhumanist artist and theorist [[Natasha Vita-More]] in 1996, and the two became the movement's most visible couple.[^2][^3]
+
+### Cryonics and Later Career
+
+More became chief executive of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, the [[Scottsdale]], [[Arizona]] cryonics company that preserves human bodies and brains at low temperature in the expectation of future revival, effective January 1, 2011, and held the post until 2020. His advocacy for cryonics and life extension prefigured the longevity and anti-aging interests later funded across the [[Peter Thiel]] network.[^2][^4]
+
+Under More, Alcor's roster of cryopreserved "patients" grew to include the futurist FM-2030, the science-fiction figure who had inspired parts of the transhumanist movement, and the Bitcoin pioneer [[Hal Finney]], who died of ALS in 2014 and was preserved at the facility shortly after his death. Alcor charged on the order of 200,000 dollars for whole-body preservation and 80,000 dollars for neuropreservation of the head alone, funded through life-insurance policies taken out by members, and held roughly 150 patients in cryostasis by the time More stepped down. After leaving the chief-executive role he continued as an ambassador and advisor for the organization.[^4]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: "Transhumanism," *Encyclopædia Britannica,* on Max More, the coining of "extropy," and the Extropy Institute. https://www.britannica.com/topic/transhumanism
+[^2]: Evans, Jules. "How did transhumanism become the religion of the super-rich?" on Max More, the extropians, and the movement's reach into Silicon Valley. https://julesevans.medium.com/how-did-transhumanism-become-the-religion-of-the-super-rich-d670a410b01a
+[^3]: More, Max. "The Principles of Extropy," "The Proactionary Principle," and "A Letter to Mother Nature," Extropy Institute, 1990 to 1999; and "About," maxmore.com, on the 1987 Oxford PPE degree from St Anne's College, the 1995 USC philosophy doctorate, and the 1996 marriage to Natasha Vita-More. https://www.maxmore.com/about/
+[^4]: "Alcor Life Extension Foundation Names Max More, PhD, as Chief Executive Officer," Alcor, on the January 1, 2011 appointment; and "200 Frozen Heads and Bodies Await Revival at This Arizona Cryonics Facility," *Smithsonian,* on the patient roster (including FM-2030 and Hal Finney), the roughly 200,000 dollar whole-body and 80,000 dollar neuropreservation fees, and the patient count. https://www.alcor.org/resources/blog/alcor-life-extension-foundation-names-max-more-phd-as-chief-executive-officer/
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Michael
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Michael
@ -0,0 +1,54 @@
+---
+category: "Authors & Journalists"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - MichaelMurphy
+  - EsalenInstitute
+  - HumanPotentialMovement
+  - SriAurobindo
+  - CitizenDiplomacy
+  - Parapsychology
+alias:
+  - Michael Murphy
+  - Mike Murphy
+summary: "Michael Murphy is the Stanford-trained cofounder of Esalen Institute and a theorist of transformative human capacities who carried the Human Potential movement toward later wellness and technology culture."
+born: 1930
+location: "Big Sur, California"
+created: 2026-06-20
+updated: 2026-06-20
+---
+
+Michael Murphy (born September 3, 1930, in Salinas, California) is an American writer and the cofounder, with Richard Price, of the [[Esalen Institute]], the Big Sur retreat center that became the seedbed of the Human Potential movement. A Stanford psychology graduate who spent sixteen months at the [[Sri Aurobindo]] Ashram in India, Murphy built a body of work, above all the 1992 book *The Future of the Body*, cataloguing what he called the "metanormal" or extraordinary capacities of human beings, and he steered Esalen from 1960s countercultural therapy through 1980s citizen diplomacy with the Soviet Union toward the wellness and technology circles of the present-day Bay Area.[^1][^2]
+
+### Stanford, Spiegelberg, and Sri Aurobindo
+
+Murphy was raised in Salinas in an Episcopalian family and entered Stanford University as a pre-med student. In April 1950 he wandered by mistake into a lecture on comparative religion by the scholar [[Frederic Spiegelberg]], an encounter that redirected him toward the integration of Eastern and Western thought; he described a transformative meditative experience by Lake Lagunita on the Stanford campus in January 1951. He took a B.A. in psychology in 1952 and served two years as a U.S. Army psychologist stationed in Puerto Rico during the Korean War.[^1][^2] Spiegelberg, who taught the Indian philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and helped found the American Academy of Asian Studies in San Francisco, shaped a circle that drew both Murphy and the future Esalen cofounder Dick Price.[^2]
+
+From 1956 to 1957 Murphy practiced meditation for some sixteen to eighteen months at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, India, immersing himself in Aurobindo's "integral yoga," a system aimed at a progressive divinization of body and mind rather than escape from the world. Aurobindo's idea that evolution could continue consciously into supernormal human powers became the philosophical backbone of Murphy's later writing. On his return he met Price in 1960 in the Aurobindo-influenced milieu around San Francisco, and the two conceived the project that became Esalen.[^1][^2]
+
+### Founding and Running Esalen
+
+In 1962 Murphy and Price opened Esalen on roughly 120 acres of clifftop land at Big Sur that Murphy's grandfather, the physician Henry Murphy, had bought in 1910. Murphy ran the institute through its formative decade, hosting [[Abraham Maslow]], [[Aldous Huxley]]'s legacy of "human potentialities," [[Fritz Perls]] and Gestalt therapy, [[Alan Watts]], and the encounter-group movement, before stepping back from day-to-day management in 1972 to concentrate on writing. He remained cofounder and chairman emeritus of the board and continued to direct Esalen's research arm, the Center for Theory and Research.[^2][^3]
+
+Murphy's interest in documenting exceptional human functioning became institutional at Esalen. In 1976 he launched what he called the Transformation Project, an effort to compile a scientific archive of extraordinary psychophysical capacities seen in sport, meditation, and healing traditions, the research base for his later books.[^4] Through the Center for Theory and Research, Esalen hosted conferences on meditation research from 1988 to 1995 that produced *The Physical and Psychological Effects of Meditation*, which Murphy wrote with Steven Donovan.[^4]
+
+### The Books on Human Capacities
+
+Murphy's first and most popular book was the 1972 novel *Golf in the Kingdom*, a mystical fable set on a Scottish links course that became a long-running bestseller and was later filmed; he followed it with the novel *Jacob Atabet* (1977) about a painter pursuing bodily transformation. With the parapsychology researcher Rhea White he published *The Psychic Side of Sports* (1978, later reissued as *In the Zone*), cataloguing reports of altered perception, telepathy, and other anomalous experiences among athletes.[^1][^5]
+
+His major nonfiction work, *The Future of the Body: Explorations Into the Further Evolution of Human Nature* (1992), is a sprawling cross-cultural compilation of documented cases of what Murphy termed metanormal functioning, exceptional perception, vitality, movement, and cognition, organized to argue that most ordinary human attributes have extraordinary expressions that point toward a further evolution. With [[George Leonard]], the Look editor who had coined "human potential movement," he wrote *The Life We Are Given* (1995) and cofounded Integral Transformative Practice, a structured program of long-term physical and contemplative training.[^1][^4]
+
+### Soviet Parapsychology and Citizen Diplomacy
+
+In the 1970s Murphy became absorbed in Soviet parapsychology and traveled to the USSR to meet its experimenters in telepathy and related phenomena, contacts that opened an unusual channel between Esalen and Soviet officialdom. In 1980, with official Cold War relations stalled, Murphy, his wife Dulce Murphy, and Jim Hickman founded the Esalen Soviet-American Exchange Program, a "track-two" citizen-diplomacy effort that arranged exchanges of astronauts and cosmonauts, scientists, and writers and helped stage the first satellite "spacebridges" between Soviet and American citizens.[^6]
+
+The program invited Boris Yeltsin to make his first United States visit in September 1989, a tour that Yeltsin's biographers describe as sharpening his disillusionment with the Soviet system. Renamed Track Two: An Institute for Citizen Diplomacy in 2004, the program outlived the Cold War, and Esalen's accounts credit it with helping create the atmosphere in which glasnost and perestroika unfolded. Murphy continued to write and to lead the Center for Theory and Research into his nineties.[^6]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: "Michael Murphy (author)," biographical summary, on his September 3, 1930 birth in Salinas, his B.A. in psychology from Stanford in 1952, the April 1950 Spiegelberg lecture, the January 1951 Lake Lagunita experience, his Army service in Puerto Rico, sixteen to eighteen months at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1956 to 1957, the 1962 founding of Esalen with Dick Price, his stepping back in 1972, and his books *Golf in the Kingdom* (1971), *The Future of the Body* (1992), and *The Life We Are Given* (1995).
+[^2]: "Michael Murphy on Esalen and the mystical expats," Philosophy for Life, on Frederic Spiegelberg's comparative-religion teaching, the American Academy of Asian Studies, Sri Aurobindo's integral yoga, and Murphy's meeting with Price. https://www.philosophyforlife.org/blog/7670
+[^3]: "About Esalen: History, Mission, Vision, and Leadership," Esalen Institute, on Murphy as cofounder and chairman emeritus and his direction of the Center for Theory and Research. https://www.esalen.org/about
+[^4]: "What is the Center for Theory & Research?" and "Past Initiatives at the Center for Theory & Research," Esalen, on the 1976 Transformation Project, the 1988 to 1995 meditation-research conferences, *The Physical and Psychological Effects of Meditation* with Steven Donovan, and Integral Transformative Practice with George Leonard. https://www.esalen.org/ctr-main
+[^5]: Murphy, Michael, and Rhea A. White. *The Psychic Side of Sports.* Addison-Wesley, 1978; later reissued as *In the Zone: Transcendent Experience in Sports* (1995). https://archive.org/details/psychicsideofsp000murp
+[^6]: "Forty Years Later, Track Two Continues to Expand its Global Reach," Esalen Journal, on Murphy's 1970s interest in Soviet parapsychology, the 1980 founding of the Esalen Soviet-American Exchange Program by Michael and Dulce Murphy and Jim Hickman, the spacebridges, the 1989 Yeltsin visit, and the 2004 renaming to Track Two; and "Michael Murphy Helped Launch Human Potential Movement More Than 40 Years Ago," Voice of America. https://www.esalen.org/post/forty-years-later-track-two-continues-to-expand-its-global-reach
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Mira
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Mira
@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
+---
+category: "Technologists"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - MiraMurati
+  - OpenAI
+  - ThinkingMachinesLab
+  - ArtificialIntelligence
+  - SiliconValley
+alias:
+  - Mira Murati
+summary: "Mira Murati is the Albanian-born engineer who rose to chief technology officer of OpenAI, oversaw the development of ChatGPT, DALL-E, and Sora, served as interim chief executive during the November 2023 board crisis, left in September 2024, and founded the AI lab Thinking Machines Lab."
+born: 1988-12-16
+location: "San Francisco, California"
+created: 2026-06-20
+updated: 2026-06-20
+---
+
+Mira Murati (born December 16, 1988, in Vlorë, [[Albania]]) is an engineer and technology executive who served as the chief technology officer of [[OpenAI]], where she oversaw the development of [[ChatGPT]], DALL-E, Codex, and the video model Sora, and who briefly served as the company's interim chief executive during the November 2023 board crisis that removed and reinstated [[Sam Altman]]. She left OpenAI in September 2024 and founded the AI lab [[Thinking Machines Lab]] in early 2025.[^1][^2]
+
+### From Tesla to OpenAI CTO
+
+Murati grew up in Albania as the country emerged from communist rule, attended a United World College in Canada, and took a mechanical-engineering degree from [[Dartmouth College]]. After internships at [[Goldman Sachs]] and a stint at the French aerospace group [[Zodiac Aerospace]], she spent three years at [[Tesla, Inc.|Tesla]] as a senior product manager for the Model X during the period when the company shipped early versions of its Autopilot driver-assistance software. In 2016 she joined [[Leap Motion]], a startup building hand- and finger-tracking sensors, as vice president of product and engineering, before moving to OpenAI in 2018.[^1][^2]
+
+At OpenAI Murati began as vice president of applied AI and partnerships and was promoted to chief technology officer in 2022. In that role she led the teams that built and shipped the company's most consequential products: the DALL-E image generators, the Codex model that powers GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, and the Sora text-to-video system. She became one of the most prominent technical executives in the industry, describing OpenAI's iterative-deployment philosophy as a matter of putting "the technology in contact with reality" to learn from how people use it.[^1][^2]
+
+### Interim CEO and Departure
+
+When OpenAI's nonprofit board removed Altman on November 17, 2023, it named Murati interim chief executive. Her tenure lasted only days: within the weekend the board moved to install [[Emmett Shear]], the former chief executive of [[Twitch]], as a second interim leader, and Murati joined the roughly 700 employees who signed a letter demanding Altman's return and threatening to follow him to [[Microsoft]]. Altman was reinstated within the week, and Murati resumed her role as chief technology officer under the reconstituted board.[^3][^4]
+
+On September 25, 2024, Murati announced that she was leaving OpenAI, writing that "there is never an ideal time to step away from a place one cherishes, yet this moment feels right." Her departure came amid a broader exodus of senior research leaders from the company, including [[Ilya Sutskever]], the chief scientist who had left that May, and the research executives Bob McGrew and Barret Zoph, who left around the same time as Murati. Within months she had begun assembling a new lab from the same talent pool.[^4][^5]
+
+### Thinking Machines Lab
+
+In February 2025 Murati launched Thinking Machines Lab, a research company she founded with a team drawn heavily from OpenAI, including the cofounder and reinforcement-learning pioneer [[John Schulman]] as chief scientist, [[Barret Zoph]] as chief technology officer, and early staff such as [[Bob McGrew]], [[Lilian Weng]], [[Andrew Tulloch]], and [[Luke Metz]]. In July 2025 the company closed a roughly 2-billion-dollar seed round at a 12-billion-dollar valuation, led by [[Andreessen Horowitz]], a deal reported as among the largest seed rounds in Silicon Valley history.[^5][^6]
+
+Murati positioned the company around accessible, customizable AI and an open-research posture, saying the lab would unveil its first work within months and would include "a significant open source offering" for researchers and startups building their own models. Bloomberg reported in 2026 that the company was in talks for a funding round that would value it near 50 billion dollars.[^6][^7]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: "Who is Mira Murati? OpenAI's new interim CEO," *TechCrunch,* November 17, 2023, on her Albanian birth, Dartmouth degree, Zodiac Aerospace, Tesla Model X and Autopilot work, Leap Motion, joining OpenAI in 2018, and the products she oversaw as CTO. https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/17/who-is-mira-murati-openais-new-interim-ceo
+[^2]: "Mira Murati Biography," aidigitalx, on her birthplace of Vlorë, December 16, 1988, her education, and her career path through Tesla and Leap Motion to OpenAI CTO. https://aidigitalx.com/mira-murati-biography-leading-ai-innovator/
+[^3]: "Effective Altruism's Role in the OpenAI Chaos, Explained," *Bloomberg,* November 22, 2023, on the November 2023 board crisis, the interim leadership sequence, and Emmett Shear. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-22/effective-altruism-s-role-in-the-openai-chaos-explained
+[^4]: "OpenAI CTO Mira Murati says she's leaving the company," reporting on the September 25, 2024 departure and the "this moment feels right" statement. *CNBC,* September 25, 2024. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/25/openai-cto-mira-murati-announces-shes-leaving-the-company.html
+[^5]: "OpenAI cofounder John Schulman is joining Mira Murati's startup," *Fortune,* February 6, 2025, on the founding of Thinking Machines Lab and the OpenAI-derived team. https://www.fortune.com/2025/02/06/openai-john-schulman-mira-muratis-startup-anthropic
+[^6]: "Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab is worth $12B in seed round," *TechCrunch,* July 15, 2025, on the roughly 2-billion seed round, the 12-billion valuation, the Andreessen Horowitz lead, and the open-source plans. https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/15/mira-muratis-thinking-machines-lab-is-worth-12b-in-seed-round/
+[^7]: "Mira Murati's Thinking Machines seeks $50 billion valuation in funding talks," *Bloomberg/Yahoo Finance,* 2026. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mira-muratis-thinking-machines-seeks-212328387.html
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Neal
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Neal
@ -0,0 +1,68 @@
+---
+category: "Technologists"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - NealMohan
+  - YouTube
+  - Google
+  - DoubleClick
+  - AdTech
+  - ContentModeration
+alias:
+  - Neal Mohan
+summary: "Neal Mohan is an American technology executive who built Google's display-advertising business after the DoubleClick acquisition, served as YouTube's chief product officer from 2015, and became chief executive of YouTube in February 2023."
+born: 1973
+location: "Indiana, United States (born)"
+created: 2026-06-20
+updated: 2026-06-20
+---
+
+Neal Mohan (born 1973) is an American technology executive who led Google's display-advertising business following the company's acquisition of [[DoubleClick|DoubleClick]] in 2007, became chief product officer of [[YouTube|YouTube]] in 2015, and succeeded [[Susan Wojcicki|Susan Wojcicki]] as chief executive of YouTube in February 2023. 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 the chief executive of YouTube.[^1]
+
+### From Indiana to Stanford
+
+Mohan was born in Indiana in 1973 to a father who had emigrated from India, and has recounted that his father "landed at JFK with 25 dollars in his pocket" after earning a doctorate in civil engineering. The family spent his early childhood in Michigan and moved to India before his high-school years, where Mohan has said he had to acquire "nine years' worth of Hindi and Sanskrit." He returned to the United States for university.[^2]
+
+He took a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from [[Stanford University]] in 1996 and later an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2005, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar. He serves on the Stanford Graduate School of Business management board.[^2]
+
+### DoubleClick and the Display-Advertising Build-Out
+
+Mohan began at the consultancy Andersen Consulting, later Accenture, in 1996, then joined the advertising-technology startup NetGravity, which was absorbed into DoubleClick. After his Stanford MBA and a brief period at [[Microsoft|Microsoft]], he returned to DoubleClick as senior vice president of strategy and product development, a role in which contemporaneous accounts describe him as central to the company's turnaround. Google announced its acquisition of DoubleClick for 3.1 billion dollars in cash on April 13, 2007, then its largest acquisition, buying the firm from the private-equity owner Hellman and Friedman; the deal closed on March 11, 2008, after European Commission clearance.[^3][^4]
+
+At Google, Mohan led the integration of DoubleClick and rose to senior vice president of display and video advertising, with responsibility for the Google Display Network, AdSense, AdMob, the DoubleClick programmatic platform, and YouTube advertising. The portfolio made him the executive most responsible for assembling Google's display-advertising backbone out of the acquired DoubleClick technology and the company's own ad products.[^3]
+
+### The 2011 Retention Package
+
+In 2011 Twitter sought to hire Mohan as its chief product officer, and Google countered with a restricted-stock grant reported at roughly 100 million dollars, vesting over three to four years, to keep him. The same TechCrunch report that disclosed the Mohan figure stated that Google gave [[Sundar Pichai|Sundar Pichai]], then leading Chrome, a grant of roughly 50 million dollars in the same period, and that the company may have committed as much as 150 million dollars in stock to retain the two product executives. The episode is frequently misdated to 2013 in later coverage; the original reporting is from April 2011.[^5]
+
+The size of the grant marked Mohan as among the most valued product executives at Google years before he moved to YouTube, and the figure became a recurring point of reference in profiles of his career after his 2023 elevation to the YouTube chief executive role.[^5]
+
+### YouTube Product and the 2023 Chief Executive Appointment
+
+Mohan became YouTube's chief product officer in 2015, overseeing product, user experience, and trust and safety across the platform. Wojcicki credited him with pivotal roles in the launch of YouTube TV, YouTube Music and Premium, and Shorts, and with leading the trust-and-safety team responsible for content-moderation policy. On February 16, 2023, Wojcicki announced she was stepping down after roughly nine years leading YouTube and about twenty-five years at Google and named Mohan as her successor, the fourth person to lead YouTube. She wrote that with the work across "Shorts, streaming, and subscriptions, together with the promises of AI," Mohan was "the right person to lead us."[^6][^7]
+
+As chief executive, Mohan oversees a platform reporting more than two billion users and the top position in United States streaming watchtime by Nielsen measurement. YouTube advertising revenue reached 9.2 billion dollars in the fourth quarter of 2023, 10.47 billion dollars in the fourth quarter of 2024, and 11.38 billion dollars in the fourth quarter of 2025, with full-year 2025 revenue across advertising and subscriptions reported above 60 billion dollars. YouTube TV passed eight million subscribers by early 2024, and YouTube Premium and Music passed one hundred million customers. Mohan has stated that YouTube paid more than 100 billion dollars to creators, artists, and media companies over four years.[^8][^9][^10]
+
+### Content Moderation and the AI Posture
+
+Mohan's January 2026 annual letter named the management of artificial-intelligence "slop" a priority for the year while resisting preemptive bans, stating that as an open platform YouTube allows "a broad range of free expression" and would address low-quality automated content through existing spam and clickbait systems rather than new prohibitions. The letter announced parental controls including the ability to "set the timer to zero" for Shorts, which the company called an industry first, and reported that more than one million channels used YouTube's artificial-intelligence creation tools daily in December 2025. The recommendation algorithm, content-moderation policy, and the boundary between permitted and removed content sit under the chief executive's authority over a platform that reaches a substantial share of the global internet audience.[^11][^12]
+
+Mohan has held outside corporate board seats during his Google tenure. He joined the board of the apparel company Stitch Fix effective October 21, 2020, served on the board of the genetics company [[23andMe|23andMe]], from which he resigned in September 2024 amid the mass departure of independent directors in a dispute with chief executive Anne Wojcicki, and was elected to the board of [[Starbucks|Starbucks]] in an announcement dated January 9, 2024.[^13][^14][^15]
+
+### 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]: "My father landed in US with 25 dollars in pocket: YouTube CEO Neal Mohan shares childhood memories of India." *Business Today,* November 1, 2023. https://www.businesstoday.in/latest/trends/story/my-father-landed-in-us-with-usd-25-in-pocket-youtube-ceo-neal-mohan-shares-childhood-memories-of-india-404104-2023-11-01
+[^3]: "Neal Mohan, MBA '05: CEOs and content creators, be true to yourself." *Stanford Graduate School of Business,* December 2023. https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/neal-mohan-mba-05-ceos-content-creators-be-true-yourself
+[^4]: "Google to buy DoubleClick for 3.1 billion dollars in cash." *CNBC,* April 13, 2007. https://www.cnbc.com/2007/04/13/google-agrees-to-buy-doubleclick-for-31-billion-in-cash.html
+[^5]: "Google said to have high level mole at Twitter, makes massive counteroffers to retain employees." *TechCrunch,* April 6, 2011. https://techcrunch.com/2011/04/06/google-said-to-have-high-level-mole-at-twitter-makes-massive-counteroffers-to-retain-employees/
+[^6]: Wojcicki, Susan. "A personal update from Susan." *YouTube Official Blog,* February 16, 2023. https://blog.youtube/inside-youtube/a-personal-update-from-susan/
+[^7]: "Susan Wojcicki exiting YouTube CEO role, Neal Mohan to step up." *Deadline,* February 16, 2023. https://deadline.com/2023/02/susan-wojcicki-exiting-youtube-ceo-chief-product-office-neal-mohan-to-step-up-1235262007/
+[^8]: "Alphabet earnings, Q4 2023." *Tubefilter,* January 31, 2024. https://www.tubefilter.com/2024/01/31/alphabet-google-youtube-earnings-q4-2023-sundar-pichai-philipp-schindler/
+[^9]: "YouTube total revenue tops 60 billion dollars in 2025." *Variety,* 2026. https://variety.com/2026/digital/news/youtube-2025-total-revenue-ads-subscriptions-alphabet-earnings-1236652260/
+[^10]: "YouTube TV passes 8 million subscribers." *Variety,* February 2024. https://variety.com/2024/digital/news/youtube-tv-number-subscribers-8-million-1235895606/
+[^11]: "The future of YouTube, 2026." *YouTube Official Blog,* January 21, 2026. https://blog.youtube/inside-youtube/the-future-of-youtube-2026/
+[^12]: "YouTube chief says managing 'AI slop' is a priority for 2026." *CNBC,* January 21, 2026. https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/21/youtube-chief-says-managing-ai-slop-is-a-priority-for-2026-.html
+[^13]: "Stitch Fix adds Neal Mohan to board of directors." Stitch Fix newsroom, October 2020. https://newsroom.stitchfix.com/blog/stitch-fix-adds-neal-mohan-chief-product-officer-youtube-and-svp-google-to-board-of-director%E2%80%8Bs/
+[^14]: "23andMe board resigns, citing differences with CEO Anne Wojcicki." *Entrepreneur,* 2024. https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/23andme-board-resigns-differences-with-ceo-anne-wojcicki/480073
+[^15]: "Starbucks elects Daniel Servitje, Neal Mohan and Mike Sievert to its board of directors." Starbucks press release, January 9, 2024. https://about.starbucks.com/press/2024/starbucks-elects-servitje-mohan-and-sievert-to-its-board-of-directors/
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Nick
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Nick
@ -0,0 +1,55 @@
+---
+category: "New Right"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - NickLand
+  - CCRU
+  - Accelerationism
+  - DarkEnlightenment
+  - Neoreaction
+  - Philosophy
+  - UniversityOfWarwick
+alias:
+  - Nick Land
+summary: "Nick Land is an English philosopher who co-founded the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit at the University of Warwick in the 1990s, originated the right-accelerationist current that fed into the Dark Enlightenment, and whose CCRU-era writings on capitalism and technology as self-reinforcing feedback loops supplied the metaphysical register that Curtis Yarvin's Neoreaction supplied the institutional register for."
+born: 1962-01-17
+location: "England"
+created: 2026-06-18
+updated: 2026-06-18
+---
+
+Nick Land (born January 17, 1962) is an English philosopher who co-founded the [[CCRU|Cybernetic Culture Research Unit]] at the [[University of Warwick|University of Warwick]] in the mid-1990s and originated the [[Accelerationism|right-accelerationist]] philosophical current that feeds into the [[Dark Enlightenment]] and [[Neoreaction]]. Land's CCRU-era writings argued that techno-capitalism functions as a self-reinforcing positive-feedback loop that should be allowed to dissolve existing political structures without restraint, and his subsequent Dark Enlightenment work extended the argument into the explicit framing of liberal democracy as an obstacle to the necessary acceleration. Land's work supplies the metaphysical and technological register that [[Curtis Yarvin]]'s Neoreaction supplies the institutional and procedural register for, and the two are the co-originators of the Dark Enlightenment.[^1][^2][^3]
+
+### The Warwick Philosophy Department and the CCRU Founding
+
+Land was appointed to the philosophy department at the University of Warwick in the late 1980s, having completed his doctorate at the [[University of Essex|University of Essex]] on [[Georges Bataille|Georges Bataille]] and the philosophy of excess. His early academic work drew on [[Bataille|Bataille]], [[Friedrich Nietzsche|Nietzsche]], [[Jacques Derrida|Derrida]], and [[Gilles Deleuze|Deleuze]], and his teaching at Warwick acquired a cult following among philosophy students in the early 1990s for its intensity and its departure from the conventional analytic-philosophy curriculum.[^1][^4]
+
+The Cybernetic Culture Research Unit emerged from Land's Warwick orbit around 1995, co-founded with [[Sadie Plant|Sadie Plant]] (the cyberfeminist theorist) and incorporating the graduate students who would become the CCRU's core, including [[Mark Fisher|Mark Fisher]], [[Kodwo Eshun|Kodwo Eshun]], Sadie Plant, and [[Steve Goodman|Steve Goodman]] (who subsequently operated as the musician [[Kode9|Kode9]]). The CCRU functioned as a research collective outside the normal departmental structure, blending philosophy, science fiction, cybernetics, [[Afrofuturism|Afrofuturism]], and music theory. The unit's self-described practice was "conceptual production by welding together a wide variety of sources," and its output included academic papers, performative lectures, the [[Virtual Futures|Virtual Futures]] conferences, and a body of hyperstitional texts written as if the fictions they described were real.[^1][^4][^5]
+
+### The Accelerationist Argument
+
