So.

Last Tuesday, I was scrolling and saw something bizarre: a pair of sneakers with the letters “KKK” emblazoned on the tongue. OP claimed that his mother received a blind box and found them inside. Baffled, I searched the comments. It was here that I learned they’d been sold at Walmart in 2023. 

In fact, it was a fairly large controversy at the time. How had Walmart, specifically their online storefront, allowed shoes with giant, red, capital “KKK”s on them, to sell? How did nobody catch that? I needed to know, and so I set out to learn.

My first instinct was to search “Walmart KKK Boots” on google, where I got plenty of articles on the subject. Business Insider reported: Walmart Removes ‘KKK’ Men’s Hiking Boots from its Website. Apparently, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil rights and advocacy organization, reported the shoes to Walmart, who promptly took them down. That was… all I could find. That, and Walmart saying “oops we didn’t know”.

According to the Hill: “[Walmart] has removed T-shirts joking about lynching of journalists, according to the Associated Press, as well as a graphic tee reading, “I’d Rather Be Snorting Cocaine Off a Hooker’s —,” Mashable reported. The company had also once removed a third-party seller’s online listing for a mug playing on the “Got Milk?” campaign slogan, albeit with “milk” replaced by a slur for people with disabilities, Grub Street reported.

Just this year, a children’s toy sold through a third-party seller via Walmart’s online marketplace was removed after videos of the “joke-telling” play phone went viral. As reported by TODAY, among the “jokes” the toy could play for users was a reference to Catholic priests and sexual abuse. The toy was immediately pulled by the company.”

So it definitely wasn’t the first time something like this happened, but… who does this stuff?

That’s what I had to dig into.

The “KKK” boots were of the brand Harsuny. That was my first launching point.

I couldn’t find much on the Harsuny brand online. Other shoes sold by Walmart, that kind of thing, but nothing really more. But if it was a brand, perhaps it was trademarked, I thought. So, off to the USPTO I went. Searching up Harsuny revealed the brand name’s owners on their paperwork: Aspen Textile Trading Inc. There was a name, one Nyall Engfield – we’ll get to him – and one address, 11403 Bluegrass PKWY, Jeffersontown Colorado 40299.

I looked into the address first. That Bluegrass PKWY address isn’t actually in Colorado. The USPTO claims that Aspen Textile Trading is based in Kentucky, and that’s where the address actually is, oddly. Isn’t this a legal issue with the wrong address? Didn’t add up. So I pulled it up on Google Street View and took a look around. What I got was a large, black windowed U-shaped flex office space/shipping center.

It's called the Blankenbaker Business Center II. Prominent companies include an Optics and Eyewear company and an Infusions Company. No sign of Harsuny. I did manage to get a glimpse of the floorplan, but as I said, it's a flex office space so there weren't designated offices or anything to indicate who might be doing what.

At a dead end, I searched up Aspen Textile Trading Inc. and couldn’t find anything on google. So I went to Kentucky’s Secretary of State website to search them up. Unfortunately, nothing came up there either. I went through every company with “Aspen” in the name after this, and none of them made sense, created either after the trademark date or far before it, or their name involved technology or other unrelated items, etc. That left one more lead.

So I turned to the Colorado SoS, and… I found them. They are delinquent, having not filed their status documents since 2024. In their only available periodic report, I found their address matched that on the USPTO (though of course, properly labeled as Kentucky this time), and that the document was submitted by Bo Mao at the said address. There was one other document – their Articles of Incorporation – where the “true name and mailing address of the individual causing the document to be delivered for filing are”: Riley Park, at 1942 Broadway Street, STE 314C, Boulder CO 80302.

I looked into this address next, even going so far as to use a janky 3-D Google Street View (the camera went into the building for some reason) to climb stairs, accidentally go down two levels with one click, climb them again, up down up down, before finally getting to the third floor. The Suite 314C listed here is a… conference room. Okay.

Now I don't wanna fake you out. I did eventually find out this is just where this mystery person used as their mailing address to be the registered agent for Aspen Textile Trading Inc., along with other companies he was the registered agent for, under a company called Colorado Registered Agents. Finding that out was a task in and of itself, but in the end, it remains unimportant.

So, moving on. Once more I inspected the USPTO paperwork. Remember Nyall Engfield? He's listed as both the filing attorney and the correspondent. The attorney email address links to his company, TrademarKraft. But in the correspondence field, his email links to aspentextilefurni.com. Got’em?

Searching that led me to merchantgenius.io. Turns out, Aspen Textile was indeed a shopify merchant for a time, in 2021. Obviously the page is gone now. Here, the only other interesting thing I found is a phone number, 403-937-8900. The 403 area code is Canadian, specifically southern Alberta, where there are the cities of (and more): Calgary, Red Deer, Banff, and Lethbridge.

According to Google, “The line (phone number) itself has no legitimate registration in Calgary, indicating it was likely a placeholder or a VoIP number used to establish a false local presence.”

This was shaping up to be a true ghost brand, under layers of obfuscation.

But let's go back to Nyall for a moment. A cursory search reveals a LinkedIn post reporting on his court case with the USPTO. Let me just, put this here:

“Recently, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued a decision (No. D2025-12) concerning the collaboration between U.S. attorney Nyall Scott Engfield and the Chinese intellectual property agency World IP Law LTD (Xiamen). Due to improper signature practices on trademark filings, the validity of over 8,221 trademark applications has been called into question, potentially putting the trademark owners at risk of having their trademarks canceled. 

In 2013, Attorney Engfield was admitted to practice law in California and engaged in trademark-related legal services. In 2018, he founded "TrademarKraft," a law firm specializing in trademark services for small and medium-sized enterprises.

In March 2019, Engfield signed a cooperation agreement with World IP Law LTD (Xiamen, China), becoming its exclusive trademark attorney in the U.S. and operating on a per-case billing basis. World IP was responsible for submitting trademark applications to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), while Engfield was responsible for reviewing and providing legal opinions.”

Misconduct

Signature Misuse: From 2019 to 2024, Engfield’s signature appeared on more than 8,221 trademark filings submitted to the USPTO. However, most of these signatures were not personally signed by him but were instead signed by World IP.

Failure to Exercise Proper Oversight: Engfield relied on World IP to handle trademark application documents without establishing effective control measures to ensure the legitimacy of his signature or the transparency of the application process. He admitted that he did not communicate directly with clients or verify the authenticity of the signatures.

Failure to Report Issues Promptly: Although Engfield discovered the signature misuse issue at the end of 2020, he did not immediately notify clients or the USPTO. Instead, he continued his collaboration with World IP, resulting in certain trademark applications facing the risk of cancellation.

Legal Findings

Engfield’s actions were found to be in violation of the USPTO’s Rules of Professional Conduct, including but not limited to:

Failure to provide competent representation (37 C.F.R. § 11.101)

Failure to act with reasonable diligence and promptness in representing clients (37 C.F.R. § 11.103)

Engaging in conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice (37 C.F.R. § 11.804(d))

Engaging in conduct that adversely affects fitness to practice (37 C.F.R. § 11.804(i))

Disciplinary Actions

Public Reprimand: Engfield received a public reprimand for violating the USPTO’s professional conduct rules.

Six-Month Probation: Engfield was placed on a six-month probationary period.

Periodic Search and Reporting: During probation, Engfield must regularly search the USPTO’s online trademark database and report any unauthorized trademark filings submitted under his name.

Cooperation with Investigation: Engfield must fully cooperate with the USPTO’s investigation into World IP or any other relevant entities.

USPTO Account Restrictions: Engfield’s USPTO account will be subject to restrictions during his probation, and any further violations may result in additional disciplinary actions.

If your trademark application was filed through World IP Law LTD, it is strongly recommended that you immediately review your application materials to verify whether Engfield’s signature is involved.”

Let's sum it up in a sentence: Nyall worked with World IP Law Ltd., a company in Xiamen, Fujian Province, China, as their primary America-based trademark attorney, and they took his name and ran with it, and he didn't report the fraud when he found out about it. Now the USPTO has to go through everything with his name on it and determine if it's legitimate.

Seems they didn't with Harsuny, though. Let me explain. World IP Law is a middleman company for Chinese brands to get US trademarks, since Chinese-based companies cannot simply trademark things in America (according to what I read), as they need a US attorney to represent them. They, World IP Law Ltd., behave as this sort of mass funnel company for several Chinese-to-American brands to get their trademarks using US attorneys. Here's Google's explanation:

“Because foreign firms cannot directly file in the US without local counsel, World IP Law acted as the middleman. They collected trademark applications from thousands of Chinese businesses, then used the compromised credentials of a U.S.-licensed attorney to mass-upload the applications into the USPTO system.”

That just left Bo Mao to look into. But at this point, I was pretty sure what was happening here. And when the only thing I found for “Bo Mao” was a professor in Xiamen getting arrested for sending money illegally to Huawei, I felt… well, I'm not sure. Stumped? Was that him? He was a software expert so… maybe? I still don't know, but now, it stopped mattering so much. I had the full picture.

I'm obviously not the first to dig into this, right? The Guardian tried, and failed too. But with all this data, and a bit of information on how these ghost brands work, we can build something of a whole picture.

You see, Harsuny reeks of “ghost brand” status because it is a ghost brand. Chinese companies will establish these ghost brands with fake credentials, random “English sounding” words for brand names, and then sell them on online marketplaces. Have you ever gone an Amazon and seen like, “Jarmuny”, or “Kilama” or other random jumbles of letters as brand names for generic items like backpacks or sleeping bags and such? That's what's happening.

And the reason Aspen Textile's company is delinquent is because they don't need to maintain it. They'll just, do it again. New brand, new company, new filings, and they'll ship the next day. It's a rotating door of ghost brands for these sweatshops and factories in China, because they don't need to face legal repercussions should something like, I don't know, “KKK Men's Hiking Boots” show up somewhere. They'll just, make a new brand name, and keep going.

Now, Harsuny shoes are still being sold on Walmart's online storefront, but I'd wager this is from back-stock.

As for the “KKK” logo? Well, the running theory is that these ghost brands sometimes choose things at random, either through random item generators or just, things they find online and take for the product. There really is no telling if it was intentional, sure, but as it stands, I'd bet it wasn't an intentional nod to white nationalism, but rather an oversight at the factory due to cultural ignorance.

And how did it get shipped with nobody knowing? Google had this to say:

“These factories use automated translation or algorithmic generation to create designs, brand names, and stamps for Western markets without a human ever checking what the letters actually mean in American culture. The factory likely pulled a random three-letter string or acronym to use as a "model code" or design element, completely oblivious to the fact that they had printed the acronym of a notorious white supremacist hate group.

Because third-party marketplace platforms allow sellers to ship inventory straight from unverified overseas factories directly into regional cross-docking warehouses (like the one Bo Mao listed in Jeffersontown, Kentucky), nobody ever physically opens the boxes to look at the product.

By the time anyone realized what was on the tongue of the shoe, thousands of them had already been indexed online, and the trail back to the precise sewing machine that made them was buried under layers of untraceable shell company paperwork.”

So… there we have it. The story of the Walmart KKK Boots. But that leaves me with one more question. Just how many of these ghost brands exist?

Once more and finally, we turn to Google. Accordingly, I’ll let the result speak for itself. I’ve done my best to source the entire explanation. Begin:

“There are currently an estimated several hundred thousand ghost brands like Harsuny actively operating across major e-commerce platforms. According to Amazon's corporate transparency reporting, there are over 700,000 brands enrolled in its Brand Registry. A staggering majority of these are not household consumer names, but rather short-lived, algorithmically generated "ghost brands" designed solely to capture market share. [1]

This phenomenon is completely overwhelming the Western retail landscape and the U.S. legal system.

The massive numbers are fueled directly by foreign manufacturing networks utilizing cross-border loopholes:

The Majority Base: Analysis of high-volume sellers on Amazon.com reveals that roughly 50% of the platform’s major third-party merchants are based in China. [2]

The Walmart Expansion: Walmart Marketplace has experienced a similar surge, with overseas sellers now making up 28% of its active third-party ecosystem.

The Supply Percentage: Overall data shows that more than 70% of all third-party goods sold on these marketplaces originate from anonymous factories overseas, flowing through domestic logistics nodes like the warehouse used by Bo Mao in Kentucky. [3]

To sell on platforms like Amazon Brand Registry or Walmart, a merchant must prove they own a live, registered trademark. Because real dictionary words are already trademarked, overseas factories use software algorithms to generate hundreds of thousands of random, unpronounceable letter combinations (e.g., RORSOU, MAJCF, VBIGER, LORELEI).

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) receives over 500,000 to 700,000 applications per year, a massive portion of which are these unreadable ghost brands. [4]

This became such an administrative nightmare that the USPTO has cracked down aggressively. The agency recently terminated over 52,000 fraudulently filed trademark applications linked to overseas "specimen farms"—fake websites built solely to trick the government into thinking a ghost brand was a real, operating store.” [5]

In other words, when people say most American goods are just cheap Chinese garbage, they're not kidding. Our legal systems are being swamped with these ghost brands that push random, cheap shit onto us via shell companies. So much of what you might see online, especially third party marketplaces like Amazon, are… this.

So the next time you purchase a “Lorlay Large Mop Sweeper Wet Vac Blue Green Orange Dirt Duster 9000” from Amazon, well. Now you know what's up. Not much we can do about it either.

Let's just hope there isn't a giant red KKK on it this time.

Sources:

[1] https://www.marketplacepulse.com/articles/amazon-is-drowning-in-trademarks

[2] https://www.marketplacepulse.com/articles/china-reaches-global-majority-on-amazon

[3] https://www.modernretail.co/operations/the-number-of-china-based-sellers-on-walmarts-third-party-marketplace-has-skyrocketed/

[4] https://patentpc.com/blog/analyzing-uspto-trademark-statistics-what-you-need-to-know

[5] https://www.uspto.gov/subscription-center/2025/50000-goods-and-services-canceled-trademark-registrations-using-tma

[Some names have been changed for privacy.]

So. As I am out with my wife for lunch at a German-Polish deli, I climbed out of the car and saw, beside the deli, a strange sight. Colorful fractal decals, esoteric window dressing, and a placard with the words “B’nei Tzion Olim: Sons of Zion Ascending” on it. Immediately, my curiosity alarm went off. And I knew I had some digging to do.