+Land's CCRU-era argument, developed across the mid-to-late 1990s, held that capitalism and technological change are not instruments to be steered by political will but forces that are themselves doing the steering, and that the human political and institutional apparatus is an obstacle to be dissolved by the acceleration rather than a hand on the tiller. The argument drew on [[Deleuze|Deleuze]] and [[Félix Guattari|Guattari]]'s concept of [[deterritorialization|deterritorialization]], on Bataille's accursed-share economics of excess, and on the cybernetic theory of [[Norbert Wiener|Norbert Wiener]] and [[William S. Burroughs|William S. Burroughs]], to produce the framing that techno-capitalism is an autonomous, self-optimizing process that will dissolve the existing order and that the philosopher's role is to accelerate the dissolution rather than to resist it.[^1][^6]
+
+The CCRU's [[hyperstition|hyperstition]] practice was the methodological complement. Hyperstition is the production of fictions that make themselves real through the act of propagation, and the CCRU's texts operated as if the cybernetic future they described were already operative. The practice is the philosophical ancestor of the [[Chan ARG Ecosystem|chan-ARG hyperstitional tradition]] (including [[TheGame23]]) and of the broader internet-native narrative-production forms that descend from it.[^4][^5]
+
+### The Warwick Departure and the Shanghai Relocation
+
+Land left Warwick around 1998 amid what colleagues and students described as a combination of intellectual exhaustion, amphetamine use, and mental-health crisis. The biographical detail is documented in Mark Fisher's writing and in the retrospective accounts of the CCRU members, and it produced the break between Land's academic-philosophy period and his subsequent post-academic work. Land relocated to [[Shanghai|Shanghai]] in the early 2000s and spent the subsequent years writing independently, absorbing the Chinese techno-capitalist environment directly, and developing the argument that the Chinese model of state-directed capitalism represented the acceleration's most advanced form.[^1][^4]
+
+The Shanghai relocation marked the transition between the CCRU-era accelerationism (a theoretical-philosophical position developed in the Warwick seminar room) and the subsequent Dark Enlightenment accelerationism (a political position developed in direct contact with the Chinese economic model). Land's Shanghai-period writing extended the acceleration argument into the explicit claim that liberal democracy is the obstacle and that authoritarian-capitalist governance is the acceleration's vehicle.[^1][^2]
+
+### The Dark Enlightenment and the Yarvin Synthesis
+
+Land's Dark Enlightenment series, written from 2012 onward, fused the accelerationist metaphysics with the NRx institutional program. The series named the broader current and articulated the shared diagnosis: liberal democracy is failing, the Cathedral ([[The Cathedral|Yarvin's term]] for the institutional consensus-producing apparatus) is the mechanism of the failure, and the role of the philosopher is to maintain the intellectual infrastructure for the post-democratic successor. Land's framing supplied the systematic-philosophical case that democratic governance is in fundamental tension with the trajectory of technological capitalism; Yarvin's framing supplied the institutional proposal (the [[Neocameralism|neocameral]] joint-stock state) for what replaces it.[^2][^7]
+
+Land cites Yarvin and Yarvin cites Land, and the [[Peter Thiel]] patronage of Yarvin (documented across multiple years) connects the Land-Yarvin intellectual current to the Thiel commercial network through a single funded relationship. Land's own relationship to the Thiel network is less direct than Yarvin's, but the intellectual lineage runs from Land through Yarvin to Thiel through the shared Dark Enlightenment frame.[^2][^7]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: For Land's career, the CCRU, and the Warwick period, see Mark Fisher's writing, the retrospective accounts of the CCRU members, and the Warwick departmental record.
+[^2]: Land, Nick. "The Dark Enlightenment" (series), 2012 onward, and the broader Dark Enlightenment writings.
+[^3]: "What is Nick Land's Philosophy of Accelerationism Really?" *Aeon.* https://aeon.co/essays/what-is-nick-lands-philosophy-of-accelerationism-really
+[^4]: [[Cybernetic Culture Research Unit|Cybernetic Culture Research Unit]]. See the [[Monoskop|Monoskop]] archive and the Medium retrospective "Forward? A Short History of the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit."
+[^5]: Carstens, Delphi. "Hyperstition: An Introduction" (interview with Nick Land), *Orphan Drift Archive,* 2009, on the CCRU concept of fictions that make themselves real. https://www.orphandriftarchive.com/articles/hyperstition-an-introduction/
+[^6]: Land's CCRU-era accelerationism is developed across the collected writings of the period; see the CCRU archives.
+[^7]: Pein, Corey. "The Moldbug Variations." *The Baffler,* 2014, documenting the Yarvin-Land neoreactionary synthesis and Thiel's investment in Yarvin's Tlon/Urbit venture. https://thebaffler.com/latest/the-moldbug-variations-pein ; "Curtis Yarvin, Nick Land and the Dark Utopia of the New Radical Right." *Reset DOC,* 2022. https://www.resetdoc.org/story/curtis-yarvin-nick-land-black-utopia-of-new-radical-right/
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Palmer
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Palmer
@ -0,0 +1,40 @@
+---
+category: "Technologists"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - PalmerLuckey
+  - Anduril
+  - FoundersFund
+  - DefenseTech
+  - Trump
+summary: "Palmer Luckey is the founder of Oculus VR who, after being pushed out of Facebook in 2017 over a pro-Trump donation, founded the Founders Fund-backed defense contractor Anduril Industries."
+born: 1992-09-19
+location: "Orange County, California"
+created: 2026-06-19
+updated: 2026-06-19
+---
+
+Palmer Luckey (born September 19, 1992) is an American technology entrepreneur who founded the virtual-reality company [[Oculus VR]], sold it to [[Facebook]] in 2014, was pushed out of the company in 2017 after a pro-[[Donald Trump|Trump]] political donation became public, and then founded the defense contractor [[Anduril Industries]] with backing from [[Peter Thiel]]'s [[Founders Fund]].[^1][^2]
+
+### Oculus and the Facebook Exit
+
+Luckey founded Oculus VR in 2012 and sold it to Facebook in 2014 for about two billion dollars. The Daily Beast revealed on September 22, 2016 that he had donated ten thousand dollars to [[Nimble America]], a pro-Trump group founded by two moderators of the [[r/The_Donald]] forum that produced anti-[[Hillary Clinton|Clinton]] internet memes, and that he had posted in support of it under the handle "NimbleRichMan." Luckey acknowledged the donation, saying he had "plenty of money" and that it "sounded like a real jolly good time," and the disclosure prompted a backlash inside the technology industry that saw him removed from public appearances and frozen out of Oculus decisions.[^2][^3][^5]
+
+Luckey left Facebook in March 2017. He later said he had been fired "for no reason at all" and tied it to the donation, and leaked internal emails reported by the Wall Street Journal indicated that [[Mark Zuckerberg]] had personally pressured him to publicly endorse the Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson rather than Trump. Facebook maintained the departure was unrelated to his politics; when Senator [[Ted Cruz]] later asked Zuckerberg in Senate testimony why Luckey had been fired, Zuckerberg declined to answer. Reporting put a settlement at around 100 million dollars, a figure neither party confirmed.[^2][^6]
+
+### Anduril Industries
+
+Luckey founded Anduril Industries in April 2017 with [[Trae Stephens]] of Founders Fund, Brian Schimpf, Matt Grimm, and Joe Chen, three of them [[Palantir Technologies]] alumni, building autonomous-surveillance and weapons systems for the U.S. military and border-security agencies. The company's products are coordinated by an artificial-intelligence command-and-control software layer called Lattice and include the Ghost reconnaissance drone, the Anvil counter-drone interceptor, the reusable Roadrunner air-defense interceptor, the Barracuda cruise-missile family, the Dive-LD undersea vehicle, and the autonomous Sentry surveillance towers deployed along the U.S. border. Luckey also donated one hundred thousand dollars to Trump's 2017 inauguration committee through a shell company called Wings of Time, and he remained a prominent technology-industry supporter of Trump and the defense-tech turn promoted across the Thiel network.[^1][^4]
+
+Founders Fund was the first institutional backer and continued to anchor later rounds, leading a 1.5 billion dollar Series F in August 2024 at a 14 billion dollar valuation and a 2.5 billion dollar Series G in June 2025 at a 30.5 billion dollar valuation, with a one billion dollar check that the firm described as its largest ever. In February 2025 Anduril took over the U.S. Army's Integrated Visual Augmentation System program from [[Microsoft]], a headset effort valued at up to 22 billion dollars over ten years, and in 2025 won a 363 million dollar Customs and Border Protection contract for more than 200 Sentry towers. In 2025 Luckey and [[Joe Lonsdale|Joseph Lonsdale]] also cofounded Erebor, a digital-first national bank backed by Founders Fund and aimed at crypto, AI, and defense companies, which received conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in October 2025.[^7][^8]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: "Palmer Luckey: From Oculus Founder to Anduril Defense Tech Leader," Built In, on the Oculus sale, the Facebook exit, and the Anduril founding. https://builtin.com/articles/who-is-palmer-luckey
+[^2]: "Palmer Luckey says his Facebook firing changed the way he does business," 2024, on the 2017 departure and his account of it. https://www.aol.com/palmer-luckey-says-facebook-firing-204406748.html
+[^3]: "Palmer Luckey just gave $10,000 to a pro-Trump group dedicated to 'shitposting' and meme magic," *TechCrunch,* September 23, 2016. https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/23/palmer-luckey-nimble-america
+[^4]: "Oculus founder has new border surveillance startup," *Axios,* December 15, 2017. https://www.axios.com/2017/12/15/oculus-founder-has-new-border-surveillance-startup-1513302749
+[^5]: Collins, Ben, and Gideon Resnick. "Palmer Luckey: The Facebook Near-Billionaire Secretly Funding Trump's Meme Machine," *The Daily Beast,* September 22, 2016, on Nimble America, the r/The_Donald founders, and the "NimbleRichMan" posts. https://www.thedailybeast.com/palmer-luckey-the-facebook-near-billionaire-secretly-funding-trumps-meme-machine
+[^6]: "Palmer Luckey claims he was fired from Facebook for his politics," *CNBC,* May 22, 2019, on the firing, the reported Zuckerberg pressure to back Gary Johnson, and the Cruz exchange. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/22/palmer-luckey-claims-he-was-fired-from-facebook-for-his-politics.html
+[^7]: "Anduril raises $2.5 billion at a $30.5 billion valuation," *TechCrunch,* June 5, 2025, on the Series G and the Founders Fund check; and "Anduril raises $1.5B Series F," *Axios,* August 8, 2024. https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/05/anduril-raises-2-5b-doubling-valuation-to-30-5b/
+[^8]: "Anduril takes over Army's IVAS program from Microsoft," *Breaking Defense,* February 11, 2025; and "OCC grants conditional approval to Erebor Bank," *CoinDesk,* October 15, 2025, on the Luckey and Lonsdale bank. https://breakingdefense.com/2025/02/anduril-microsoft-ivas/
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Reid
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Reid
@ -0,0 +1,56 @@
+---
+category: "Technologists"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - ReidHoffman
+  - PayPalMafia
+  - LinkedIn
+  - Greylock
+  - JeffreyEpstein
+  - Dialog
+  - Microsoft
+alias:
+  - Reid Garrett Hoffman
+summary: "Reid Hoffman is an American venture capitalist and entrepreneur, a PayPal Mafia principal as cofounder and executive vice president of PayPal, the cofounder and executive chairman of LinkedIn, a Greylock general partner, a 2026 Dialog retreat registrant, and a 2015 Epstein dinner attendee who publicly apologized in 2019 for helping repair Jeffrey Epstein's post-conviction image."
+born: 1967-08-05
+location: "Stanford, California (born)"
+created: 2026-06-18
+updated: 2026-06-18
+---
+
+Reid Hoffman (born August 5, 1967, in [[Stanford, California|Stanford]], [[California]]) is an American venture capitalist and entrepreneur who served as executive vice president and a founding board member of [[PayPal]], cofounded and served as executive chairman of [[LinkedIn]], and joined [[Greylock Partners|Greylock]] as a general partner in 2009. Hoffman is a [[PayPal Mafia]] principal, a 2026 [[Dialog]] retreat registrant per the leaked *WIRED* roster, and a documented attendee at the 2015 Jeffrey Epstein dinner whose guest list also included [[Peter Thiel]], [[Mark Zuckerberg]], [[Elon Musk]], [[Joi Ito]], and Epstein himself. Hoffman publicly apologized in September 2019 for his role in helping repair Epstein's post-conviction public image.[^1][^2][^3]
+
+### The PayPal and LinkedIn Trajectory
+
+Hoffman joined PayPal in its founding period as executive vice president of external relations, serving on the board and managing the company's external positioning through the 2002 sale to [[eBay]]. His role placed him among the PayPal Mafia cohort (alongside Peter Thiel, [[Max Levchin]], Elon Musk, [[David Sacks]], [[Ken Howery]], [[Luke Nosek]], [[Roelof Botha]], and [[Keith Rabois]]) whose subsequent ventures shaped the post-PayPal Silicon Valley generation. Hoffman founded LinkedIn in 2002 (before the eBay sale closed) and built it into the dominant professional-networking platform, taking it public in 2011 and selling it to [[Microsoft]] in 2016 for 26.2 billion dollars.[^1]
+
+The Microsoft acquisition and Hoffman's subsequent board seat at Microsoft placed him inside the enterprise-software and cloud-infrastructure orbit adjacent to the Thiel commercial network. Hoffman joined Greylock as a general partner in 2009, and his Greylock portfolio overlaps with the broader Silicon Valley venture ecosystem that the [[Founders Fund]] and the Thiel network operate within.[^1]
+
+### The Epstein Relationship and the 2019 Apology
+
+*Axios* reported on September 12, 2019 that Hoffman had emailed the outlet to apologize for his role in helping repair [[Jeffrey Epstein|Epstein]]'s post-conviction public image. The apology covered Hoffman's 2015 interactions with Epstein, including introductions Hoffman facilitated related to Epstein's attempts at image rehabilitation and to the MIT donations Epstein was arranging through Joi Ito at the [[MIT Media Lab]]. The *Wall Street Journal* reported in 2023, on the basis of the [[Epstein Files|Epstein calendars]], that Hoffman visited Epstein's private island.[^2][^3][^4]
+
+The August 2015 dinner that Hoffman hosted in [[Palo Alto]], ostensibly to raise money for the MIT Media Lab (documented in the Epstein Files Transparency Act releases, EFTA00344556 and EFTA00344564), placed him at the same table as Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Joi Ito, and Epstein. Hoffman apologized in September 2019 for his role in the Epstein image-rehabilitation effort. No Epstein victim has made a public allegation against Hoffman.[^2][^3][^5]
+
+### The Dialog Registration
+
+Hoffman appears on the leaked 2026 Dialog retreat roster, per *WIRED*'s reporting on the leak. Dialog, cofounded in 2006 by Peter Thiel and [[Auren Hoffman]], convenes U.S. officials, foreign government figures, and Silicon Valley executives at off-the-record annual retreats. Hoffman's presence on the roster places a sitting Greylock general partner and a former Microsoft board member inside the same convening network whose 2026 registrants included [[Cory Booker|Senator Cory Booker]], [[Ted Cruz|Senator Ted Cruz]], [[Jared Polis|Governor Jared Polis]], and the NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe [[Alexus Grynkewich|General Alexus Grynkewich]].[^1]
+
+Hoffman's politics diverge from the Thiel network's Republican alignment. Hoffman has been a prominent [[Democratic Party|Democratic]] donor and operative, supporting [[Joe Biden]] and [[Kamala Harris]] and publicly opposing [[Donald Trump]]. He appears on the roster alongside both Democratic and Republican elected officials.[^1]
+
+### The Musk Clash and the Epstein-Files Politics
+
+Musk and Hoffman clashed publicly over their respective Epstein ties in 2025-2026. The [[Anadolu Agency|Anadolu Agency]] reported on the online exchange on [[X (social media)|X]], in which each accused the other of the closer Epstein relationship. Musk, whose 2015 Epstein dinner attendance is documented in the Epstein file releases (EFTA00344556), pointed to Hoffman's apology for the image-rehabilitation work. Hoffman, whose apology is documented in the September 2019 [[Axios|Axios]] exclusive, pointed to the broader pattern of Musk's Epstein contacts.[^6]
+
+Hoffman subsequently posted on LinkedIn calling for the full release of the Epstein files and pledging to advocate for victim justice. The public clash is part of the broader political dynamics around the 2025-2026 file releases, in which multiple Silicon Valley principals whose Epstein relationships have been documented have positioned themselves on the question of disclosure. [[ABC News|ABC News]] reported that Hoffman's ties to Epstein face a Trump-ordered investigation, though no Epstein victim has made a public allegation against Hoffman.[^5][^6]
+
+Hoffman has funded Democratic candidates and opposed Trump, while Musk moved to Republican alignment across 2022 to 2024. Both appear on the leaked 2026 Dialog retreat roster.[^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]: "Exclusive: Reid Hoffman apologizes for role in Epstein-linked donations." *Axios,* September 12, 2019. https://www.axios.com/2019/09/12/reid-hoffman-jeffrey-epstein-mit-donations
+[^3]: "LinkedIn Founder Reid Hoffman Apologizes for Helping Jeffrey Epstein." *Business Insider,* September 2019. https://www.businessinsider.com/linkedin-founder-reid-hoffman-apologizes-helping-jeffrey-epstein-2019-9
+[^4]: For the Hoffman visit to the Epstein island, see the *Wall Street Journal* 2023 reporting on the Epstein calendars and the SEC shareholder-proposal filing referencing the visit.
+[^5]: "LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman's ties to Jeffrey Epstein face Trump-ordered investigation." *ABC News,* 2025. https://abcnews.com/US/linkedin-founder-reid-hoffmans-ties-jeffrey-epstein-face/story?id=127651719
+[^6]: "2 tech billionaires clash online about ties to Jeffrey Epstein." *Anadolu Agency,* 2025. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/2-tech-billionaires-clash-online-about-ties-to-jeffrey-epstein/3820174
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Richard
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Richard
@ -0,0 +1,57 @@
+---
+category: "New Right"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - RaceScience
+  - Eugenics
+  - PioneerFund
+  - HumanBiodiversity
+  - Psychology
+alias:
+  - Richard Lynn
+summary: "Richard Lynn was a British psychologist who promoted hereditarian claims about racial and national differences in intelligence and 'dysgenics,' ran the Pioneer Fund and the Ulster Institute for Social Research, and whose national-IQ data was repudiated as fundamentally flawed."
+born: 1930-02-20
+died: 2023-07-23
+location: "Bristol, England"
+created: 2026-06-19
+updated: 2026-06-19
+---
+
+Richard Lynn (1930-2023) was a British psychologist who spent the latter part of his career arguing that races and nations differ in average intelligence for genetic reasons and that modern populations are undergoing "dysgenic" decline. He edited the journal [[Mankind Quarterly]], founded and led the [[Ulster Institute for Social Research]], served as president of the [[Pioneer Fund]] after 2012, and assembled the "national IQ" datasets that other researchers later condemned as methodologically unsound. The [[Southern Poverty Law Center]] classified him as a promoter of scientific racism, and he described himself as a "scientific racist."[^1][^2]
+
+### Career
+
+Lynn was educated at the [[University of Cambridge]] and held posts at the [[University of Exeter]] and in Dublin before becoming professor of psychology at the [[University of Ulster]] from 1972 to 1995. He founded the Ulster Institute for Social Research and became editor-in-chief of Mankind Quarterly, the [[Wickliffe Draper|Draper]]-funded race-science journal. In 2018 Ulster University stripped him of his emeritus professor title after concluding that he had advanced views that were "racist and sexist in nature."[^1][^3]
+
+Born in 1930 and educated at Bristol Grammar School and King's College, Cambridge, Lynn built a four-decade collaboration with the personality psychologist [[Hans Eysenck]] on racial and national differences in intelligence. During his Ulster tenure amid the [[The Troubles|Troubles]] he attributed Ireland's purportedly low average IQ to "selective emigration of the brightest" and a "dysgenic effect of Roman Catholicism," a claim later contradicted by Catholic pupils outperforming Protestant pupils on Northern Ireland GCSE exams. The 2018 stripping of his title followed a student campaign at Ulster, and he published a self-justifying memoir, *Memoirs of a Dissident Psychologist*, through his own Ulster Institute imprint.[^7][^8]
+
+### Race, Dysgenics, and National IQ
+
+Lynn's books included *Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern Populations* (1996), *Eugenics: A Reassessment* (2001), *IQ and the Wealth of Nations* (2002, with the Finnish political scientist [[Tatu Vanhanen]]), and *The Global Bell Curve* (2008). He argued that average IQ differs by race and nation, that sub-Saharan African populations have very low average intelligence, and that welfare and immigration drive a hereditary decline in the gene pool. Mainstream researchers rejected these claims. The psychologist [[Jelte Wicherts]] and colleagues showed that Lynn had reached his low African IQ estimates by selectively excluding studies, and that a systematic reading of the data produced substantially higher figures. In 2020 the [[European Human Behaviour and Evolution Association]] formally warned against using Lynn's national-IQ dataset, concluding that any analysis relying on it was "unsound."[^2][^4]
+
+*IQ and the Wealth of Nations* asserted that national average IQ correlated with gross domestic product per capita and assigned numbers as low as the high 60s to several African states, figures that critics traced to a handful of unrepresentative test administrations. Lynn also published *Sex Differences in Intelligence* (2017), claiming that adult men have higher average IQ than women, a thesis that critics rejected as resting on outdated head-size measurements and selective sampling. Psychometricians noted that the [[Flynn effect]], the steady rise in raw IQ scores across the twentieth century documented by the psychologist [[James Flynn]], undercut Lynn's claim that measured group gaps reflected fixed genetic endowments, since environmental change alone moved scores by amounts comparable to the gaps Lynn called innate.[^2][^10]
+
+### Pioneer Fund and the Race-Science Network
+
+Lynn received Pioneer Fund money over many years, and on the death of the psychologist [[J. Philippe Rushton]] in 2012 he became the fund's president. His Ulster Institute publishes Mankind Quarterly, and his contributors and associates overlapped with those of the secret [[London Conference on Intelligence]] held at [[University College London]] from 2014 to 2017, including [[Emil Kirkegaard]], who ran the non-peer-reviewed [[OpenPsych]] repository. His hereditarian framework belongs to the literature popularized by [[Charles Murray]] and [[Richard Herrnstein]]'s *The Bell Curve* and circulated through the [[Human Biodiversity|human-biodiversity]] current associated with [[Steve Sailer]], and his "national IQ" figures were widely reproduced in the [[Neoreaction|neoreactionary]] and [[Curtis Yarvin|Yarvin]]-adjacent online right.[^2][^5]
+
+Lynn's stated aims went beyond research into explicit advocacy. Reviewing [[Raymond Cattell]]'s 1972 tract *A New Morality from Science: Beyondism* in 1974, he wrote that "what is called for here is not genocide, the killing off of the populations of incompetent cultures. But we do need to think realistically in terms of the 'phasing out' of such peoples." In *Eugenics: A Reassessment* (2001) he argued that the postwar condemnation of eugenics had gone too far and that selective breeding and biotechnology should be used to raise intelligence and reduce genetic disease. The Southern Poverty Law Center quoted these passages in classifying him as among the most unapologetic of self-described scientific racists.[^9]
+
+### Repudiation
+
+In June 2024 a group of seven scientists, writing in *STAT*, called on Elsevier, Springer, and other publishers to retract Lynn's national-IQ articles, citing his methodological flaws, his "explicitly racist agenda," and his history of academic malpractice. The campaign followed years of failed replications and the rejection of his work across mainstream psychology and genetics.[^4][^6]
+
+The retraction authors, including the evolutionary biologist [[Kevin Bird]] and the population geneticist [[Jedidiah Carlson]], catalogued the data underpinning Lynn's national-IQ figures. They reported that his estimate for Angola, a country of some 35 million, rested on a test of 19 people; the Dominican Republic figure came from 34 individuals, Greenland from 40, Uzbekistan from 51, and Botswana from 140 adolescents who may not have been citizens. Lynn published no selection criteria, and he excluded a higher-scoring African sample while keeping several low-scoring studies that lacked basic age data. The authors directed their requests at the Elsevier journals *Intelligence* and *Personality and Individual Differences* and at Springer's *Evolutionary Psychological Science*, reporting that editors had declined to act or had not responded.[^6]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: "UU students call for removal of former professor's title," *The Irish News,* February 14, 2018, on Lynn's Ulster career and the title controversy. https://www.irishnews.com/news/2018/02/14/news/uu-students-calls-for-removal-of-former-professor-s-title-1255299/
+[^2]: "Journals should retract Richard Lynn's racist 'research' articles," *STAT,* June 20, 2024, on Lynn's national-IQ work, the Ulster Institute, Mankind Quarterly, and the scientific repudiation. https://www.statnews.com/2024/06/20/richard-lynn-racist-research-articles-journals-retractions/
+[^3]: "Prof who lost emeritus status for views on race and intelligence has paper flagged," Retraction Watch, August 8, 2019, on the 2018 stripping of his title. https://retractionwatch.com/2019/08/08/prof-who-lost-emeritus-status-for-views-on-race-and-intelligence-has-paper-flagged/
+[^4]: "Another failure to replicate Lynn's estimate of the average IQ of sub-Saharan Africans," Jelte Wicherts et al., *Intelligence,* 2010, on the selective-data critique of Lynn's African IQ figures. https://jeltewicherts.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/wichertsravenafr2010rej.pdf
+[^5]: "Pioneer Fund Assets Divided; New Leadership Appointed," Southern Poverty Law Center, on Rushton's resignation and Lynn's succession as Pioneer Fund president. https://www.splcenter.org/resources/hate-watch/pioneer-fund-assets-divided-new-leadership-appointed/
+[^6]: "Journals that published Richard Lynn's racist 'research' articles should retract them," Center for Genetics and Society, June 2024, listing the seven authors (Dan Samorodnitsky, Kevin Bird, Jedidiah Carlson, James Lingford, Jon Phillips, Rebecca Sear, Cathryn Townsend) and the journals targeted; sample-size figures from the accompanying *STAT* article. https://www.geneticsandsociety.org/article/journals-published-richard-lynns-racist-research-articles-should-retract-them
+[^7]: "Hans Eysenck," and Lynn, Richard, "Reminiscences of forty years of friendship with Hans Eysenck," on the Cambridge education and the Eysenck collaboration; "Richard Lynn and The Myth of Low Irish IQ," on the Catholicism and GCSE claims. https://medium.com/@leonaburime/the-myth-of-low-irish-iq-how-richard-lynn-built-a-house-of-cards-41ce353a8656
+[^8]: "UU students call for removal of former professor's title," *The Irish News,* February 14, 2018, on the Ulster student campaign; Lynn, Richard. *Memoirs of a Dissident Psychologist.* Ulster Institute for Social Research. https://www.irishnews.com/news/2018/02/14/news/uu-students-calls-for-removal-of-former-professor-s-title-1255299/
+[^9]: "Richard Lynn," Southern Poverty Law Center extremist file, quoting his 1974 review of Cattell's *Beyondism* with the "phasing out of such peoples" passage and his eugenics advocacy. https://www.splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/richard-lynn/
+[^10]: "Race and gender in methodologically flawed work of Richard Lynn," on *IQ and the Wealth of Nations,* *Sex Differences in Intelligence,* and the critique of his head-size and sampling methods; Flynn, James R., on the secular rise in IQ scores known as the Flynn effect. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338044465_Race_and_gender_in_methodologically_flawed_work_of_Richard_Lynn
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Robert
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Robert
@ -1,73 +1,111 @@
 ---
-title: Robert Maxwell
-aliases:
-  - Robert Maxwell
-  - Jan Ludvik Hyman Binyamin Hoch
-  - Ian Maxwell
-created: 2024-04-25
-updated: 2026-05-17
 category: "Intelligence & Government"
 tags:
  - Person
-  - PROMIS
-  - CIA
+  - RobertMaxwell
  - Mossad
+  - MI6
+  - KGB
+  - PROMIS
  - Israel
  - Soviet
-  - Politician
+  - MirrorGroup
  - Media
-  - UK
-  - BCCI
-summary: "Robert Maxwell was a British media proprietor, Labour MP, and alleged simultaneous asset for Mossad, MI6, and the KGB whose alleged role as the primary international distributor of backdoored PROMIS software to foreign governments became central to the INSLAW scandal narrative; he was found dead in the Atlantic Ocean on November 5, 1991, three months after Danny Casolaro's death."
-born: 1923-01-10
+  - PensionFraud
+  - JeffreyEpstein
+alias:
+  - Robert Maxwell
+  - Ján Ludvík Hyman Binyamin Hoch
+  - Jan Ludvik Hoch
+  - Ian Robert Maxwell
+summary: "Robert Maxwell was a British publishing magnate, Labour MP, and alleged simultaneous asset of Mossad, British, and Soviet intelligence whose empire collapsed after he looted the Mirror Group pension funds, who was alleged to be the international distributor of backdoored PROMIS software, and who died at sea off the Canary Islands in 1991 amid contested allegations of foul play."
+born: 1923-06-10
 died: 1991-11-05
 location: "London, United Kingdom"
+created: 2024-04-25
+updated: 2026-06-20
 ---
-Robert Maxwell was born Ján Ludvík Hyman Binyamin Hoch on January 10, 1923, in Slatinské Doly, [[Czechoslovakia]] (now Solotvyno, [[Ukraine]]), the son of a poor Yiddish-speaking Jewish family. His parents and most of his siblings were killed in the Holocaust. He fled through Romania and France, eventually joining the Czech Army in exile in the [[United Kingdom]], then serving in the British Army, where he was awarded the Military Cross by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. He died on November 5, 1991, under disputed circumstances in the Atlantic Ocean near the Canary Islands. He was 68.[^3]