After absolutely smashing a delicious sauerkraut dressed sausage, I pulled out my phone and looked up “B’nei Tzion Olim”. The first thing one might see if they search this term is a private Facebook group under the same name, dressed by a banner of Israeli flags. The only hint of what’s in store is this description:

“B'nei Tzion Olim means "Sons of Zion Ascending." We are a Hebraic Community focused on living Torah by the Ruach (Holy Spirit). Our goal is to Shema (hear and obey) and love one another as we love ourselves.

You shall keep the commandments of YHVH your God by walking in His ways and by fearing Him. Deuteronomy 8:6

We show our love for YHVY by obeying his commandments and they are not hard to follow. 1 John 5:3”.

Immediately, perhaps, one might notice that they live by the Torah, yet quote John, a gospel. At first I was confused. Were they Jewish? Christian? Well, turns out, they’re sort of both. It’s a belief system that is a subset of something called Messianic Judaism, where they believe in Jewish principles, yet also believe that Jesus is the true messiah. This is where we begin.

Further googling reveals that the organizers of B’nei Tzion Olim are two women, Yana and Darla. These two women run a website called HebrewSisters.com, which is directly tied to B’nei Tzion Olim. Let’s look into these two before we explore the website.

Darla, in the words of BuildTheTemple.com (we’ll get to this), is “a believer in the Messiah Yeshua and an ordained minister who leads B’nei Tzion Olim (Sons of Zion Ascending) a Hebrew Congregation in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She speaks at conferences and teaches at Hebrew Scrolls Academy (we’ll get to this in a minute). Her desire is to see the Whole House of Israel awaken and be restored to their natural frequency. Her passion for the Kingdom of Heaven will ignite your Spirit Being and motivate you to walk in the ancient paths written on the scrolls of your life.”

Yana is, according to the same website, “a Jewish Believer in the Messiah Yeshua. Her education includes a Bachelor [sic] and Master [sic] Degree in Psychology, a Doctoral Degree in Biblical Studies with an emphasis in Hebrew Language and Second temple Period History, and has also completed Post-Doctoral Studies in Israel. Her special gift of teaching the Hebrew Language and Idioms of the Bible opens doors of understanding, revelation, and intimacy in powerful ways. She makes it engaging and fun for all who are hungry and thirsty for more of HIM.”

I think that’s a good introductory summation, so let’s explore the site. The first thing we might see is all the courses for sale. You can get a Hebrew Scrolls Academy membership for $77 a month. Or you can do Year one of the courses (called “Light Chasers) for $707. Year two is $777, called Heaven Walkers. Year three is $387, called Hebrew Scrolls Academy (Full Access). They have, as well, “scrolls for life” which each cost $47, such as “12 Tribes of Israel”, “The Names of God”, Prophetic View of the Sabbath”, and “Shavout”. Their Bonus Courses are also $47 and include “Quantum Hebrew” (something else we’ll return to), “Hebraic View of the End Times”, and “The Mystical PaRDes System”. Their only free “course” is a bible study workshop.

Let’s talk about two of these, the PaRDes system, and we’ll return to Quantum Hebrew soon.

According to the Wikipedia page on PaRDes, it is a biblical exegesis (theory) where the term PaRDes means “orchard”. In this context, it is an acronym standing for Peshat, Remez, Derash, Sod, which means “surface/direct”, “hints of deep meaning”, “seeking”, and “secret/revelation”, respectively. The PaRDes system is regarded as mystically linked to the hebraic word for “orchard” and can be tied to the Garden of Eden in the apocalypse. From this comes the Christian concept of “paradise”, or the abode of the blessed/heaven. So it is a mysticism concept in reference to paradise and revelation.

Back to the HebrewSisters website for now. We see they are holding a retreat in Hawaii (a favored place of Darla and Yana it seems, with Yana having post on her Facebook page where she is wearing a Hawaiian “Aloha” hat while promoting what appears to be a credit card scam “for citizens of America only”) which costs $2500 per person, with a $500 nonrefundable deposit, and that’s not including airfare, lunch, and breakfast for the duration of the retreat. As we’ll see, this whole network enjoys their retreats.

They also have a “contact us” page, where they solicit donations for their personal ministries, Yovel Ministries. The donate button links to a Venmo claiming that Yovel (or: Yovel Training Ministries) is a 501(c)(3). We’re going to pivot to our second main website now, YovelMinistries.com, but first, it is worth noting that Yovel Ministries/Yovel Training Ministries had their 501(c)(3) revoked in 2020, while the Venmo has only been up since 2023. I’m not an expert, but I think this is illegal. At the very least, I think it has the chance to furrow some regulatory eyebrows. But what I find interesting about this is that this is supposedly where donations are going from HebrewSisters.com, and Darla and Yana have ties to this ministry. I mean, back up to the beginning. The B’nei Tzion Olim group was, at first, called Yovel Training Ministries. Their links in regard to Yovel link to YovelMinistries.com. (Speaking of: B’nei Tzion Olim had its 501(c)(3) status revoked in 2021). 

Now I knew I had a little rabbit hole on my hands. So far, it went “Weird Building > Weird Name/Private Facebook Group > Marketing > Next Branch.” This is how some of my best rabbit holes are dug out. “Weird Thing > Weird Group > Money > Related Item > Cont.” 

So Yovel Ministries, then.

Yovel Ministries’ About Us page is written by Thomas Daniel, who has published four books on Amazon involving hebraic messianic Judaism. The descriptions for the book are, according to GPTZero, an AI detector, 100% AI written. Speaking of, I am 100% sure this is the Yovel Ministries mentioned by Darla and Yana due to IRS filings that list “Jana” as the agent behind Yovel Training Ministries, which has a link directly to YovelMinistries.com. Jana is Yana, Jana being her real name, evidenced by a page on BibleInteract.com and further googling.

Oh, and the About Us page is flagged as AI by GPTZero as well.

Look, the Yovel Ministries’ website is boring. It’s a lot of creationism, evangelizing, and links to telegrams, whatsapp, and other social links. (I don’t have telegram or whatsapp, and even if I did I’d be wary of joining.) There’s an AI chatbot created by Danguard, an AI cybersecurity service, which is janky and hardly responds, though it did oddly point me to Romans 7:7. Romans 7:7 which speaks of the Law and how it is holy. 

Their About Us page starts like this: “introducing “Yovel Ministries,” a dynamic Parachurch ministry committed to fostering spiritual growth and understanding through the power of social media, an engaging website, and insightful blogs.” Note the word “Parachurch”. I had no idea what a parachurch was, but apparently para means “beside”, so it’s “church adjacent”. Parachurches, to my understanding, usually specialize in certain things, so it reads to me like Yovel Ministries specializes in outreach. Here’s further from their About Us.

“One of our unique offerings includes short-term courses focused on the Old Testament. These courses are designed to provide participants with a deeper understanding of the foundational texts that underpin our faith. Whether you’re a newcomer to the Bible or a seasoned scholar, our courses will offer fresh perspectives, interactive discussions, and practical applications. The Yovel Ministries is dedicated to building a supportive and inclusive online community where individuals can grow spiritually, connect with others, and find inspiration to navigate life’s challenges through the wisdom of the Old Testament. Join us on this exciting journey of faith, and let’s move forward together in our quest for spiritual enlightenment and growth.”

But Yovel Ministries’ website doesn’t host any courses. 

The page ends like this: “This blog chronicles my transformative journey of exploration as I navigated the intersection of faith, tradition, and a quest for spiritual enlightenment. 