-### Media and Business Career
+Robert Maxwell was a British publishing magnate, Member of Parliament, and proprietor of [[Mirror Group Newspapers]] who built and lost a sprawling media and finance empire before drowning off his yacht near the [[Canary Islands]] in 1991. He was born Ján Ludvík Hyman Binyamin Hoch on June 10, 1923, in Slatinské Doly, Carpathian Ruthenia, then part of Czechoslovakia and now Solotvyno, [[Ukraine]].[^1] After his death, investigators found he had misappropriated hundreds of millions of pounds from his companies' pension funds, and journalists and a self-described former Israeli intelligence officer alleged he had served Israeli, British, and Soviet intelligence services.[^2]

-After the war, Maxwell worked in [[British intelligence]] in occupied Berlin, operating under cover as an interpreter. He built a business relationship with the German scientific publishing house [[Springer Verlag]] and in 1948 founded Pergamon Press, which became a major international scientific publisher. He was elected to Parliament as the Labour MP for Buckinghamshire East in 1964 but lost his seat in 1970. A 1971 Board of Trade investigation into his management of Pergamon concluded that Maxwell was "not a suitable person to be at the helm of a publicly quoted company" - a finding that damaged his reputation for the following decade but that he recovered from through continuing commercial activity.[^3]
+### Origins and War Service