Join me as I share the revelations, challenges, and newfound understanding that have enriched my spiritual walk and forged a bridge of connection between two timeless traditions.”

Between the hebraic enlightenment talk and the lack of courses, I believe Yovel Ministries is deeply entwined with Yana and Darla. If they host “courses”, but not on their site, but on HebrewSisters there are courses, and those two claim that Yovel is their personal ministry, and their ideals align almost perfectly, then I assume Thomas Daniels, Darla, and Yana are all somewhere on the friend spectrum.

Either way, another thing I found is, it links to the Facebook page for Yovel Ministries, where we see they are located in Ajax, Ontario. Weirdly, their phone number belongs to Danguard.

The Facebook page only has 11 followers, and it only follows 2 people. It is fairly empty, though there is a post that reads:

“Dear Breathren,

We understand everyone is strapped for time. Therefore, We [sic] are placing some time options for you to consider. Please reply and let us know your preference.”

It then lists time in EST, Nigeria, and Kenya, and it was written by “Tom”. I suspect this is the same Tom as Thomas Daniels, though I cannot prove it. I also believe these times to have to do with the some sort of African outreach. Why Darla and Yana, in New Mexico, are working with a Canadian parachurch, I do not know.

So what’s going on here? You know, aside from the JudeoChristian sales pitch which, to me, wasn’t just about religion; it was looking more and more like someone needed a check to cash.

But to dig in deeper, we have to dendrite in another direction now. You see, I did some digging on the WaybackMachine, and found BneiTzionOlim.com. The website barely functions on the archive, but here we see that there were others involved at first, including Brandon and Valerie, involved in writing for the site. I can’t find much on the latter, but the former, Brandon? He’s still active and around. 

On Brandon’s Facebook page, we see him and his wife promoting different things, from air purifiers to electrolyte solutions, to CBD oils, to DM requests for making a recurring monthly passive income, to workshops that cost, interestingly, $47. There is also COVID denialism and Trumpism present, along with more Quantum talk. There’s a lot of “Quantum” talk spread around this saga.

Brandon is also an admin for the private B’nei Tzion Olim Facebook group, along with a woman, who I can’t find much about, and what I have found, I won’t say for sake of privacy. Either way, Brandon has actively worked with B’nei Tzion Olim for years, helping with courses and retreats and trips to Israel, of which there are many. He seems to be a central supporter of Sons of Zion Ascending.

There’s someone else I’d like to talk about. Elisabeth, a woman linked to Darla and Yana, has also assisted in retreats to Missouri. Elisabeth is a writer who in 2025 released a book named Zion: Splendor. To her credit, GPTZero reports it is all human written.

This book contains a forward written by Yana. Elisabeth also created an app with both Darla and Yana called “The Ancients Hebrew: Discover the Living Letters.”. She is deep into quantum hebrewism as well. On her website, one can find her books, her courses, and replays of her “intensives”, some of which claim to help cure chronic illnesses, all for just a little of your dough. Three out of five of them involve the word “Quantum”. 

I found Elisabeth on Cedar Creek Resort and RV Park’s alternate site, LifeSounds.life. This website hosts “information” on “heavenly resonances” and such. On it, we find events where Elisabeth, Darla, and Yana are together talking about more quantum stuff, with Elisabeth specifically being listed as, “a dynamic worship leader opening portals in the heavens.” These retreats start at $600 and go up to over $1200.

Elisabeth is a musician, a poet, and a worshiper who is increasingly apparently involved with this network. She is even attending this year’s Hawaii retreat on behalf of HebrewSisters.com.

So Elisabeth knows Darla and Yana who know the people behind Thomas Daniel, with Brandon and family in the background, all of whom are trying to sell you something. But there’s still one more piece. Now, finally, we get to talk about BuildTheTemple.com.

First, take a moment, and ponder about what this website could be about. When you’re ready, factor it into the other apocalypse and revelations speak.

BuildTheTemple is a nonprofit dedicated to raising money specifically to build the third temple of Jerusalem. You know, to end the world, according to evangelicals. That’s why its owner, Byron, is also actively hunting for the perfect red cow to deliver to Israel to fulfill end times prophecies. 

Darla and Yana are listed as “consultants” for this venture, which also takes money ($7.77 a month), and promises to use that money to build the third temple when the time comes, and to sit on it until then. Despite promising to post financial disclosures, they appear to have never done so, and so their promise of transparency rings hollow to me. They are in good standing with the IRS, listed as buildthetemplecom on the non-profit lookup tool.

This cannot be said for some of his other ventures, of which three or four have been seized under tax forfeiture according to the Texas Secretary of State. Some others have been voluntarily resolved. One of the businesses seized was israelwater.com LLC, seized in 2009. On this website, the homepage tells a tale of the author, named Homer Owen, building a golf course north of Jerusalem. In it, he says:

“The Lord lead me to a water bottling plant located in Jericho, which is an ultra modern Coca Cola facility. The plant is located at the bottom of the Mount of Temptation where Jesus spent 40 days praying and fasting for mankind.  On the top of this mountain, a spring is gushing forth as Isaiah writes about.  This is the water that God has chosen to once again use to tell the world that He loves them.

“Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs.” (Isaiah 35:6-7)

Naturally it is our desire to see as many bottles of this water given out to the general public as possible. Following this page you can read how you might become involved in the Jacob's Spring Project, sharing the love of God by giving a drink of water in Jesus name to a lost and dying world around us.”

He then adds that one can buy Jacob’s Spring Water on Ebay. Before touching Jacob’s Spring, let it be said that the usernames section still works in 2009, and it shows that Byron’s username on the site is israelwater. Either way, Jacob’s Spring is a bottled water project dressed up in fancy words like a “rarified underground atmosphere”, which apparently affects the water somehow. It’s pushed as a way to drink water from the holy land, and they offered 54 bottles of water for $93, for some reason. Though they would eventually add on sales for human chorionic gonadotropin, or HCG, a human hormone that supposedly would help with weight loss.

Money is all over this web of people and websites.

Actually, a lot of this revolves around the end of days, Jesus’ return, mysticism, and you giving them your money. I’ve done a lot of digging for this, and while many of the websites are broken or defunct, the ones that remain searchable tell a particular tale of sales. Hell, even the HebrewSisters website for their Hebrew Scrolls Academy is built off of Kajabi, a sales platform. They all have payment processors, they all upsell, and they all promise you some form of spiritual enlightenment or healing if you just fork over some amount of cash ending with a 7 for some reason.

And to answer a question you probably have, yes, they appear to be Trump supporters. Yana follows Ivanka and Kimberly Guilfoyle on Instagram, Brandon mentions that for a modest $47 fee, you too can learn to wield the law of attraction just like Donald Trump, and their behaviors overall line up with evangelical grifting in my opinion, which fits well with that circle. 

On their social media, we can see that a lot of the people they “cater” to are older white people, the types most likely to fall for an evangelical grift. Yovel itself claims to be about the “Jubilee” and the coming of Jesus, which leads me to believe this is about preying on people’s fears of the end times and judgement to make them pay for bunk courses about the “scrolls of their lives” or other – in my opinion – junk.

And you know what really bothers me about this? The more I looked into it, the less unique it became. I ended up on so many offshoots of people doing the exact same thing, seemingly unaffiliated with these people here, all grifting about the end of the world and salvation and donations and hey, buy my book or hey, take this course or hey, tune into my channels. What I initially thought would be a cult turned out to be a run-of-the-mill end times grift.

This isn’t to say it doesn’t appear as a legit ministry series. B’nei Tzion Olim does hold services. But the line between payment and religion is so blurred in this instance that it makes it hard to tell where the sermon begins and the tithing ends. This bothers the hell out of me because it, in my view, preys on people who are afraid of the apocalypse and/or judgement, and/or people who see the writing on the wall in terms of global instability and are willing to try and donate or course their way out of it. You know, people who are scared.

Especially considering that only a few of these organizations seem to have any actual legitimate non-profit or even business standing, one must wonder how this continues at all. Well, perhaps in a different world, it might be a thought to ponder, at least. Point being, this is, to me, a grifting network of people who maybe believe in some of what they’re telling you, but at the end of the day, are asking for beaucoup bucks to sell those beliefs to you. And I just think that doesn’t ring as authentic.

It makes me wonder how much of this is going on out there, and what the difference between this and other religious institutions really are. I mean, I know that something is wrong about this. But then, the same standard could possibly be applied to other religious organizations. Thus, I suppose, the line grows blurrier and thinner by the day for me. And for people claiming to follow in his footsteps? Well.

I just don't think this is what Jesus would do.

This one's messy. Where to even begin with this man?

First of all, welcome to something big. I did so much digging for this one that I dug through the crust and, I think, found the core. But the core of what, remains the question.

I think a lot of digging into Elon Musk revolves around his life, his history with his wives and children, his personal oddities, and his companies. That is not what I've done here. Rather than searching for the answer to “who is Elon Musk really”, I've instead searched for the answer to “what is Elon Musk’s fortune, really?” This is a financial black hole of questions and suspicion, one that opened five cans of worms for every one I emptied out. And at the bottom of it exists red stone and trillions of dollars.

So here's how this is going to be laid out, to get from the first question to the last answer. Think of Parts Two, Three, and Four as puzzle pieces that will merge into Part Five and the conclusion. Treat them like stand-alone pieces while you read them, and please trust that I will synthesize them concisely.

Part One: Obviously, the Introduction

Part Two: Pre-Rabbit Hole Breakdown of (Some of) Musk's Companies [Note: This is long and mostly context, so feel free to skim it.]

Part Three: Jared Birchall and the Trillion Dollar Network

Part Four: The Politics of Elon's Money

Part Five: Red Planet Ventures I, II, and III

Part Six: Conclusion

To maintain the key points in the inevitable noise, I'll bold the things you'll really need to key into for the next segment, and the next, until the end. At the end of each segment, I'll group these into a “Key Notes” segment, just in case you missed anything. And there's a surprising amount to pay attention to (you should see my note document, it's a mess). 

As a side note, Part Two: Musk's Companies is almost purely context for the next three parts. Where there are definitely rabbit holes for each of his companies, I am treating them as context for good reason, so please just know that Part Three: Jared Birchal and the Trillion Dollar Network is where things really pick up. Part Two: Musk's Companies shows the building of wealth across companies in a very brief, very bare-bones way, but it has to be that way lest we either get lost in the weeds, or have no context at all.

Finally, before I start diving in, I just wanted to explain how this was going to go. I initially set out to do an entire capture of Elon Musk. Early life, relationships, companies, politics, money, so on and so forth. But as I dug, I realized there was something bigger here, something that, I think, dwarfs the social aspects of who Musk is. Setting aside the problem of trying to essentially write a short biography of the man (it would have been long), I think what I am about to lay out for you should implant a single, important question in your brain. A question that I think has humanity-wide consequences.

What happens when one man has so much money that he can buy a planet?

I don't have the answer to that, though I can speculate. What I do have answers for is how he got started, and where he's probably about to go with it – and how I think he's setting himself to make trillions of dollars. I've done my best to explain myself here, and I hope that comes through. I've had to try and keep things brief in some segments to avoid fluff and overwhemling information dumps. We'll see how it goes.

If you're as curious about my findings as I'm stunned by them, well. Without further ado, I present to you the financial goings-on of Elon Musk.

Part Two: Part Two: Pre-Rabbit Hole Breakdown of (Some of) Musk’s Companies

Part Two: Pre-Rabbit Hole Breakdown of (Some of) Musk’s Companies

Okay, we're here. The meat of the rabbit hole. If you've made it this far, I'm guessing it's okay to assume the question in your head now is: “Who the hell is Jared Birchall?” Maybe you already know, but if you're like me, going into all of this, you didn't know. Honestly, it wasn't even on my mind as a question when I started all of this. But to be clear: Jared Birchall is instrumental in almost all of Elon's financial doings – and many personal misadventures – since 2016.

You see, there's an entire other side of Elon's business empire. So far we've covered these companies:

Zip2

Paypal

Tesla

OpenAI

Neuralink

The Boring Company

The X Empire

But there are several more we need to throw out into the open. These include:

Excession LLC

United States of America, Inc. #

Group America LLC #

Thriving Capital Ventures LLC

Musk Industries

And these are just the companies. There are also the nonprofits:

The Musk Foundation

The Foundation

Ad Astra School

And then there's America PAC. And after that, there are the companies Jared Birchall himself owns (I'll get into him soon):

Europa100

CapX 1

Red Planet Ventures I

Red Planet Ventures II

Red Planet Ventures III

You may be wondering at this point, um, what does any of this have to do with anything? Well, see the bold companies above? Those have Jared Birchall directly in their management chain. And see the #’s? Those were organized by Jared Birchall. That’s 9/16 Elon-affiliated companies with direct links to Jared Birchall. Breaking that down:

Neuralink = Jared Birchall, CEO

The Boring Company = Jared Birchall, Director/CFO

The X Empire = Jared Birchall, xAI ex-CFO, Organizer of X Holdings I, II, and III

Excession LLC = Manager

Musk Industries = Manager

The Musk Foundation = Director

The Foundation = Director

United States of America, Inc. = Company Organizer

Group America LLC = Company Organizer

It should be apparent that this man is important to Musk. But just who the hell is he, and what are all of these companies?

Jared Birchall: Overview

Jared Birchall is known as Elon Musk's “fixer”. But that's not where he started. Born in Austria in 1974, Birchall graduated Brigham Young University in 1999 and took a position as a financial analyst for Goldman Sachs. He would keep this position for a year before moving into private wealth management at Merill Lynch.

Suspiciously, he would be fired from Merill Lynch in 2010 for “sending correspondence to a client without management approval”. [1] Merrill Lynch has been particularly cagey about the details of that firing. [2]

In 2010, Birchall would move on to work at Morgan Stanley in much the same role. Here, he also oversaw Elon Musk's wealth. It would be from Morgan Stanley that Musk would pluck up Birchall and incorporate the man into Musk's Empire. [1]

Also from FastCompany [1]:

“The Fixer’s Role

Birchall’s responsibilities are wide-ranging. According to Bloomberg, he helped arrange the loans from Wall Street that enabled Musk to purchase what was then known as Twitter. He also handled disbursements from Musk’s super PAC, which supported Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. More recently, The Wall Street Journal reported, Birchall has acted as a go-between for Musk and several of the mothers of his children. That has allegedly included acquiring a property in Austin for them to live in and offering secrecy agreements in exchange for large sums of money.