-Maxwell acquired [[Mirror Group]] Newspapers in 1984, becoming proprietor of the *[[Daily Mirror]]*, and purchased the American publisher [[Macmillan]] in 1988. By the late 1980s his media empire encompassed dozens of companies across multiple countries. After his death, investigators discovered that he had looted approximately £750 million from the pension funds of his companies, affecting approximately 32,000 pensioners. His sons [[Ian Maxwell|Ian]] and [[Kevin Maxwell]] were arrested in connection with the pension fraud; both were ultimately acquitted in 1996 after a lengthy trial.[^3]
+Maxwell came from a poor Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jewish family in the Carpathian region. His father was Mehel (Mechel) Hoch and his mother Hannah Slomowitz, and Maxwell was one of seven or more children.[^14] After Hungary occupied the region and Nazi Germany took control in 1944, his parents, his grandfather, and three of his siblings were deported to [[Auschwitz]] and murdered there; only Maxwell and two sisters survived the [[Holocaust]].[^14] One sister, Sylvia, was reportedly pulled from a deportation transport in [[Budapest]] by the Swedish diplomat [[Raoul Wallenberg]], who issued her protective papers.[^14] Maxwell himself had left the region in 1939, around age fifteen or sixteen, before the deportations.[^14]

-### Intelligence Connections
+He fled westward after the German occupation, joined the Czechoslovak Army in exile in May 1940, and transferred to the British Army, where he rose from private to sergeant before being commissioned.[^1] He served across North West Europe from the [[Normandy]] landings onward, was commissioned into the [[Queen's Royal Regiment]] in January 1945, and on January 29, 1945, while leading his platoon toward Paarlo in the [[Netherlands]], captured a German machine-gun position; for that action he was awarded the [[Military Cross]] and promoted to captain.[^15] Field Marshal [[Bernard Montgomery]] pinned the decoration on him.[^15] In 1945 he married the Frenchwoman Élisabeth Meynard, with whom he had nine children.[^14]

-Maxwell maintained simultaneous intelligence relationships with multiple services for decades. His [[Mossad]] connections began in the early 1960s through a meeting arranged with [[Yitzhak Shamir]], then running Mossad operations in Europe, facilitated by [[Aviezer Ya'ari]] of the Israeli [[Mapam Party]]. Maxwell and Shamir became close associates, and Maxwell developed an antipathy toward American predominance in intelligence sharing that aligned with [[Israel|Israeli]] interests. His contacts with Soviet intelligence dated to his wartime and immediate postwar service in Germany; he reportedly provided useful intelligence to the [[KGB]] in parallel with his Mossad relationship, a dual role that both services are described as tolerating because each found him useful.[^1][^3]
+He became a naturalized British subject on June 19, 1946, and legally changed his name to Ian Robert Maxwell on June 30, 1948.[^1] During the immediate postwar period he served in the Berlin Information Control Unit of the British occupation authorities, and in 1947 he made contact with [[Ferdinand Springer]] of [[Springer-Verlag]], Germany's leading prewar scientific publisher, who had retained large stocks of valuable journal back numbers.[^16] Maxwell agreed to act as Springer's distributor outside Germany through his new British firm, the European Periodicals, Publicity and Advertising Corporation (EPPAC), and in 1949 helped form a joint distribution company, Lange, Maxwell & Springer, in which the Springer interests held a 49 percent stake.[^16]

-### Role in PROMIS Distribution
+### Czechoslovak Arms to Israel

-Multiple sources allege that Maxwell served as the primary commercial agent through which a surveillance-modified version of [[PROMIS]] software was distributed internationally following [[Rafael Eitan]]'s [[LAKAM]] operation to obtain and modify the software. According to Gordon Thomas's account in *Gideon's Spies* (1999), drawing on Israeli intelligence sources, Maxwell agreed to market PROMIS for U.S. and Israeli intelligence using his network of companies, aware of the software's general intelligence-gathering capabilities. He received a flat fee of $8 million and a percentage of gross revenues generated through his distribution network. He operated without necessarily knowing the specific technical details of the surveillance trapdoor embedded in the software.[^1][^3]
+Maxwell has been described in several accounts as having used his contacts among the Czechoslovak Communist leadership to help arrange the supply of arms to the [[Jewish Agency]] and the emerging state of [[Israel]] during the 1947-1949 period, when an international embargo otherwise restricted weapons reaching the Zionist forces.[^17] The clandestine Czechoslovak sales, authorized by foreign minister [[Jan Masaryk]] and beginning with a contract in January 1948, delivered rifles, machine guns, ammunition, and Avia S-199 fighter aircraft to the [[Haganah]], and [[Yitzhak Rabin]] later said that without the Czech arms it was doubtful the war could have been won.[^17]

-Maxwell's principal vehicle for PROMIS distribution was [[Degem]], an Israeli-controlled computer company with operations in Israel, Guatemala, and Transkei. His Berlitz language schools and other international holdings provided additional cover for technology sales in countries where direct Israeli involvement would have been problematic. Among the alleged recipients of PROMIS-derived software distributed through Maxwell's network were agencies in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, South Korea, Poland, the Soviet Union, South Africa, Jordan, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Nicaragua. In 1985, an abridged version was allegedly sold to [[Credit Suisse]], providing intelligence access to Israeli accounts held there. In the late 1980s, Maxwell allegedly sold PROMIS to the [[Soviet Union]], with the transaction facilitated by the lifting of [[IBM]] export restrictions - an arrangement that reportedly allowed Degem technicians to install the trapdoor-equipped software on IBM computers delivered to Soviet intelligence.[^1][^3]
+The specifics of Maxwell's personal role rest largely on later biographical and journalistic accounts rather than contemporaneous documentation, and the principal sources, including the writers John Loftus and Mark Aarons and the author [[Gordon Thomas]], place him as a facilitator and shipper of materiel and aircraft parts rather than a signatory to the state-level contracts.[^17][^9] No declassified Czechoslovak or Israeli record has been published that fixes the precise scope of his involvement, and the claim is therefore reported but not independently confirmed.[^17] His Eastern European Communist contacts from this period, together with the trading relationships his publishing businesses later built across the [[Eastern Bloc]], formed part of the basis on which writers afterward speculated about ties to Soviet and Israeli services.[^2]

-[[INSLAW]] alleged that Maxwell contributed $600,000 from a joint U.S.-Israeli intelligence slush fund to secure the dismissal of [[Leigh Ratiner]], INSLAW's lead litigation counsel at Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin, after Maxwell learned that Ratiner's aggressive litigation strategy threatened to expose the international PROMIS distribution network. The dismissal occurred following a meeting between Dickstein partner [[Leonard Garment]] and Deputy Attorney General [[Arnold Burns]]; Ratiner later settled a wrongful dismissal suit against his firm for the same amount. The [[Nicholas J. Bua|Bua Report]] found no credible evidence supporting this allegation.[^2]
+### Pergamon Press and Mirror Group

-The intelligence community's involvement in Maxwell's PROMIS business also surfaces in accounts involving former Senator [[John Tower]], a friend of Maxwell who was close to the [[George H.W. Bush]] administration. In 1984, Tower allegedly approached Maxwell on behalf of a [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]-connected group to formalize his role as the PROMIS marketing intermediary.[^1]
+Maxwell founded [[Pergamon Press]] in 1951, buying three-quarters of the science publisher Butterworth-Springer, and built it into a major international scientific and academic publishing house issuing journals across the sciences.[^1] In 1969 the American financier [[Saul Steinberg]] of [[Leasco]] launched a takeover bid for Pergamon that collapsed amid a dispute over the profitability of an encyclopedia-publishing subsidiary, and Maxwell lost control of Pergamon and was expelled from its board in October 1969 before reacquiring the company in 1974.[^1] A [[Department of Trade and Industry]] inspectors' inquiry into the Leasco affair concluded in 1971 with the finding that, "notwithstanding Mr Maxwell's acknowledged abilities and energy, he is not in our opinion a person who can be relied on to exercise proper stewardship of a publicly quoted company."[^1]

-In 1987, an alleged contribution to the West Australian Labor Party reportedly passed through one of Maxwell's Australian companies and was deposited by the Pergamon Press Trust Fund in Moscow, with [[Richard Babayan]] and [[Earl Brian]] acting on behalf of [[Hadron]] in facilitating the transaction.[^1]
+He sat as the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]] [[Member of Parliament]] for [[Buckingham]] from 1964 to 1970.[^1] In July 1984 he acquired Mirror Group Newspapers, publisher of the [[Daily Mirror]] and other titles, for about 113 million pounds from [[Reed International]].[^1] He expanded into the United States, completing a tender offer of about 2.6 billion dollars for the publisher [[Macmillan]] in November 1988, acquiring the language-school chain [[Berlitz]] and [[Official Airline Guides]], and buying the [[New York Daily News]] in 1991, financing the acquisitions through an increasingly opaque web of public companies and private trusts that left his group heavily indebted.[^3][^18]

-### Death
+### Collapse and the Pension Theft

-Maxwell was last heard from by crew aboard his yacht, the *Lady Ghislaine*, at approximately 4:25 a.m. on November 5, 1991, while the vessel was cruising off the Canary Islands. His absence was not discovered until midday, when the yacht's captain, [[Gus Rankin]], could not reach him by telephone. A search of the vessel found nothing. A Spanish Air Force pilot on an aerial search spotted Maxwell's body floating naked in the Atlantic Ocean approximately 20 miles southwest of Gran Canaria and he was recovered by helicopter and transported to a forensic institute in Las Palmas.[^6]
+By 1991 Maxwell's empire was carrying unsustainable debt, and he was secretly transferring assets among his public companies, [[Maxwell Communication Corporation]] and Mirror Group Newspapers, and his private interests to prop up share prices and service borrowing.[^3] The pension assets of the various Maxwell schemes, covering more than 32,000 members, were largely pooled in a Common Investment Fund managed by a Maxwell-controlled subsidiary, [[Bishopsgate Investment Management]] (BIM), and Maxwell used those assets as collateral for loans to his private companies, pledging pension-fund securities to banks and transferring them to private Maxwell entities for little or no consideration.[^19]

-The Spanish judicial investigation under Judge Isabel Oliva concluded on December 13, 1991. Three pathologists who examined Maxwell could not agree on a single cause: one concluded heart attack alone; a second concluded heart attack followed by drowning; a third concluded fall and drowning without a prior cardiac event. Judge Oliva ruled the probable cause of death was "the association of a double mechanism consisting of a previous causal factor of an ischemic heart attack, followed by a concomitant factor of drowning." The ruling was accidental death. No external signs of violence, no toxicological evidence of poisoning, and no traumatic injury causing loss of consciousness were found. Maxwell was buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.[^6]
+After his death, administrators and the [[Serious Fraud Office]] concluded that roughly 450 to 460 million pounds had been taken from the group's pension funds.[^4][^19] [[Goldman Sachs]], acting on Maxwell's instructions, sold blocks of Mirror Group shares that had been marked as pension-fund property, and BIM went into liquidation in March 1992, with many Mirror Group pensioners facing sharp reductions until a partial rescue was arranged.[^19] A long Department of Trade and Industry inspectors' report published in 2001 catalogued the abuses and criticized City advisers, trustees, and the auditors [[Coopers & Lybrand]] Deloitte; the eventual recovery came through out-of-court settlements, including a March 1995 settlement of about 276 million pounds to the pension schemes.[^20]

-Maxwell died 87 days after journalist [[Danny Casolaro]], whose "[[The Octopus]]" investigation had specifically encompassed the PROMIS distribution network and Maxwell's alleged role within it. The proximity of the two deaths was noted by INSLAW and congressional investigators.[^2]
+His sons [[Kevin Maxwell]] and [[Ian Maxwell]], the latter a BIM director who had signed pension-fund share transfers to the private Maxwell Group, were prosecuted by the Serious Fraud Office and tried at the [[Old Bailey]]; in January 1996, after a trial lasting roughly eight months, a jury acquitted both brothers of conspiracy to defraud the pension funds, and in September 1996 prosecutors decided not to pursue a second trial against Kevin Maxwell.[^5][^19] His daughter [[Ghislaine Maxwell]] later moved to the United States and was convicted in 2021 on federal sex-trafficking charges connected to [[Jeffrey Epstein]].[^6]
+
+### Death off the Lady Ghislaine
+
+Maxwell disappeared from his motor yacht, the Lady Ghislaine, during a cruise off the Canary Islands and was found dead in the Atlantic on November 5, 1991, his body recovered about 20 miles southwest of [[Gran Canaria]] and taken to [[Las Palmas]] for examination.[^7] In the hours before his disappearance he had reportedly been under acute pressure, including an argument by telephone with his son Kevin over loan defaults, and the last contact with crew was logged in the early hours of November 5.[^21] An autopsy noted heart and lung disease and a graze on his left shoulder, with no other significant wounds.[^7][^21]
+
+Three pathologists examining the body reached differing conclusions, one favoring a heart attack alone, another a heart attack followed by drowning, and a third a fall and drowning.[^21] A Spanish judicial proceeding under Judge Isabel Oliva of the Granadilla district court closed the case as most probably accidental, attributing death to "the association of a double mechanism consisting of a previous causal factor of an ischemic heart attack, followed by a concomitant factor of drowning," and a separate inquest in [[England]] in December 1991 likewise returned a verdict of death by heart attack combined with accidental drowning.[^21][^7] The circumstances remained disputed, with competing theories of accident, suicide given the impending exposure of his frauds, and foul play.[^7]
+
+### Intelligence Allegations
+
+Allegations that Maxwell worked for Israeli intelligence were aired publicly in October 1991, shortly before his death, when [[Seymour Hersh]] discussed his book [[The Samson Option]] at a London press conference, asserting that Maxwell and his Daily Mirror foreign editor [[Nicholas Davies]] had links to Israeli intelligence and that Davies was involved in Israeli arms dealing.[^8] Hersh further alleged that Maxwell had relayed information to the Israeli embassy in London that led to the capture of the nuclear whistleblower [[Mordechai Vanunu]], a claim Maxwell denounced as a total invention.[^8] Labour MP [[George Galloway]] and Conservative MP [[Rupert Allason]] raised the espionage claims in the [[House of Commons]] under parliamentary privilege on October 21, 1991, and Maxwell sued Hersh and his British publisher for libel; after Maxwell's death the action lapsed, and the Mirror Group later apologized to Hersh and paid damages.[^8]
+
+The most detailed espionage account came from [[Ari Ben-Menashe]], a self-described former employee of the Israeli [[Military Intelligence Directorate (Israel)|Military Intelligence Directorate]], who claimed in his 1992 book [[Profits of War]] that Maxwell and Davies were long-time [[Mossad]] assets, and that Davies had tipped him to Vanunu's 1986 approach to the [[Sunday Mirror]] over the photographs Vanunu had taken at [[Dimona]], introducing him to Vanunu's intermediary [[Oscar Guerrero]]; Vanunu was subsequently lured from London to [[Rome]], seized by Israeli operatives, and convicted in Israel.[^10][^22] His maternal relationship to the prime minister's office began, by his own account, through a meeting arranged with [[Yitzhak Shamir]] in the early 1960s.[^10]
+
+The Welsh author Gordon Thomas, in [[Gideon's Spies]] (1999) and the later book Robert Maxwell, Israel's Superspy (2002), drew partly on Ben-Menashe and on the Israeli operative [[Rafi Eitan]] to allege that Maxwell helped distribute a version of the [[PROMIS]] case-management software that Israeli technicians had fitted with a hidden "trapdoor," enabling Israel to monitor the foreign agencies that bought it, marketing it through the Tel Aviv firm [[Degem Computers]].[^9][^23] In these accounts Maxwell received a flat fee of about 8 million dollars plus a percentage of revenues, and the agencies said to have received the software through his network included those of the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, South Korea, Poland, the Soviet Union, South Africa, Jordan, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Nicaragua, with an abridged version said to have been sold to [[Credit Suisse]] in 1985 and a Soviet sale in the late 1980s facilitated by the lifting of [[IBM]] export restrictions.[^10][^9] INSLAW separately alleged that Maxwell contributed 600,000 dollars from a joint U.S.-Israeli intelligence slush fund to secure the removal of its lead litigation counsel [[Leigh Ratiner]], and that the former senator [[John Tower]] had approached Maxwell in 1984 on behalf of a [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]-connected group to formalize his role as the PROMIS marketing intermediary; the [[Nicholas J. Bua|Bua Report]] found no credible evidence for these claims.[^10][^25]
+
+Ben-Menashe's reliability has been repeatedly questioned, including by a 1993 congressional task force, and no declassified record has substantiated the PROMIS-distribution or recruitment allegations; an Israeli prime minister's spokesman dismissed Thomas's claims as "unmitigated drivel."[^9][^11] Maxwell was also long rumored to have had contacts with British intelligence and, given his Eastern European origins and trading ties, with the Soviet [[KGB]], though these characterizations rest on journalistic sourcing rather than disclosed files, and no archive of any of the three services has been released that confirms a formal agent relationship.[^2][^9]

 ### Murder Allegations

-Two former Israeli intelligence sources made public allegations that Maxwell was murdered on Mossad orders. Former Mossad case officer [[Victor Ostrovsky]], in his 1994 memoir *The Other Side of Deception*, wrote that Maxwell had become a liability to Mossad after his financial empire began collapsing under the weight of debt. Maxwell allegedly threatened to expose Mossad operations unless the agency bailed him out financially. Ostrovsky wrote: "On that cold night Mossad's problems with Robert Maxwell were over."[^4]
+Two former Israeli intelligence figures alleged that Maxwell was killed on Mossad orders. The former case officer [[Victor Ostrovsky]], in his 1994 memoir *The Other Side of Deception*, wrote that Maxwell had become a liability once his empire began collapsing and had threatened to expose Mossad operations unless the agency rescued him financially, ending the passage with the line, "On that cold night Mossad's problems with Robert Maxwell were over."[^24] Gordon Thomas and Martin Dillon, in *Robert Maxwell, Israel's Superspy* (2002), identified Rafi Eitan as having overseen an assassination and named the operative they said carried it out only by the pseudonym "Efraim," describing the killing as having occurred on the aft deck of the Lady Ghislaine before the body entered the water.[^23] Maxwell's family and the Spanish judicial finding rejected all foul-play theories, and no official inquiry has substantiated them; the proximity of Maxwell's death to that of the journalist [[Danny Casolaro]] 87 days earlier, whose "[[The Octopus]]" investigation had encompassed the PROMIS distribution network, was noted by INSLAW and congressional investigators.[^25][^9]

-Gordon Thomas and Martin Dillon, in *Robert Maxwell, Israel's Superspy* (2002), drawing on sources including Ostrovsky, identified the assassination operation as having been overseen by [[Rafael Eitan]] - the same case officer responsible for running [[Jonathan Pollard]] and, per the PROMIS narrative, for directing the original LAKAM PROMIS operation. Thomas and Dillon identified the operative who carried out the killing as "Efraim," using a pseudonym, and described the death as occurring on the aft deck of the *Lady Ghislaine* before Maxwell's body entered the water.[^5]
+### Funeral in Jerusalem

-Maxwell's family and the official Spanish judicial finding disputed all foul play theories. The Bua Report found no credible evidence that Maxwell had any connection to the alleged DOJ-orchestrated PROMIS theft or international distribution.[^2]
+Maxwell's body was flown to Israel, and on November 10, 1991, he was given a state-style funeral and buried on the [[Mount of Olives]] in [[Jerusalem]], one of Judaism's most revered burial grounds.[^12] The ceremony at Jerusalem's convention center drew President [[Chaim Herzog]], Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, and much of the Israeli political establishment, with reporting that at least six serving and former heads of Israeli intelligence were present.[^12][^9] His friend and longtime attorney [[Samuel Pisar]], a Holocaust survivor, recited the Kaddish.[^1]
+
+Herzog eulogized him with the words, "He scaled the heights of human endeavor. Kings and princes waited on him."[^12] Shamir praised the connections and investment Maxwell had brought to Israel during the 1980s, reportedly saying that Maxwell had done more for Israel than could then be told.[^13] The scale of the official Israeli observance was later cited by writers who argued it reflected an intelligence relationship, though attendance at a prominent Jewish philanthropist's funeral is not itself evidence of espionage, and no Israeli official has confirmed that Maxwell was an agent.[^12][^9]