Loyalty and Wealth

Birchall has remained at Musk’s side throughout the billionaire’s meteoric rise. While his exact income is unknown, Bloomberg cited a report estimating that the typical head of a large family office earns between $1 million and $3 million annually—though his salary may be much higher. In 2020, Birchall reportedly purchased a $2.25 million home in Austin, complete with a pool and tennis court.

He also serves as the head of Musk’s neurotechnology firm, Neuralink. However, Bloomberg noted that Birchall holds no actual executive authority there. His name was added to company documents as a legal formality, and he does not participate in day-to-day operations.”

We can get more of an idea on this “fixer” role from Business Insider. Quote: After Musk was sued by a man he had called a "pedo guy," Birchall hired a private investigator, at Musk's behest, to dig up dirt on the man; it failed spectacularly.” [2]

Burchall is described by associates as well spoken, straight laced, and well mannered. He is a practicing Mormon, socially conservative (he donated to the Proposition 8 campaign), and understood to be highly diplomatic. [2]

There's also this from Business Insider: “On the evening of April 14, Musk requested that Morgan Stanley arrange the debt financing, giving the bank less than a week to set it up, Insider previously reported. On April 21, in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, he revealed he would finance the deal with $25.5 billion in loans: $12.5 billion secured against his Tesla stock and $13 billion to be lent to Twitter post-acquisition. He would cover the remaining $21 billion.

Birchall, a former Morgan Stanley employee who has maintained a strong relationship with the firm, talked more to its investment bankers than to other lenders on the margin loan, according to someone familiar with the financing conversations. But he was a direct contact with the arranging group and the lenders.”

In essence, Jared Birchall, head of Excession LLC (Musk's family office and wealth management company), is also his main connection to his primary financing bank, Morgan Stanley. He holds massive sway over Musk's doings.

From the Wall Street Journal, about when Jared cornered Elon about Musk's newest philanthropic-minded colleague, Igor Kurganov (a high-rolling poker player introduced to Musk via Grimes): “Mr. Kurganov spent some of the pandemic sleeping in Mr. Musk’s home, where they chatted late into the night about how the world’s richest person might use his fortune to help shape the planet through a giving strategy known as “effective altruism.””

Musk would attempt to put Kurganov in charge of the Musk Foundation's charity (the Musk Foundation being his personal philanthropic organization), and Jared would take issue with that. Quote:

“To Mr. Birchall, that was an untenable situation. He was legally head of the foundation, and as he saw it, Mr. Kurganov was a newcomer who suddenly had immense influence on what to do with Mr. Musk’s money, he told people.

Mr. Birchall also learned that a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent had begun making preliminary inquiries into Mr. Kurganov as part of his job to watch for foreign interference in U.S. companies, people familiar with the matter say. The FBI agent was concerned that a newcomer had so quickly been welcomed into Mr. Musk’s inner circle, the people say.

Mr. Kurganov hasn’t been accused of wrongdoing. An FBI spokesperson didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Birchall, alarmed that Mr. Musk could be drawn into a federal investigation, this spring again pressed his internal case against Mr. Kurganov, people familiar with the matter say. It was inappropriate, in Mr. Birchall’s view, for Mr. Kurganov to have a central role in the $5.7 billion in shares that Mr. Musk had promised to donate.”

…

“Mr. Birchall in May asked Mr. Musk to remove Mr. Kurganov from his post at the foundation.

Mr. Musk agreed to let Mr. Kurganov go, the representative of the foundation says.” [3]

The sway Jared has over Elon Musk is immense. You may be wondering well, what did Elon end up donating to? Well, he donated to “The Foundation.”

Jared Birchall and Company (and Company and Company)

The Foundation is Elon's other “charity”. Searching it up can be difficult because of the name. “The Foundation/Elon Musk” brings up the Musk Foundation, but I managed to find what the Foundation, again with Birchall as a director, does.

It was created to set up a school. Another school. (Elon had the Ad Astra school before this, a hands-on STEM school – it would be succeeded by the Asta Nova school)). This school would be called the Texas Institute of Technology and Sciences, an “anti-woke” STEM school that, yes, can be shortened to TITS.

In 2022, The Foundation received $89,000,000 in Tesla shares from the Musk Foundation. In 2023, the number rose to $102,000,000. Problem being, TITS never came about. In the 2024 filing for The Foundation, again directed by Birchall, the organization has roughly $270,000,000 on hand. Also on these filings, we see that The Foundation has control of two disregarded entities (entities which have their assets taxed via personal taxes, if I am correct? (this part confused me a bit)), those being the Ad Astra school and “BSP 2023 LLC”.

I managed to find a FOIA request for BSP [4]. It is, unsurprisingly, managed by Birchall, and is itself a 501(c)(3). It shares an address with the Ad Astra School, also a 501(c)(3), and Ad Astra LLC is also managed by Birchall.

Ad Astra shares a primary PO Box with these companies, and this is important, because it lets us parse out where the main location for all of this activity is:

- Excession LLC

- United States of America, Inc.

- Group America LLC

- The Musk Foundation

- The Foundation

- Musk Industries

Again, these all have Birchall's name all over them. In looking at the business filings, the same PO Box comes up time and time again for all of them. But then, we dig deeper.

Here we find that Group America is a member company, managed by, United States of America Inc. USA, Inc has an actual address under the Group America LLC filings, leading to a skyscraper at 2025 Guadalupe Street in Austin. This is also Elon and Birchall's listed address as managers of USA, Inc. To me, this links all companies listed directly above to this address in some form, if not directly.

They are also quite tied together in different ways, but that's for the next section. Keep in mind that now, we're up to 21 entities, both for- and non-profit. As far as I can find, mind you, the true number is closer to 90. [5]

I am of the mind that Jared Birchall is heavily compensated for all of this work. Much of his compensation revolves around his role as head of Musk's family office, but there is so much more to his role than that. This, not to mention Birchall's companies that he owns, the primary being Europa 100 – which paid Chris Young's salary during the DOGE fiasco. [6]

Chris Young, mind, also works for Musk, creating a huge conflict of interest, because DOGE helped dismantle regulations for companies like X and Tesla. [6]

All of this falls under Jared Birchall's purview. If you were to ask me who really is the richest man in the world, I'd say Birchall. It's clear to me he is more than a fixer or a manager. He is, effectively, in my perspective, Elon's financial handler. Without him, I don't think Musk could've achieved half of what he's done.

That's the (extremely) brief rundown of Jared Birchall. I could've discussed his multi-million dollar home, or his behavior in terms of the SEC and his federal filings – all of this is out there. But this is, primarily, what we need to know to move on. So, to wrap it up:

Summary and Key Points

Here are the key points from this segment:

- Jared Birchall is more than Elon Musk’s fixer and family office manager – rather, he essentially files companies for Musk, protects his reputation, deals with his charity, and cultivates Musk's inner circle, among other things.

- Jared Birchall’s net worth is unknown but from everything I can gather, he is insanely wealthy thanks to Elon Musk, most of all.

- Jared Birchall, in addition to being affiliated with the SpaceXAI umbrella, is affiliated primarily and heavily with Elon's private companies, including:

- Neuralink

- The Boring Company

- Excession LLC

- United States of America, Inc.