 ### Footnotes

-[^1]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network.* TrineDay, 1992.
-[^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]: Thomas, Gordon. *Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad.* St. Martin's Press, 1999.
-[^4]: Ostrovsky, Victor. *The Other Side of Deception: A Rogue Agent Exposes the Mossad's Secret Agenda.* HarperCollins, 1994.
-[^5]: Thomas, Gordon, and Martin Dillon. *Robert Maxwell, Israel's Superspy: The Life and Murder of a Media Mogul.* Carroll & Graf, 2002.
-[^6]: UPI. "Robert Maxwell Dies in Mysterious Plunge at Sea," November 5, 1991; UPI. "Foul Play Ruled Out in Maxwell Death," December 13, 1991.
+[^1]: "Robert Maxwell," *Encyclopaedia Britannica.* https://www.britannica.com/biography/Robert-Maxwell
+[^2]: "Robert Maxwell's alleged ties to intelligence agencies," *Factually,* 2025. https://factually.co/fact-checks/media/robert-maxwell-intelligence-ties-evidence-9493b2
+[^3]: "Great frauds in history: Robert Maxwell," *MoneyWeek,* 2018. https://moneyweek.com/505757/great-frauds-in-history-robert-maxwell
+[^4]: "Maxwell - the fallout," *Association of Mirror Pensioners.* https://www.mirrorpensioners.co.uk/news/maxwell-the-fallout/
+[^5]: "Media Magnate Maxwell's Sons Acquitted of Charges They Raided Pension Fund," *The Washington Post,* 1996. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1996/01/20/media-magnate-maxwells-sons-acquitted-of-charges-they-raided-pension-fund/1841c6cf-8340-4e9e-876c-9f862b4685b5/
+[^6]: "Ghislaine Maxwell," *Encyclopaedia Britannica.* https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ghislaine-Maxwell
+[^7]: "What caused Robert Maxwell's mysterious death in 1991?," *Factually,* 2025. https://factually.co/fact-checks/media/robert-maxwell-mysterious-death-1991-cause-932d42
+[^8]: "Media Baron Sues Seymour Hersh," *The Washington Post,* 1991. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1991/10/25/media-baron-sues-seymour-hersh/c16c29e2-04ba-4038-9fff-08113fa33b77/
+[^9]: Pipes, Daniel. "Gideon's Spies by Gordon Thomas," *Commentary,* 1999. https://www.commentary.org/articles/daniel-pipes/gideons-spies-by-gordon-thomas/
+[^10]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network.* Sheridan Square Press, 1992.
+[^11]: "Probe by House finds no 'October surprise,'" *The Baltimore Sun,* 1993. https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1993-01-13-1993013111-story.html
+[^12]: "Maxwell, Colossus Even in Death, Laid to Rest on Mount of Olives," *Jewish Telegraphic Agency,* 1991. https://www.jta.org/archive/maxwell-colossus-even-in-death-laid-to-rest-on-mount-of-olives
+[^13]: "Maxwell buried on Mount of Olives," *UPI,* 1991. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1991/11/10/Maxwell-buried-on-Mount-of-Olives/4340689749200/
+[^14]: "Elisabeth Maxwell," *Encyclopaedia Britannica.* https://www.britannica.com/biography/Elisabeth-Maxwell
+[^15]: "The Second World War medals and orders awarded to Robert Maxwell," *Noonans Mayfair.* https://www.noonans.co.uk/news-and-events/latest-news/502/
+[^16]: "Maxwell Communication Corp. Plc," *Encyclopedia.com.* https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/economics-business-and-labor/businesses-and-occupations/maxwell-communication-corp-plc
+[^17]: "During Israel's Dire Need: Arming Israel in 1948," *Aish,* on the Czechoslovak arms shipments to the Haganah authorized by Jan Masaryk and the Avia S-199 aircraft. https://aish.com/during-israels-dire-need-arming-israel-in-1948/
+[^18]: "Robert Maxwell, who completed a $2.5 billion tender offer," *UPI,* 1988. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1988/11/04/Robert-Maxwell-who-completed-a-25-billion-tender-offer/2052594622800/
+[^19]: "Unravelling the Web," *Pensions Archive Trust,* 2021, on Bishopsgate Investment Management, the Common Investment Fund, the roughly 450 to 460 million pounds taken, the Goldman Sachs share sales, and the 1995 settlement. https://pensionsarchive.org.uk/2021/11/03/unravelling-the-web/
+[^20]: "Maxwell report: All the publisher's men," *The CFO,* 2001, on the Department of Trade and Industry inspectors' report and the criticism of Coopers & Lybrand Deloitte. https://the-cfo.io/2001/05/09/maxwell-report-all-the-publishers-men/
+[^21]: "What caused Robert Maxwell's mysterious death in 1991?," *Factually,* 2025, on the differing pathologists' conclusions and the Judge Oliva ruling. https://factually.co/fact-checks/media/robert-maxwell-mysterious-death-1991-cause-932d42
+[^22]: Contemporaneous press reporting on the 1986 Mordechai Vanunu affair and the Sunday Mirror's handling of his Dimona account, on which Ben-Menashe's claims about Nicholas Davies and Oscar Guerrero rest.
+[^23]: Thomas, Gordon, and Martin Dillon. *Robert Maxwell, Israel's Superspy: The Life and Murder of a Media Mogul.* Carroll & Graf, 2002.
+[^24]: Ostrovsky, Victor. *The Other Side of Deception: A Rogue Agent Exposes the Mossad's Secret Agenda.* HarperCollins, 1994, on the alleged Mossad motive to eliminate Maxwell as a collapsing liability.
+[^25]: 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 rejection of the Leigh Ratiner and PROMIS-distribution allegations and the proximity of the Casolaro and Maxwell deaths.
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Sam
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Sam
@ -0,0 +1,55 @@
+---
+category: "Authors & Journalists"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - NewAtheism
+  - Podcasting
+  - Dialog
+  - RaceScience
+  - PeterThiel
+alias:
+  - Samuel Benjamin Harris
+summary: "Sam Harris is an American neuroscientist, New Atheist author, and host of the Making Sense podcast, a registrant of Peter Thiel's Dialog society whose 2017 Forbidden Knowledge episode platformed Charles Murray's race-and-IQ claims and provoked a public dispute with Ezra Klein over race science."
+born: 1967-04-09
+location: "Los Angeles, California"
+created: 2026-06-19
+updated: 2026-06-19
+---
+
+Sam Harris (born April 9, 1967) is an American author, neuroscientist, and podcaster who came to prominence as one of the "Four Horsemen" of the [[New Atheism]] movement and built a large following through his [[Making Sense (podcast)|Making Sense]] podcast. He appears as a registrant of [[Dialog]], the invitation-only society cofounded by [[Peter Thiel]], in the membership records leaked in June 2026, and his 2017 podcast episode "Forbidden Knowledge" gave a sympathetic platform to the race-and-IQ claims of [[Charles Murray]], provoking a prolonged public dispute with the journalist [[Ezra Klein]].[^1][^2]
+
+### New Atheism
+
+Harris was born in [[Los Angeles]], the son of the actor [[Berkeley Harris]] and the television producer [[Susan Harris]]. He took a BA in philosophy from [[Stanford University]] in 2000 and a PhD in cognitive neuroscience from the [[University of California, Los Angeles]] in 2009, using functional MRI to study the neural basis of belief. His first book, *The End of Faith* (2004), written after the September 11 attacks, won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award and spent thirty-three weeks on the *New York Times* bestseller list. With [[Richard Dawkins]], [[Christopher Hitchens]], and [[Daniel Dennett]], Harris became one of the "Four Horsemen" of New Atheism, the polemical anti-religion current of the mid-2000s. He followed with *Letter to a Christian Nation* (2006), *The Moral Landscape* (2010), and *Waking Up* (2014).[^3][^4]
+
+The "Four Horsemen" label came from a two-hour conversation the four men filmed in Hitchens's Washington apartment in September 2007, released on video and later transcribed as a 2018 book with an introduction by [[Stephen Fry]]. Within the movement Harris became its most contested figure for his statements on Islam, including his argument that the faith was uniquely dangerous and his defense of ethnic profiling at airports, which drew a charged 2014 exchange with the actor [[Ben Affleck]] on *[[Real Time with Bill Maher]]* who called the framing "gross" and "racist." Harris also feuded with the linguist [[Noam Chomsky]] in a 2015 email exchange that Harris published, over the morality of American foreign policy.[^4][^8]
+
+### Making Sense
+
+Harris launched the *Waking Up* podcast in 2013, later renamed *Making Sense*, which became one of the more widely listened-to long-form interview shows and a fixture of the loose network of commentators labeled the "intellectual dark web." The show paired a meditation-and-secularism brand with conversations on politics, science, and free speech, and it placed Harris among the public intellectuals who circulate through Thiel-adjacent and [[Rationalist Community|rationalist]] circles.[^4]
+
+The "intellectual dark web" label was coined by the mathematician [[Eric Weinstein]] and popularized by [[Bari Weiss]] in a May 2018 *[[The New York Times|New York Times]]* feature that grouped Harris with [[Jordan Peterson]], [[Ben Shapiro]], [[Joe Rogan]], [[Dave Rubin]], and the Weinstein brothers. Harris built an independent media business around the podcast and the [[Waking Up (app)|Waking Up]] meditation app: in December 2018 he closed his [[Patreon]] account in protest after the platform banned the YouTuber [[Carl Benjamin|Sargon of Akkad]], moving his funding to a direct subscription model, and in November 2022 he deleted his account on [[Twitter]], saying he had blocked roughly 50,000 accounts in his final week over what he described as a flood of conspiracy content after Elon Musk's takeover.[^6][^7]
+
+### Forbidden Knowledge and the Klein Dispute
+
+On April 23, 2017, Harris published episode 73, "Forbidden Knowledge: A Conversation with Charles Murray," presenting Murray, coauthor of *The Bell Curve*, as the victim of a taboo and treating his hereditarian claims about racial IQ differences as suppressed science. The site [[Vox]] published a critique by the researchers [[Eric Turkheimer]], [[Kathryn Paige Harden]], and [[Richard Nisbett]] calling the conversation "pseudoscientific racialist speculation," which triggered a months-long Twitter argument and a two-hour 2018 podcast confrontation between Harris and Vox editor Klein. Klein argued that the framing repackaged "America's most ancient justification for bigotry," while Harris maintained he was defending open inquiry. The episode became a touchstone of the [[Human Biodiversity|human-biodiversity]] discourse that runs through the rationalist and tech-right milieus.[^1][^2][^5]
+
+The Turkheimer-Harden-Nisbett essay, titled "Charles Murray is once again peddling junk science about race and IQ," ran in May 2017 and argued that the heritability of IQ within a group says nothing about the cause of differences between groups. The recorded Klein debate aired in April 2018 as a joint episode on both men's podcasts; Harris accused Klein of running a "politically correct moral panic," and Klein countered that Harris mistook his own racial and political priors for pure objectivity. The dispute solidified the line between Harris's "intellectual dark web" defense of open inquiry and the mainstream scientific position that the genetic-difference claim was unsupported.[^5][^9]
+
+### Dialog
+
+Harris appears in the leaked records of Dialog, the secret society cofounded in 2006 by Thiel and [[Auren Hoffman]] that convenes officials, executives, and public figures at off-the-record annual retreats. In June 2026 the hacktivist [[maia arson crimew|crimew]] and the magazine *WIRED* disclosed a registration list of 222 names for Dialog's 2026 retreat, naming Harris alongside [[Elon Musk]], sitting U.S. senators, and a four-star military commander. His listing places him among the cultural figures convened by the same Thiel network that funded the [[Machine Intelligence Research Institute]] and the [[Hereticon]] conference.[^1]
+
+WIRED reported on June 16, 2026 that crimew had extracted the directory directly from hidden code on Dialog's own website. The 2026 retreat was scheduled for August 12 to 16 at the Powerscourt Hotel outside Dublin, and the disclosed list named the senators [[Ted Cruz]] and [[Cory Booker]] and the most senior NATO commander in Europe among the registrants, with a program of off-the-record sessions including "Navigating WWIII" and "Bring Back Nuclear." Harris had long been a public ally of the New Atheism and free-speech causes that overlap with the Thiel-funded rationalist orbit, though his presence on the list did not indicate a stated political alignment with Thiel.[^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]: Harris, Sam. "Forbidden Knowledge: A Conversation with Charles Murray," *Making Sense* podcast, episode 73, April 23, 2017. https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/73-forbidden-knowledge
+[^3]: Harris, Sam. *The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason.* W. W. Norton, 2004.
+[^4]: "Sam Harris," Edge.org member biography, on the Stanford and UCLA degrees, the New Atheism books, and the podcast. https://www.edge.org/memberbio/sam_harris
+[^5]: "Sam Harris, Charles Murray, and the allure of race science," Ezra Klein, *Vox,* 2018, on the Forbidden Knowledge dispute. https://equitablegrowth.org/should-read-ezra-klein-sam-harris-charles-murray-and-the-allure-of-race-science/
+[^6]: "Meet the Renegades of the Intellectual Dark Web," Bari Weiss, *The New York Times,* May 8, 2018, coining the term popularly and naming Harris among the group. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/opinion/intellectual-dark-web.html
+[^7]: "Atheist podcaster Sam Harris says he's done with Patreon because of deplatforming," *Fast Company,* December 17, 2018, on the Patreon departure; "#304 - Why I Left Twitter," *Making Sense* with Sam Harris, November 28, 2022, on the Twitter deletion. https://www.fastcompany.com/90283289/atheist-podcaster-sam-harris-says-hes-done-with-patreon-because-of-deplatforming
+[^8]: Hitchens, Christopher, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett. *The Four Horsemen: The Conversation That Sparked an Atheist Revolution.* Random House, 2018, on the September 2007 filmed conversation; "Affleck, Maher battle over Islam," *Times of Israel,* October 2014, on the "gross and racist" exchange; "Read Noam Chomsky and Sam Harris' Unpleasant Email Exchange," Open Culture, May 2015. https://www.openculture.com/2015/05/read-noam-chomsky-sam-harris-unpleasant-email-exchange.html
+[^9]: Turkheimer, Eric, Kathryn Paige Harden, and Richard E. Nisbett. "Charles Murray is once again peddling junk science about race and IQ," *Vox,* May 18, 2017, on the critique of the Forbidden Knowledge episode. https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/5/18/15655638/charles-murray-race-iq-sam-harris-science-free-speech
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Steven
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Steven
@ -0,0 +1,48 @@
+---
+category: "Organized Crime"
+tags: [Person, StevenHoffenberg, TowersFinancial, JeffreyEpstein, PonziScheme, Finance, Fraud, SEC]
+alias: ["Steven Jude Hoffenberg", "Stephen Hoffenberg"]
+summary: "Founder of Towers Financial Corporation who pleaded guilty in 1995 to a roughly 475 million dollar Ponzi scheme and later claimed Jeffrey Epstein helped architect the fraud, a claim for which Epstein was never charged."
+born: 1945-01-12
+died: 2022-08
+location: Derby, Connecticut
+created: 2026-06-20
+updated: 2026-06-20
+---
+
+Steven Jude Hoffenberg founded and ran [[Towers Financial Corporation]], a Manhattan debt-collection and securities firm that collapsed in 1993 and was later found to be one of the largest Ponzi schemes in American history before that of [[Bernard Madoff]]. He pleaded guilty in 1995 to defrauding investors of about 475 million dollars and served roughly 18 years in federal prison. He hired [[Jeffrey Epstein]] as a consultant in the late 1980s and later publicly claimed Epstein had been a co-architect of the Towers fraud.
+
+### Early Career
+
+Hoffenberg was born in Brooklyn in 1945 and entered the debt-collection business in New York in the 1970s, reportedly starting with a small initial investment after dropping out of college.[^6] He built Towers Financial Corporation around the practice of buying delinquent debts, including unpaid hospital bills, bank loans and telephone charges, at steep discounts and pursuing the full balances through aggressive collection.[^6] He briefly held a controlling interest in the [[New York Post]] in the early 1990s during the paper's ownership turmoil.[^6]
+
+### Towers Financial and the Ponzi Scheme
+
+Towers Financial Corporation operated as a debt-collection business that bought portfolios of distressed receivables, including debts owed to hospitals and telephone companies, for fractions of their face value, while raising money from thousands of investors through unsecured promissory notes and bonds.[^1] Prosecutors and the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] determined that the company functioned as a Ponzi scheme, using money from new investors to pay returns to earlier ones while Hoffenberg diverted proceeds.[^1]
+
+To finance attempted corporate takeovers, Hoffenberg directed Towers to acquire two Illinois insurance companies, United Fire Insurance Co. and Associated Life Insurance Co., in 1987, and prosecutors later found their reserves were looted in the broader fraud.[^3] The Illinois Department of Insurance, then directed by [[James Schacht]], placed the insurers into liquidation and brought a 1991 civil suit that named Jeffrey Epstein in connection with checks drawn on the companies' accounts.[^3]
+
+The scheme operated between roughly 1988 and 1993, with claimed annual revenues approaching one billion dollars by the time of its collapse.[^1] The SEC charged Towers in February 1993, and the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March 1993.[^2] Hoffenberg pleaded guilty in April 1995 to five criminal charges of defrauding investors of roughly 462 to 475 million dollars; in 1997 Judge [[Robert W. Sweet]] sentenced him to 20 years in prison, a one million dollar fine and roughly 463 million dollars in restitution, and he settled a related SEC civil suit for 60 million dollars.[^2] He served about 18 years and was released from federal custody in 2013.[^2]
+
+### Relationship With Jeffrey Epstein
+
+Hoffenberg said he hired Jeffrey Epstein around 1987 as a paid consultant, with reporting citing a salary of about 25,000 dollars per month and, in 1988, a two million dollar non-repayable loan, and he set Epstein up in offices at the [[Villard Houses]] in Manhattan.[^2] At the time Epstein was running his own consulting firm, [[International Assets Group]], from his New York apartment after leaving [[Bear Stearns]].[^3] A Towers attorney confirmed Epstein worked at the firm and recalled drafting a consulting agreement, and [[Terrence Corrigan]], a lawyer for an investor-recovery committee, said Epstein appeared on organizational charts as potentially "the number two or number three person at the firm," though the characterization was disputed.[^3] Court records and the 1991 [[Illinois Department of Insurance]] lawsuit referenced a series of checks payable to "Jeff Epstein" or "Jeff Epstein & Co." drawn on the United Fire and United Diversified accounts and totaling about 215,000 dollars.[^3]
+
+Hoffenberg and Epstein partnered on attempted corporate takeovers in 1988, using Towers and the captive Illinois insurers as the financing vehicles, including an unsuccessful bid involving [[Pan American World Airways|Pan Am]] and an attempt targeting [[Emery Air Freight]].[^2] A Towers press release identified Epstein as "chairman of the board of directors of Intercontinental Asset Group" and a financial adviser to Towers management in connection with the Pan Am financing.[^3] The Illinois suit alleged Epstein manipulated the price of Emery stock through multiple brokerage accounts he controlled and traded without a broker's license.[^3] Epstein and Hoffenberg traveled together on Hoffenberg's private jet during this period, and Epstein left Towers before its collapse and was never charged in connection with the fraud.[^3]
+
+### Later Claims and Death
+
+After his release, Hoffenberg publicly asserted that Jeffrey Epstein had been central to the Towers fraud, telling CBS News that Epstein was "my partner in what we did raising the billion dollars" and describing him as his "wingman."[^3] He claimed in interviews that Epstein had devised the failed Pan Am and Emery takeover schemes and had misappropriated proceeds from the insurance companies for personal use.[^3] Court documents filed by Hoffenberg alleged Epstein was an "architect" of the scheme, but no charges were ever brought against Epstein over Towers, and investigators said no concrete evidence directly tied him to the criminal conspiracy.[^1] Hoffenberg sued Epstein over the fraud's proceeds in 2019.[^4]
+
+Hoffenberg involved himself in politics in his later years, including reported backing of a super PAC associated with the 2016 presidential campaign of [[Bernie Sanders]].[^5] He gave numerous media interviews after Epstein's 2019 arrest and death, presenting himself as a witness to Epstein's origins while acknowledging his own criminal history.[^3]
+
+On August 23, 2022 his body was found in advanced decomposition at his apartment in [[Derby, Connecticut]] after a welfare check, prompted when Jeffrey Epstein accuser [[Maria Farmer]] was unable to reach him and contacted police; he was 77.[^2] Farmer told authorities Hoffenberg had recently contracted COVID-19 and had been unable to recover, and investigators estimated he had been dead for at least a week.[^7] An initial autopsy by the Connecticut Office of the Chief Medical Examiner found no signs of trauma or foul play, and police said they believed he died of natural causes pending toxicology results.[^7]
+
+### Footnotes
+[^1]: "Towers Financial Corporation," summarizing SEC findings and contemporaneous reporting on the Ponzi scheme and Epstein's disputed role. https://www.sec.gov/files/litigation/litreleases/lr15053.txt
+[^2]: "Jeffrey Epstein's mentor, who once ran a Ponzi scheme, was found dead. He was 77," *NPR,* 2022. https://www.npr.org/2022/08/26/1119746511/jeffrey-epstein-mentor-steven-hoffenberg-dead
+[^3]: "Jeffrey Epstein worked at Towers Financial with Steven Hoffenberg, who committed Ponzi scheme crimes," *CBS News,* 2019. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jeffrey-epstein-worked-at-towers-financial-with-stephen-hoffenberg-who-committed-ponzi-scheme-crimes/
+[^4]: "Accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein's old boss says he knows where the mystery millions came from," *Philadelphia Inquirer,* 2019. https://www.inquirer.com/business/jeffrey-epstein-hoffenberg-trump-clinton-20190711.html
+[^5]: "Bernie Sanders Attracts Big Campaign Money Despite Rhetoric," *Time,* 2016. https://time.com/4141201/bernie-sanders-superpac-money/
+[^6]: "Steven Hoffenberg: Who is the former Epstein associate and New York Post owner?," *Yahoo News,* 2019, summarizing his Brooklyn origins, the 1970s debt-collection start and the New York Post stake. https://www.yahoo.com/news/steven-hoffenberg-former-epstein-associate-230443969.html
+[^7]: "Who was Steven Hoffenberg? Jeffrey Epstein associate found dead in Connecticut apartment," summarizing the August 2022 welfare check, Maria Farmer's call, and the medical examiner's findings. https://www.sportskeeda.com/pop-culture/news-who-steven-hoffenberg-jeffrey-epstein-associate-found-dead-connecticut-apartment
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Timothy
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Timothy
@ -2,58 +2,96 @@
 category: "Scientists & Researchers"
 tags:
  - Person
+  - TimothyLeary
  - CIA
  - MKULTRA
  - LSD
  - Psilocybin
  - Harvard
+  - Psychedelics
  - Counterculture
-summary: "Harvard psychology lecturer who founded the Psilocybin Research Project in 1960, was fired by Harvard in 1963, and became the counterculture's most visible LSD advocate, operating under documented CIA surveillance while drawing on research networks whose funding traced directly to MKULTRA programs."
+  - Cyberculture
+  - Transhumanism
+alias:
+  - Timothy Leary
+  - Tim Leary
+summary: "Timothy Leary was the Harvard psychologist turned psychedelic evangelist who ran the Harvard Psilocybin Project, coined 'turn on, tune in, drop out,' operated under documented CIA surveillance while drawing on research networks whose funding traced to MKULTRA, and in his final decades became a champion of personal computers, space migration, and life extension."
 born: 1920-10-22
 died: 1996-05-31
-location: Springfield, Massachusetts
+location: "Springfield, Massachusetts; Beverly Hills, California"
 created: 2026-06-03
-updated: 2026-06-04
+updated: 2026-06-20
 ---
-Timothy Leary directed clinical research at the Kaiser Foundation Hospital in [[Oakland]] from 1954 to 1959, where he published *The Interpersonal Diagnosis of Personality* (1957), which became the basis for personality assessment tools subsequently used by the [[CIA]] and military. He joined [[Harvard University]] as a lecturer in 1959. That year he ate psilocybin mushrooms while on vacation in [[Mexico]], an experience he later described as the most profound of his life, and returned to Harvard with the conviction that psychedelics represented a fundamental tool for psychological research.[^1]
+
+Timothy Francis Leary (October 22, 1920 to May 31, 1996) was an American psychologist who became the most prominent public advocate of psychedelic drugs in the 1960s and, in his final decades, a promoter of personal computers, space colonization, and radical life extension. Trained as a research psychologist and briefly a respected figure in personality theory, he ran the [[Harvard Psilocybin Project]] from 1960 until his dismissal in 1963, popularized the slogan "turn on, tune in, drop out," and was described by [[Richard Nixon]], according to widely repeated accounts, as "the most dangerous man in America." He drew, often unknowingly, on drug-research networks whose funding traced back to the CIA's [[MKULTRA]] program, and was himself placed under documented [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] surveillance. In his final decades he promoted the personal computer as a tool of consciousness expansion and became a celebrated figure in the [[Transhumanism|transhumanist]] and cyberculture scenes of the 1980s and 1990s.[^1][^2][^12]
+
+### From Personality Psychology to Harvard
+
+Leary was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, the only child of a Catholic family, attended the College of the Holy Cross, was expelled from the United States Military Academy at West Point after a cheating-and-honor dispute, and finished his bachelor's degree at the University of Alabama. He took a doctorate in psychology at the [[University of California, Berkeley]], in 1950, and his early academic work was conventional and well regarded: he directed clinical research at the Kaiser Foundation Hospital in [[Oakland]] from 1954 to 1959 and published *The Interpersonal Diagnosis of Personality* (1957), whose circular model of personality, the "interpersonal circumplex," remained influential in clinical assessment and became the basis for personality-assessment tools later used by the CIA and the military. He joined the faculty of [[Harvard University]]'s Center for Research in Personality in 1959.[^1][^3][^11]
+
+The turn came in the summer of 1960, when Leary ate psilocybin mushrooms in Cuernavaca, Mexico, an experience he later called more profound than anything in his prior training. Back at Harvard he and his colleague [[Richard Alpert]], later known as Ram Dass, founded a research program to study the psychological effects of psilocybin, which the Swiss firm [[Sandoz]] supplied in synthesized form.[^3][^4]

 ### The Harvard Psilocybin Project

-Leary established the Harvard Psilocybin Project in fall 1960, obtaining psilocybin free from Sandoz Pharmaceuticals. Sessions were conducted in both formal research settings and informal apartment gatherings with music and candlelight. His collaborator was [[Richard Alpert]], an assistant professor of education and psychology. Participants in the project's broader circle included [[Allen Ginsberg]] and [[Peter Orlovsky]] (who visited Leary's house in Newton, Massachusetts in December 1960), and [[Aldous Huxley]], then a visiting lecturer at [[MIT]]. Huxley advised Leary to offer the experience to "talented, well-born, intelligent rich" and to work discreetly within institutions rather than provoking public controversy.[^1]
+Leary established the project in the fall of 1960, obtaining psilocybin free from Sandoz and running sessions in both formal research settings and informal apartment gatherings with music and candlelight. The studies, by later methodological standards, blurred the line between researcher and subject, with the experimenters frequently taking the drugs alongside their volunteers. [[The Concord Prison Experiment]] (1961 to 1963) administered psilocybin to inmates to test whether the experience reduced recidivism, and the [[Marsh Chapel Experiment]], or "Good Friday Experiment," run by the graduate student [[Walter Pahnke]] in 1962, tested whether the drug could induce genuine mystical experience.[^4][^5]

-His curiosity had been stimulated by [[R. Gordon Wasson|Gordon Wasson]]'s 1957 *Life* magazine article about the discovery of psilocybin mushrooms, an expedition that had been partially facilitated by CIA contractor [[James Moore]], who accompanied Wasson's 1956 Mexico expedition while on the Agency payroll. Soon Leary was quoting in his own published work from CIA contractor [[Harold Abramson]] and others, brought together for scholarly drug conferences by the sometime Agency conduit, the [[Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation|Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation]]. From his base at Harvard, Leary became the most vocal and famous advocate of psychedelic drugs, preaching the gospel of consciousness expansion.[^2]
+The project's advisers and broader circle traced, in several cases, to networks the CIA had funded. [[Aldous Huxley]], then a visiting lecturer at the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]], urged Leary to offer the experience to "talented, well-born, intelligent rich" people and to work discreetly within institutions rather than provoke public controversy; the poet [[Allen Ginsberg]] and [[Peter Orlovsky]], who visited Leary's house in Newton, Massachusetts in December 1960, pressed the opposite case, that the drugs should be distributed as widely as possible. [[Henry Murray]], chairman of Harvard's Department of Social Relations, who had run the personality-assessment section of the [[Office of Strategic Services|OSS]] during World War II, approved the project and volunteered for it. Leary's own interest had been stimulated by [[R. Gordon Wasson|Gordon Wasson]]'s 1957 *Life* article on Mexican psilocybin mushrooms, an expedition partly facilitated by the CIA contractor [[James Moore]], and he cited in his published work the research of the CIA contractor [[Harold Abramson]] and others brought together for drug conferences by the [[Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation]], a sometime Agency conduit.[^11][^12]

-[[Henry Murray]], chairman of the Harvard Department of Social Relations who had run the Personality Assessments section of the [[Office of Strategic Services|OSS]] during World War II, approved and volunteered for Leary's psilocybin research project.[^1]
+### The Good Friday Experiment

-### The Good Friday Experiment (1962)
+In collaboration with the doctoral candidate Walter Pahnke, Leary administered psilocybin double-blind to ten theology students and professors during a Good Friday service at Marsh Chapel at [[Boston University]] in 1962, with ten others receiving a placebo. Nine of the ten psilocybin recipients reported intense religious experiences, and Pahnke's dissertation concluded that the experiences were "indistinguishable from, if not identical with," classical mystical experience.[^5][^11]

-In collaboration with doctoral candidate Walter Pahnke, Leary administered psilocybin double-blind to ten theology students and professors during a Good Friday service at Marsh Chapel at [[Boston University]] in 1962, with ten others receiving placebos. Nine of the ten psilocybin recipients reported intense religious experiences. Pahnke's dissertation concluded the experiences were "indistinguishable from, if not identical with," classical mystical experience.[^1]
+The experiment became one of the most cited studies in the psychology of religion, and a long-term follow-up decades later found that most of the original subjects still regarded it as among the most meaningful experiences of their lives. It also exemplified the methodological looseness that alarmed Harvard, since the researchers themselves participated and the setting was a working religious service rather than a laboratory.[^5]

-### Harvard Firing (1963)
+### The Harvard Firing

-Tension with Harvard administrators escalated through 1962, triggered in part by a sensationalized *Harvard Crimson* account of a faculty meeting that prompted an FDA investigation. On May 6, 1963, the Harvard Corporation voted to relieve Leary from teaching duty and terminate his salary, on grounds that he had failed to keep classroom appointments. Alpert was separately dismissed on May 27, 1963, the first Harvard faculty firing in the twentieth century, for giving psilocybin to an undergraduate student in an off-campus apartment.[^1]
+Tension with Harvard administrators escalated through 1962, triggered in part by a sensationalized *Harvard Crimson* account of a faculty meeting that prompted a Food and Drug Administration investigation. On May 6, 1963, the Harvard Corporation voted to relieve Leary of his teaching duties and terminate his salary on the grounds that he had failed to keep classroom appointments. Alpert was separately dismissed on May 27, 1963, for giving psilocybin to an undergraduate in an off-campus apartment, making the two the first Harvard faculty fired in the twentieth century for such reasons. By then federal regulators were tightening control of the drugs, and Leary's work moved outside the university entirely.[^1][^4][^11]

-### IFIF and the Millbrook Period
+### IFIF, Millbrook, and the League for Spiritual Discovery

-After leaving Harvard, Leary and Alpert founded the International Federation for Internal Freedom (IFIF), which attracted approximately 3,000 dues-paying members. An attempt to operate a summer session in Zihuatanejo, Mexico was shut down after approximately six weeks by the Mexican government following negative press coverage. Billy Hitchcock, grandson of Gulf Oil founder William Larimer Hitchcock, provided his 4,000-acre Millbrook estate in Dutchess County, [[New York]], at $500 per month. Leary established the Castalia Foundation there and ran high-dose group sessions, published *The Psychedelic Review*, and hosted a wide circle of visitors including Charles Mingus, Alan Watts, R.D. Laing, and journalist Paul Krassner. In April 1966, Dutchess County prosecutor [[G. Gordon Liddy]] led an early-morning raid on the mansion, finding only a small amount of marijuana; the bust was dismissed when the Supreme Court ruled suspects must be informed of their rights upon arrest.[^1]
+After leaving Harvard, Leary and Alpert founded the International Federation for Internal Freedom (IFIF), which attracted roughly 3,000 dues-paying members, and attempted a summer session in Zihuatanejo, Mexico, that the Mexican government shut down after about six weeks following negative press. The community then settled at a large estate in Millbrook, New York, lent by Billy Hitchcock, an heir to the Mellon and Gulf Oil fortune, who provided the roughly 4,000-acre property in Dutchess County for about 500 dollars a month. There Leary ran the [[Castalia Foundation]], named for the intellectual colony in Hermann Hesse's *The Glass Bead Game*, published *The Psychedelic Review*, hosted high-dose group sessions and a wide circle of visitors including Charles Mingus, [[Alan Watts]], R.D. Laing, and the journalist Paul Krassner, and in 1966 founded a quasi-religion, the [[League for Spiritual Discovery]], whose initials spelled [[LSD]] and which he used to argue for the sacramental, constitutionally protected use of psychedelics.[^3][^11]

-### Legal Troubles and Prison
+With [[Ralph Metzner]] and Alpert he adapted the *Tibetan Book of the Dead* into *The Psychedelic Experience* (1964), a manual for guiding drug sessions that [[John Lennon]] later cited as the source for the song "Tomorrow Never Knows." The Millbrook period coincided with the criminalization of LSD, banned in California in 1966 and federally soon after, and with mounting legal pressure: in April 1966 the Dutchess County assistant district attorney [[G. Gordon Liddy]], later of [[Watergate]], led an early-morning raid on the estate that turned up only a small amount of marijuana, a charge later dismissed. Leary's public role hardened into that of a movement figurehead, the "high priest" of the psychedelic movement, a role he both cultivated and was assigned by a hostile press.[^6][^11]

-In December 1965, Leary was arrested at the Laredo, Texas border crossing on discovery of marijuana. He was convicted and faced a potential 30-year sentence. In December 1968, a second arrest followed in Laguna Beach, California. Convicted in February 1970 on both the Laredo and California charges, he received a combined 20-year sentence and was held at San Luis Obispo minimum security prison. On September 12, 1970, he escaped by traversing a highwire across the prison fence and was extracted by members of the Weather Underground. He eventually traveled to Algeria, where he expected to work with Eldridge Cleaver's Black Panther office but was placed under effective house arrest by the Panthers over his LSD advocacy. He subsequently traveled to Switzerland before his arrest in Kabul in 1972 and deportation to Los Angeles, where bail was set at $5,000,000, then the highest set for an American citizen. He testified as a federal informant in exchange for reduced sentencing and was paroled in 1976.[^1]
+### Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out
+
+Leary gave the counterculture its best-known slogan at the Human Be-In held in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco on January 14, 1967, where he told a crowd of tens of thousands to "turn on, tune in, drop out." He later complained that the phrase was widely misunderstood as a call to passive disengagement, explaining that he meant by it to activate one's neural equipment, to interact harmoniously with the world, and to detach from involuntary commitments, not to drop out of school or society. The line nonetheless became a shorthand for the era and fixed Leary's image as an apostle of dropping out.[^2][^7]
+
+### Legal Troubles, Prison, Escape, and Exile
+
+Leary was first arrested in December 1965 at the Laredo, Texas border crossing on a marijuana charge that carried a potential thirty-year sentence; he fought it to the Supreme Court, which in *Leary v. United States* (1969) struck down the Marihuana Tax Act on self-incrimination grounds. A second arrest followed in Laguna Beach, California, in December 1968, and in February 1970 he was convicted on both the Laredo and California charges and given a combined twenty-year term at the California Men's Colony near San Luis Obispo. On September 12, 1970, he escaped over a highwire across the prison fence in an extraction arranged through the radical [[Weather Underground]], who were paid by the psychedelic-dealing [[Brotherhood of Eternal Love]].[^1][^11]
+
+He fled abroad, first to [[Algeria]], where the exiled [[Black Panther]] leader [[Eldridge Cleaver]] briefly held him under a kind of house arrest over his LSD advocacy, then to [[Switzerland]], [[Austria]], and [[Afghanistan]], where American agents seized him in Kabul in 1973 and returned him to Los Angeles, where bail was set at five million dollars, then the highest ever set for an American citizen. Facing decades of confinement, he provided information to federal investigators about the radicals and lawyers who had aided his escape, a cooperation that drew lasting bitterness from former allies, though prosecutors said it led to no convictions. He was paroled in 1976 by Governor [[Jerry Brown]]. The prison years produced a body of idiosyncratic writing in which Leary recast his ideas in the language of neurology and futurism, most notably the "eight-circuit model of consciousness," set out in *Exo-Psychology* (1977, later revised as *Info-Psychology*).[^1][^3][^8]

 ### CIA Surveillance

-On November 1, 1963, the CIA issued a memorandum ordering all domestic field offices to report immediately on any involvement with Leary, Alpert, or the International Federation for Internal Freedom. The monitoring preceded Leary's public emergence as an LSD spokesman by several years, covering the period when his research was still primarily academic. Neither the specific content of any CIA reporting on Leary nor any operational use of surveillance findings has been declassified.[^2][^3]
+On November 1, 1963, the CIA issued a memorandum ordering all domestic field offices to report immediately on any involvement with Leary, Alpert, or the International Federation for Internal Freedom. The monitoring preceded Leary's public emergence as an LSD spokesman by several years, covering the period when his research was still primarily academic. Neither the specific content of any CIA reporting on Leary nor any operational use of surveillance findings has been declassified.[^12][^13]

-Leary's research network traced back to CIA-funded programs in ways he likely did not know at the time. Bateson, the anthropologist introduced to [[LSD]] by CIA contractor Harold Abramson, arranged Ginsberg's first LSD experience through a federally funded research program. Ginsberg brought that experience to Leary's house. The Macy Foundation, which had served as a CIA conduit for behavioral research conferences, hosted the scholars whose published work Leary cited. The Geschickter Fund, another CIA front organization, financed related research at overlapping institutions.[^2]
+Leary's research network traced back to CIA-funded programs in ways he likely did not know at the time. The anthropologist [[Gregory Bateson]], introduced to LSD by Harold Abramson, arranged Ginsberg's first LSD experience through a federally funded research program, and Ginsberg carried that experience to Leary's house. The Macy Foundation, which had served as a CIA conduit for behavioral-research conferences, hosted the scholars whose published work Leary cited, and the Geschickter Fund, another CIA front, financed related research at overlapping institutions.[^12]
+
+### The Cyberdelic Turn
+
+From the late 1970s Leary promoted a futurist program he summarized with the acronym SMI2LE, for Space Migration, Intelligence Increase, and Life Extension, holding that humanity's next evolutionary step lay in leaving the planet, raising intelligence by technological means, and defeating death. In the 1980s and 1990s he recast the personal computer as the successor to the psychedelic drug, telling interviewers that "the PC is the LSD of the 1990s" and adopting "think for yourself, question authority" as a personal motto. He designed early interactive software, performed spoken-word and multimedia shows, appeared at technology conferences, and became a fixture of the "cyberdelic" scene around *Mondo 2000* magazine and the emerging digital culture of the San Francisco Bay Area.[^2][^9]
+
+Leary was associated with the [[Extropianism|extropian]] movement around [[Max More]], shared its interest in cryonics and human enhancement, and at one point planned to have his body or head cryonically preserved. Diagnosed with inoperable prostate cancer, he made his dying a public performance, documenting his decline on an early website and declaring his intent to script his own death; he ultimately decided against cryonic suspension after a falling-out with the provider, and after his death on May 31, 1996, a portion of his ashes was launched into orbit in April 1997 aboard a Celestis rocket that also carried remains of the *Star Trek* creator Gene Roddenberry.[^9][^10]

 ### The Finders

-[[Marion David Pettie]], founder of [[The Finders]], stated that he and Leary had a close connection during the 1960s. According to Pettie, when Leary was based in New York, he would send people down to Pettie's communal property in [[Virginia]], and when people at Pettie's place grew tired of something, they would go up to Leary's. Leary gave Pettie LSD, though Pettie claimed he never took it, keeping it in his refrigerator. A person connected with Leary accidentally burned down a house on Pettie's property while installing a sauna, destroying the LSD in the process.[^4]
+[[Marion David Pettie]], the founder of [[The Finders]], stated that he and Leary had a close connection during the 1960s. According to Pettie, when Leary was based in New York he would send people down to Pettie's communal property in [[Virginia]], and when people at Pettie's place grew tired of something they would go up to Leary's. Leary gave Pettie LSD, which Pettie claimed he never took, keeping it in his refrigerator until a person connected with Leary accidentally burned down a house on the property while installing a sauna, destroying the LSD in the process.[^14]