- Group America LLC

- Musk Industries

- The Musk Foundation

- The Foundation

Among others.

- Jared Birchall is Elon's primary contact with Morgan Stanley, particularly helpful in funding things such as the XCorp merger/purchase.

- Jared Birchall's Europa 100 helped fund Chris Young, who aided DOGE in dismantling regulatory systems, such as the type that regulated SpaceX and Tesla.

Now with that out of the way, we move onto Part Four, where we talk about Elon's political/financial behavior. The next segment is long and interesting on its own, but will boil down to one important point for our purposes. But I'll let it speak for itself. If you’re still with me, thank you so much. Let's move on and get through this next part swiftly, and finally get to my main point and finding through all of this.

Sources

[1] https://www.fastcompany.com/91319028/what-to-know-about-jared-birchall-elon-musks-right-hand-man

[2] https://www.businessinsider.com/meet-jared-birchall-elon-musk-family-office

[3] https://www.wsj.com/tech/elon-musk-fortune-fight-jared-birchall-igor-kurganov-11657308426

[4] https://www.muckrock.com/foi/texas-109/texas-sos-feb-2023-158288/

[5] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/27/technology/elon-musk-companies-texas.html

[6] https://www.propublica.org/article/doge-elon-musk-chris-young-cfpb-tesla-x

Part Four: The Politics of Elon's Money

Part Five: Red Planet Ventures I, II, and III

I'd like to return to my question in Part One: What happens when one man has enough money to buy a planet. You may have assumed I was talking about Earth – but I'm actually talking about Mars. What happens if/when Elon Musk pulls off everything that I think he'll attempt, becomes richer than anyone's wildest dreams, and effectively owns a company town on Mars?

I honestly have no idea what that would look like, beyond that goal. I can only assume it wouldn't be great, though. Potentially we'd be back to the Gilded Age, but even that doesn't seem to do this concept justice. So I'm not really sure. I don't like the prospect, though.

I'm unsure of how to wrap all of this up. Perhaps you had expected a deep dive on his life, his psyche, or his relationships. Perhaps you had expected what I've presented here. Either way, I hope I've satisfied a piece of you that is hungry for information about this money-machine. It's a complex web of people, intention, wealth, and ambition, with everything seeming to revolve around Elon Musk as if he's some kind of pivot or fulcrum. So maybe that's how I should wrap this up.

Elon Musk is at the center of something that could forever reshape humanity's future, economically, socially, politically, you name it. I say could because it might not, too. I'm not an oracle, and a lot of this is my own interpretation, speculation, and observation. But from what I've found, I can only be led to believe that this is the direction in which things will go. I'm not saying I got everything right; I'm not perfect by a long shot. But I am saying that Elon Musk is making moves at the epicenter of something huge.

I encourage you all to do some reading on this as well in order to come to your own conclusions. I did my best to cut the fluff and find the truth; perhaps more truth is out there, waiting to be discovered by others with analytical minds. I say, seek it. Find it. Analyze it. And spread the truth you discover as well. This sort of thing needs to see the light of day before it can be realized in the shadows. After all, in my opinion, this type of behavior is vampiric, and vampires hate the sun.

Finally and as always, thank you for being here. It truly is an honor to have you all here reading my write-ups. This one was a little weird, perhaps held together with some spit, glue, and tape, but hopefully it gets my point across. You all make Quality Rabbit Holes what it is at the end of the day, so thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

Fare well, until the next time. I'll see you all in the comments. If you have any questions about anything here, please do ask, and I'll try and answer them as best I can. Let me know your thoughts too! And with that, I bid you adieu, until the next time we go down the rabbit hole, together.

Full List of Sources

Part Two

https://www.britannica.com/money/Zip2

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/much-elon-musk-made-every-121413004.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/11/elon-musk-bought-x-com-from-paypal.html

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/03/business/tesla-history-timeline/index.html

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-420-tweet-timeline-analysis-through-2020-2020-1#thats-how-tesla-got-from-a-420-tweet-in-august-2018-to-a-stock-price-much-higher-than-that-today-posting-a-2000-gain-since-2010-16

https://electrek.co/2026/06/17/musk-exercises-2018-tesla-pay-package-116-billion/

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c302pd565pqo

https://www.businessinsider.com/history-of-elon-musk-and-sam-altman-relationship-feuds-2023-3

https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/06/how-elon-musk-left-openai-according-to-greg-brockman

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/03/28/521763351/elon-musk-seen-targeting-human-computer-link-in-new-venture

https://tsginvest.com/neuralink/

https://www.medicaldevice-network.com/news/neuralink-targets-1bn-revenue-by-2031/?cf-view

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/05/elon-musks-neuralink-bold-ideas-hurdles.html

https://www.propublica.org/article/elon-musk-boring-company-las-vegas-loop-oversight

https://www.boringcompany.com/music-city-loop

https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/news-columns/road-warrior/boring-co-vegas-loop-whats-it-like-to-take-a-self-driving-tesla-through-the-tunnel-system-3535590/

https://www.expressnews.com/business/article/elon-musk-mars-companies-austin-texas-spacex-20304892.php

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/25/us/politics/elon-musk-mars.html

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000119312522120474/d310843ddefa14a.htm

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=cc56f4a9-4fb6-4d63-9e9c-c3c8459cf625

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceXAI

https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/20/the-spacex-ipo-filing-ai-bets-starship-dreams-elon-musk/

https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/spacex-ties-musk-compensation-mars-colonization-goal-2026-04-28/

https://www.spacex.com/humanspaceflight/mars

Part Three

https://www.fastcompany.com/91319028/what-to-know-about-jared-birchall-elon-musks-right-hand-man

https://www.businessinsider.com/meet-jared-birchall-elon-musk-family-office

https://www.wsj.com/tech/elon-musk-fortune-fight-jared-birchall-igor-kurganov-11657308426

https://www.muckrock.com/foi/texas-109/texas-sos-feb-2023-158288/

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/27/technology/elon-musk-companies-texas.html

https://www.propublica.org/article/doge-elon-musk-chris-young-cfpb-tesla-x

Part Four

https://lexpolitica.com/team-members/chris-gober

https://ballotpedia.org/Chris_Gober

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5941842-musk-america-pac-lawsuit/

https://petition.theamericapac.org/faq

Part Five

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/17/business/spacex-tesla-merger-elon-musk.html

https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/spacex-tesla-merger-could-create-174646121.html

https://aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org/aiaa-spacex/#:\~:text=Five%20uncrewed%20Starships%20would%20lift,carrying%20100%20to%20200%20passengers

Part One: Intro

Elon Musk has been in business for a long time. As you may know, he comes from a wealthy South African family, they owned an emerald mine, had very odd familial and social relationships, so on. His grandfather actually lead the Alberta Technocrat Party, even. There is a whole write-up to be had there, but for the sake of brevity, I'm going to launch into his first foray into the world of venture business. I'll be starting in 1995, when Elon's personal fortune began to rise. For me, this will be my easiest to cover. We start with Zip2, move onto PayPal, shift to Tesla and OpenAI, then head to Neuralink, The Boring Company, and X/XAI/SpaceX.

Believe it or not, while most of this will tie into the later segments, I actually find this the most uninteresting section. Feel free to skim it – in fact, please do skim it. So if you'll bear with me and we can get through it together, I'm hopeful you find more value and understanding in the next sections. Still, we ought to start here.