 ### Footnotes

-[^1]: Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain, *Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond*. Grove Press, 1985. Chapters 3 and 4.
-[^2]: John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate*. Times Books, 1979. Chapter 7.
-[^3]: CIA memorandum: "International Federation for Internal Freedom (IFIF), ALPERT, Richard, LEARY, Timothy," November 1, 1963. Obtained via FOIA by John Marks, August 1977.
-[^4]: Kenn Thomas and Len Bracken, "The Finders' Keeper," *Steamshovel Press* #16, 1998.
+[^1]: "Timothy Leary," *Encyclopædia Britannica,* on the 1920 birth, the Berkeley doctorate, the Harvard appointment and 1963 dismissal, the legal battles, and the death. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Timothy-Leary
+[^2]: "Timothy Leary, Pied Piper Of Psychedelic 60's, Dies at 75," *The New York Times,* June 1, 1996, on "turn on, tune in, drop out," the Nixon characterization, and the later computer advocacy. https://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/01/us/timothy-leary-pied-piper-of-psychedelic-60-s-dies-at-75.html
+[^3]: Greenfield, Robert. *Timothy Leary: A Biography.* Harcourt, 2006, on the early life, the Millbrook years, the escape and exile, and the cooperation with investigators.
+[^4]: "The Harvard Psilocybin Project," on the 1960 to 1963 studies, the Concord Prison and Marsh Chapel experiments, and the 1963 firings; see also Leary, Timothy. *High Priest.* World Publishing, 1968.
+[^5]: Pahnke, Walter N. "Drugs and Mysticism: An Analysis of the Relationship between Psychedelic Drugs and the Mystical Consciousness," doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, 1963, on the Good Friday Experiment.
+[^6]: Leary, Timothy, Ralph Metzner, and Richard Alpert. *The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead.* University Books, 1964.
+[^7]: *Leary v. United States,* 395 U.S. 6 (1969); and Leary, Timothy. *Flashbacks: A Personal and Cultural History of an Era.* Tarcher, 1983, on the Human Be-In and the meaning of the slogan.
+[^8]: Leary, Timothy. *Exo-Psychology: A Manual on the Use of the Human Nervous System According to the Instructions of the Manufacturers* (1977), revised as *Info-Psychology* (1987), on the eight-circuit model.
+[^9]: "Timothy Leary's Last Trip," *Wired,* and Leary, Timothy. *Chaos and Cyber Culture.* Ronin Publishing, 1994, on SMI2LE, "the PC is the LSD of the 1990s," and the cyberdelic period. https://www.wired.com/1996/05/leary-2/
+[^10]: "A Send-Off Into Space for Leary and Others," *The New York Times,* April 22, 1997, on the Celestis launch carrying the ashes of Leary and Gene Roddenberry. https://www.nytimes.com/1997/04/22/us/a-send-off-into-space-for-leary-and-others.html
+[^11]: Lee, Martin A., and Bruce Shlain. *Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond.* Grove Press, 1985, chapters 3 and 4, on the Kaiser research and personality tools, Huxley's advice, Henry Murray's OSS role, IFIF and the Zihuatanejo session, the Millbrook estate, the visitors, and the Liddy raid.
+[^12]: Marks, John D. *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control.* Times Books, 1979, chapter 7, on the Wasson and James Moore expedition, Harold Abramson and the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, the CIA surveillance of Leary, Bateson and Ginsberg's first LSD experience, and the Geschickter Fund.
+[^13]: CIA memorandum, "International Federation for Internal Freedom (IFIF), ALPERT, Richard, LEARY, Timothy," November 1, 1963, obtained via FOIA by John Marks, August 1977.
+[^14]: Thomas, Kenn, and Len Bracken. "The Finders' Keeper," *Steamshovel Press* no. 16, 1998, on Marion David Pettie's account of his connection with Leary.
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Timothy
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/Timothy
@ -0,0 +1,62 @@
+---
+category: "Technologists"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - TimothyMay
+  - Cypherpunks
+  - CryptoAnarchy
+  - Cryptography
+  - Libertarianism
+  - Extropianism
+alias:
+  - Tim May
+  - Timothy C. May
+summary: "Timothy May was a former Intel physicist who wrote 'The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto,' cofounded the cypherpunks mailing list, and devised the BlackNet thought experiment."
+born: 1951-12-21
+died: 2018-12-13
+location: "Santa Cruz, California"
+created: 2026-06-19
+updated: 2026-06-19
+---
+
+Timothy C. May (1951 to 2018), known as Tim May, was an American engineer and writer who became the leading theorist of crypto-anarchism and a founder of the [[Cypherpunks]] movement. He wrote "The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto" in 1988, cofounded the cypherpunks mailing list in 1992 with [[Eric Hughes]] and [[John Gilmore]], and authored the long crypto-anarchist FAQ known as [[The Cyphernomicon|the Cyphernomicon]]. He was an [[Extropianism|extropian]] and a radical libertarian who held that strong encryption and untraceable digital money would dissolve the power of the state over economic and personal life.[^1][^2]
+
+### Intel Career
+
+May took a physics degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1974 and joined [[Intel]] the same year as a staff engineer in its memory products division. In February 1977 he traced random single-bit failures in dynamic memory to alpha particles emitted by trace uranium and thorium in the ceramic chip packaging, which passed through the silicon storage nodes and deposited enough charge to flip a stored bit. He and Murray H. Woods published the finding as "Alpha-Particle-Induced Soft Errors in Dynamic Memories" in IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices in January 1979, and the two received the IEEE W.R.G. Baker Award in 1981. The "soft error" mechanism they identified became a permanent design constraint on memory and logic, mitigated through high-purity packaging materials, polyimide die coatings, larger per-cell charge, and error-correcting codes.[^7][^8]
+
+May cashed in his Intel stock options and retired in 1986 at the age of thirty-four, devoting himself thereafter to reading and writing on cryptography, physics, mathematics, and politics.[^1][^2]
+
+### Crypto-Anarchism
+
+May wrote "The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto" in 1988 and distributed it at the Crypto '88 and Hackers conferences, recirculating it to the cypherpunks list in 1992. It opened "A specter is haunting the modern world, the specter of crypto anarchy" and argued that cryptographic methods would "fundamentally alter the nature of corporations and of government interference in economic transactions." His 1994 Cyphernomicon laid out the body of crypto-anarchist thought for the list, and he was its most prolific contributor. He summarized his own politics as "keep your hands off my stuff," with the core of libertarianism reduced to "leave me alone."[^2][^3][^4]
+
+May drew an explicit parallel between cryptography and the printing press, arguing that just as printing eroded the power of medieval guilds and the social structures around them, public-key cryptography would erode the state's power over economic transactions and the flow of information. He anticipated that this would enable not only privacy but black markets, tax evasion, and the collapse of national borders as constraints on commerce, outcomes he welcomed rather than feared. At the first cypherpunks meeting he ran a "crypto-anarchy game" assigning attendees the roles of citizens and federal agents to dramatize the contest between surveillance and untraceable communication.[^4][^12]
+
+### BlackNet
+
+May created [[BlackNet]] as a thought experiment in 1993, an imagined anonymous marketplace in which any information, including trade secrets and classified material, could be bought and sold using anonymous remailers, message pools, and untraceable digital cash, with "nation-states, export laws, patent laws, [and] national security considerations" treated as relics of a pre-cyberspace era. The seed document opened, "Your name has come to our attention. We have reason to believe you may be interested in the products and services our new organization, BlackNet, has to offer," solicited "trade secrets, processes, production methods (esp. in semiconductors)" and "new product plans, from children's toys to cruise missiles," and proposed to pay sellers in an internal currency it called "CryptoCredits." May did not post it to Usenet himself; he leaked it via remailer to the cypherpunks list, attaching a 1024-bit PGP key under the BlackNet name, and Lance Detweiler reposted it to dozens of newsgroups before May admitted authorship.[^9][^10]
+
+The Cyphernomicon also discussed anonymous information markets and, in its more extreme passages, assassination markets, a concept the cypherpunk [[Jim Bell]] developed separately as "assassination politics" in an essay serialized from April 1995. Bell's scheme offered a prize to whoever correctly "predicted" the death of a listed target, settled through public-key encryption and anonymous digital cash routed across a cascade of remailers, reusing the same cryptographic toolkit as BlackNet.[^4][^11]
+
+### Later Views and Death
+
+After the cypherpunks faded in the early 2000s, May posted to other online groups and expressed racist sentiments, and the Cyphernomicon itself contained disparaging language about "nonproductive" citizens. He died of natural causes at his home near [[Santa Cruz]], California, in December 2018 at the age of sixty-six, days before his sixty-seventh birthday.[^1][^2]
+
+Asked by CoinDesk in October 2018 to mark the tenth anniversary of the Bitcoin white paper, May sent back a thirty-page critique of the cryptocurrency industry that had grown from cypherpunk ideas. He wrote that "I sure don't think it involved bitcoin exchanges that have draconian rules about KYC, AML, passports, freezes on accounts and laws about reporting 'suspicious activity' to the local secret police," warned that the talk of "governance" and "regulation" risked creating "a surveillance state, a dossier society," and said of the speculative mania, "I think Satoshi would barf." The cryptographers around him, including [[Hal Finney]], [[Nick Szabo]], and [[Wei Dai]], produced the digital-cash designs that preceded [[Bitcoin]], and May is frequently invoked as a forerunner of the cryptocurrency movement and the [[Satoshi Nakamoto|Satoshi]]-era crypto-libertarian politics.[^4][^13]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: "Tim May, Father of 'Crypto Anarchy,' Is Dead at 66," *Reason,* December 2018, on his Intel career, the alpha particle work, his 1986 retirement, the manifesto, the cypherpunks, BlackNet, and his politics. https://reason.com/2018/12/16/tim-may-influential-writer-on-crypto-ana/
+[^2]: "Influential cypherpunk and crypto-anarchist Tim May dies aged 67," *The Register,* December 2018. https://www.theregister.com/2018/12/17/timothy_c_may/
+[^3]: May, Timothy C. "The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto," 1988, recirculated 1992. https://www.activism.net/cypherpunk/crypto-anarchy.html
+[^4]: May, Timothy C. *The Cyphernomicon,* 1994. https://nakamotoinstitute.org/static/docs/cyphernomicon.txt
+[^5]: "Dark Markets: Tim May's BlackNet," *Chainrift Research,* on the BlackNet thought experiment and anonymous information markets. https://medium.com/chainrift-research/dark-markets-tim-mays-blacknet-7b7738e0617c
+[^6]: "The Extropian Roots of Bitcoin," *CCN,* on May, the extropians, and the cypherpunk forerunners of Bitcoin. https://www.ccn.com/extropian-roots-bitcoin/
+[^7]: May, Timothy C., and Murray H. Woods. "Alpha-Particle-Induced Soft Errors in Dynamic Memories," *IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices,* vol. 26, no. 1, January 1979, pp. 2-9. DOI: 10.1109/T-ED.1979.19370.
+[^8]: Baumann, Robert. "Soft Errors in Advanced Computer Systems," *IEEE Design & Test of Computers,* May-June 2005, on the alpha-particle soft-error mechanism, critical charge, and mitigation. "IEEE W.R.G. Baker Award," IEEE Engineering and Technology History Wiki, listing the 1981 award to May and Woods. https://ethw.org/IEEE_W.R.G._Baker_Award
+[^9]: May, Timothy C. "Introduction to BlackNet," 1993, archived at MIT CSAIL. https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/articles/crypto/cypherpunks/blacknet.txt
+[^10]: May, Timothy C. "True Nyms and Crypto Anarchy," in *True Names and the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier,* ed. James Frenkel, Tor, 2001, on the BlackNet leak via remailer, the Detweiler repost, and May's admission of authorship. https://gwern.net/doc/bitcoin/1996-may.pdf
+[^11]: Bell, Jim. "Assassination Politics," Part 1, April 1995. https://jrbooksonline.com/PDF_Books/AP.pdf
+[^12]: May, Timothy C. "The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto," 1988, on the printing-press analogy and the dissolution of state control over transactions; and *The Cyphernomicon,* 1994, on the crypto-anarchy game. https://www.activism.net/cypherpunk/crypto-anarchy.html
+[^13]: "Enough With the ICO-Me-So-Horny-Get-Rich-Quick-Lambo Crypto," *CoinDesk,* October 19, 2018, on May's KYC, AML, and "surveillance state" critique and the "Satoshi would barf" remark. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2018/10/19/enough-with-the-ico-me-so-horny-get-rich-quick-lambo-crypto
--- a/PEOPLE/(H-M)/William
+++ b/PEOPLE/(H-M)/William
@ -0,0 +1,58 @@
+---
+category: "AI & Effective Altruism"
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - EffectiveAltruism
+  - Longtermism
+  - Oxford
+  - SamBankmanFried
+  - FTX
+alias:
+  - Will MacAskill
+  - William David MacAskill
+summary: "William MacAskill is a Scottish moral philosopher at Oxford who cofounded effective altruism through Giving What We Can, 80,000 Hours, and the Centre for Effective Altruism, wrote the longtermist book What We Owe the Future, recruited Sam Bankman-Fried into earning-to-give, and resigned from the FTX Future Fund when the exchange collapsed in 2022."
+born: 1987-03-24
+location: "Oxford, England"
+created: 2026-06-19
+updated: 2026-06-19
+---
+
+William MacAskill (born March 24, 1987) is a Scottish moral philosopher and an associate professor at the [[University of Oxford]] who is one of the originators of the [[Effective Altruism]] movement. He cofounded its principal organizations, popularized the philosophy of [[Longtermism|longtermism]] in his 2022 book *What We Owe the Future*, and recruited the cryptocurrency entrepreneur [[Sam Bankman-Fried]] into the movement's "earning to give" strategy. When Bankman-Fried's [[FTX]] exchange collapsed in 2022, MacAskill resigned from the FTX Future Fund advisory board he had helped lead, and the fraud became the central reputational event of his career.[^1][^2]
+
+### Oxford and the Founding of Effective Altruism
+
+Born William Crouch in [[Glasgow]], MacAskill took a BA in philosophy at Jesus College, [[Cambridge]] in 2008 and a BPhil and DPhil at Oxford, completing the doctorate at St Anne's College in 2014 under [[John Broome]] and [[Krister Bykvist]]. In 2009, as a graduate student, he and the philosopher [[Toby Ord]] cofounded [[Giving What We Can]], a society whose members pledge to donate at least ten percent of their income to the most cost-effective charities. In 2011 he cofounded [[80,000 Hours]], which advises on high-impact careers, with [[Benjamin Todd]], and the two organizations were placed under an umbrella body, the [[Centre for Effective Altruism]], the same year. MacAskill's 2015 book *Doing Good Better* served as the movement's popular introduction.[^1][^3]
+
+Born William Crouch, he and his wife the philosopher Amanda Hall married in 2013 and adopted the surname MacAskill, her grandmother's maiden name; after their 2015 divorce she became Amanda Askell and went on to lead personality-alignment work at [[Anthropic]]. The Centre for Effective Altruism and 80,000 Hours were folded under the umbrella charity [[Effective Ventures]], one of the institutions that had to repay FTX money after the collapse, returning 26,786,503 dollars to the bankruptcy estate in 2024 and spinning its constituent projects out as independent legal entities. MacAskill held a post at Oxford's [[Global Priorities Institute]] and later joined the research nonprofit Forethought, where in March 2025 he and Fin Moorhouse published "Preparing for the Intelligence Explosion," arguing that AI could compress a century of change into a decade and that society should plan now for the resulting upheavals.[^9][^10]
+
+### Longtermism and What We Owe the Future
+
+MacAskill's work moved with the movement toward longtermism, the view he defined as "the idea that positively influencing the long-term future is a key moral priority of our time." His 2022 book *What We Owe the Future* argued that because future people vastly outnumber the living, shaping the far future, including by reducing the risk of human extinction from advanced artificial intelligence, is a moral priority of the first order. The book was promoted heavily, with appearances including *The Daily Show*, and arrived alongside the academic longtermism of [[Nick Bostrom]] and the [[Future of Humanity Institute]]. MacAskill has stated that he gives away half his income.[^4][^5]
+
+The promotional campaign behind *What We Owe the Future* was unusually expensive for a philosophy book, with a marketing budget reported in the millions of dollars, much of it drawn from effective-altruism funders including the [[FTX Future Fund]]. The book reached the *New York Times* bestseller list, and MacAskill appeared on *The Daily Show* and on the cover of *TIME* in August 2022, weeks before FTX collapsed. Critics including the philosopher [[Émile P. Torres]] argued that *What We Owe the Future* downplayed how far the longtermist framework, taken seriously, could license sacrificing present welfare for speculative future populations.[^5][^11]
+
+### Recruitment of Sam Bankman-Fried
+
+In 2012 MacAskill spoke at the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]], where Bankman-Fried, then a physics undergraduate, heard him present the earning-to-give idea: that a person can do more good by maximizing income and donating it than by direct charitable work. MacAskill advised Bankman-Fried to pursue high-paying quantitative trading, and Bankman-Fried went to [[Jane Street Capital]] before founding [[Alameda Research]] and FTX. He became the movement's largest single funder. MacAskill served as an unpaid adviser to the FTX Future Fund, announced in 2022, which directed FTX money to longtermist and AI-safety causes.[^6][^7]
+
+MacAskill stayed close to Bankman-Fried as the fortune grew. He introduced Bankman-Fried to Elon Musk in 2022 in an attempt to interest the entrepreneur in a joint bid for Twitter, a text exchange that surfaced in the discovery for Musk's later Twitter litigation. After the collapse, federal prosecutors named MacAskill in court filings as one of the public figures Bankman-Fried had cultivated, and the Future Fund's leadership conceded it had relied on a benefactor whose business it did not scrutinize.[^7][^11]
+
+### The FTX Collapse and Fallout
+
+A March 2023 *TIME* investigation reported that effective-altruism leaders, MacAskill among them, had been warned about Bankman-Fried's conduct years before the collapse. When FTX failed in November 2022, the entire Future Fund team, including [[Nick Beckstead]] and [[Leopold Aschenbrenner]], resigned, stating they had been "shocked" and condemning any deception by FTX leadership "in the strongest possible terms." Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud in November 2023. The episode destroyed the movement's largest funding source, drew scrutiny to MacAskill's role in shaping Bankman-Fried's worldview, and discredited effective altruism's public standing.[^2][^8]
+
+The *TIME* account stated that figures connected to the movement, including the entrepreneurs Tara Mac Aulay and others who had worked with Bankman-Fried at Alameda Research in 2018, had raised concerns about his honesty and management directly to MacAskill years before FTX's rise. MacAskill issued a public statement after the collapse saying that if Bankman-Fried's conduct was as alleged he had been "completely deceived," that he felt "blindsided," and that the fraud betrayed everything effective altruism stood for. He largely withdrew from public commentary for a period before re-emerging through Forethought to focus on the governance of advanced AI rather than on the cause-prioritization and earning-to-give framing he had built the movement on.[^8][^11]
+
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: "William MacAskill," EA Forum topic page, on the 1987 birth, Cambridge and Oxford degrees, and the founding of Giving What We Can, 80,000 Hours, and the Centre for Effective Altruism. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/topics/william-macaskill
+[^2]: "Sam Bankman-Fried's 'Effective Altruism' Team Resigns Amid FTX Meltdown," *Gizmodo,* November 2022. https://gizmodo.com/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-effective-altruism-crypto-1849773116
+[^3]: MacAskill, William. *Doing Good Better: How Effective Altruism Can Help You Make a Difference.* Gotham Books, 2015.
+[^4]: MacAskill, William. *What We Owe the Future.* Basic Books, 2022.
+[^5]: "Giving on the Edge: Effective Altruism's Post-SBF Comeback," *The Hollywood Reporter,* on the *What We Owe the Future* promotion and the 50-percent giving claim. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/effective-altruism-sam-bankman-fried-comeback-1236327219/
+[^6]: "Sam Bankman-Fried," 80,000 Hours profile, on the MIT talk and Bankman-Fried's adoption of earning-to-give and route to Jane Street Capital. https://80000hours.org/stories/sam-bankman-fried/
+[^7]: "Who Is William MacAskill, the Oxford Philosopher Who Shaped Sam Bankman-Fried's Worldview?" Yahoo Finance, 2022. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/william-macaskill-oxford-philosopher-shaped-145807409.html
+[^8]: "Exclusive: Effective Altruist Leaders Were Warned About Sam Bankman-Fried Years Before FTX Collapsed," *TIME,* March 2023. https://time.com/6262810/sam-bankman-fried-effective-altruism-alameda-ftx/
+[^9]: "EV updates: FTX settlement and the future of EV," EA Forum, on Effective Ventures' 26,786,503-dollar repayment and the spinning-out of its projects; "William MacAskill" and "Amanda Askell," on the 2013 marriage, the adopted surname, and the 2015 divorce. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/HjsfHwqasyQMWRzZN/ev-updates-ftx-settlement-and-the-future-of-ev
+[^10]: MacAskill, William, and Fin Moorhouse. "Preparing for the Intelligence Explosion," Forethought, March 11, 2025. https://www.forethought.org/research/preparing-for-the-intelligence-explosion
+[^11]: "Sam Bankman-Fried, Elon Musk, and a secret text," *Semafor,* November 22, 2022, on MacAskill's March 2022 introduction of Bankman-Fried to Musk over a joint Twitter bid. https://www.semafor.com/article/11/22/2022/sam-bankman-fried-elon-and-a-secret-text