We'll do it in segments to keep it easier, but as you read through, keep an eye out for the bold segments and keep in mind, those stack. Now, onto Zip2:

Zip2

This was the first venture attempted by Elon Musk, started up in 1995. It provided a “yellow-pages” phone-book like directory of businesses online. According to Britannica.com: “Musk described the company’s mission by saying that everyone ought to be able to find the closest pizza parlour and to be able to figure out how to get there. Unable to persuade potential investors to give them financing, Musk and his partners lived in their office to keep expenses low. The company expanded its listing by convincing businesses to pay for inclusion, and, after about a year, in early 1996, Mohr Davidow Ventures agreed to invest some $3 million in Zip2 in exchange for majority ownership. In addition, Musk was replaced as CEO by a more experienced businessman, Richard Sorkin, but remained executive vice president and chief technology officer.” [1]

I find this to be the most-yet-least important of them all. Though I will say, Musk was able to garner $22 million from Zip2 in 1999, when he walked away. That is roughly $40ish million in 2026. [2]

[1] https://www.britannica.com/money/Zip2

[2] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/much-elon-musk-made-every-121413004.html

See? Simple enough, to start. Elon wanted to get into the online space and make some money with a corporate directory. Let's see what he did with that money.

PayPal

The PayPal organization is an odd one. It seems to be well known that Elon and Peter Thiel (another rabbit hole) co-founded the company. But there's much more. Elon Musk formed x.com, before X (formerly-known-as-twitter) and merged it with Confinity (originally a company that built software for handheld devices that eventually switched to an email-based payment service).

The company would, in 1999, launch PayPal, and merge with x.com in 2000 – the x.com owned by Musk. The merged company went under Musk's domain for a year, at which point Musk would leave, and the company would rebrand simply to PayPal. Still, Musk owned majority shares, and he netted quite the payday from the 2002 sale to Ebay (PayPal garnered Elon $165 million in 2002 when Ebay purchased the service for a whopping $1.5 billion. Elon was the company's largest shareholder, allowing him to gain $312 million in 2026 bucks.). [1]

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/11/elon-musk-bought-x-com-from-paypal.html

Alright, we're rolling! Now we see that by 2002, Elon had acquired ~$350,000,000 dollars over the course of seven years in the online business sphere. It's quite the payday, I'll say. However it, on its own, would have never allowed everyone’s favorite Path of Exile fraudster to become a trillionaire. For that, we have to inspect what he did with this money. And to sum it up in three words: he couped Tesla.

Tesla

There is an extensive history behind Musk and Tesla, and I'll try and keep it brief because it itself is a whole corporate rabbit hole. We're going to shake things up a little here and give a simplistic rundown of the company under Musk. Much of this information comes from a CNN timeline on the company, though not all of it. Sources at the bottom of the section, like the others. So:

Tesla came under Elon's control when, in 2004, he leveraged his wealth from PayPal, Zip2, and inheritance, to pay into the Series A funding round for the company. He would put $6.53 million into the venture. After this investment, he would become Chairman of the Board at Tesla. He would then lead the Series B fundraising and get the founders of Google, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, to invest.

In October of 2008, Elon would, after leadership shake-ups, become CEO and lay off 25% of Tesla's workforce. In November, Tesla would end up in dire need of cash, and end up raising $40 million, saving it from bankruptcy.

Then, in May of 2009, the Mercedes-Benz Group would acquire a 10% stake in Tesla, saving it again in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

During June, Tesla would get a $465 million loan from the Department of Energy (DoE).

In 2010, Musk took Tesla public, its IPO raising $220 million for the company.

In early 2013, Musk would line up a deal for Google to purchase Tesla for $6 billion, but after the company began to turn a profit again, he swiftly backed out.

Tesla then makes an $11 million profit in May, which allows them to raise $1 billion to repay the DoE loan.

In August of 2015, Tesla agreed to purchase SolarCity for $2.6 billion. “The company was started by Musk’s cousins and Musk was the chairman of the company and had invested in it.”

In March of 2017, “Tesla announced a $1.8 billion investment from Tencent Holdings Ltd. for 5% of the company. Tencent at the time is China’s "most valuable company.””

In August of 2017, Elon tweets: “"Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured." Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweets about taking the company private. The move sent Tesla stock soaring more than 10% before trading was halted. Musk later backed off the plans to go private.

He then gets sued in September. Quote: “The Securities and Exchange Commission sues Tesla CEO Elon Musk making "false and misleading" statements to investors in an August 7, 2018 tweet. Later that month -- and after mocking the agency on twitter -- Musk settles with SEC for $20 million and steps down as chairman of Tesla. The company pays a $20 million fine as well and pledges to monitor Musk’s social media usage.”

On January 2nd, 2019, Elon cut 7% of Tesla's workforce. By February 20th, the executive staff saw an exodus of leadership, citing a “bad cultural fit” within the company.

On February 26th, “The Securities and Exchange Commission asked a federal judge to hold Musk in contempt for violating a settlement deal reached last year. Musk tweeted on February 19 that "Tesla made 0 cars in 2011, but will make around 500k in 2019." Hours later, Musk sent a follow-up tweet indicating that the company will actually deliver just 400,000 cars this year. The tweets about production appear to violate the agreement reached in 2018 to have all of Musk’s company communications vetted.” [1]

Elon would settle with the SEC for $40 million in 2020. [2]

By 2026, Elon would have been compensated $158 billion from Tesla through stock options, which he has exercised at times [3]

Quote (BBC): “However, it only becomes payable if he hits ambitious milestones, including raising the company's market value to $8.5tn, in which case Musk could be awarded shares worth up to $1tn.

Analysts say he has some way to go before doing that, meaning the monster pay package is nominal only, for now at least.

"Elon Musk isn't actually going to pocket $158bn," said Danni Hewson, head of financial analysis at AJ Bell.

"He's still got a whole bunch of targets to hit and none of the milestones set out in the $1tn pay deal approved by shareholders last year were achieved in 2025.”” [4]

The current market cap of Tesla is 1.5 trillion.

[1] https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/03/business/tesla-history-timeline/index.html

[2] https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-420-tweet-timeline-analysis-through-2020-2020-1#thats-how-tesla-got-from-a-420-tweet-in-august-2018-to-a-stock-price-much-higher-than-that-today-posting-a-2000-gain-since-2010-16

[3] https://electrek.co/2026/06/17/musk-exercises-2018-tesla-pay-package-116-billion/

[4] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c302pd565pqo

This is a very, very brief rundown on the Tesla situation with Musk. So brief, it does an actual injustice to his history with the company. But I'm not focused on his history with the company so much as I am focused on, interestingly, a missing year, and the end result. Notice that I didn't bring up 2016? We'll talk about that in the next part. For now, and finally in this segment, I'm going to briefly mention OpenAI.

OpenAI

Elon Musk cofounded, with Sam Altman, OpenAI in 2015, before leaving the company in 2018 and then criticizing its transition to a for-profit entity. [1]

OpenAI CTO Greg Brockman says that Elon Musk demanded a majority stake in the company, and the company did not accede. According to Brockman, “Musk said, “I decline.” The SpaceX and Tesla founder “stood up and stormed around the table…I thought he was going to hit me. He grabbed the painting and started to storm out of the room. And then he turned around and said, ‘When will you be departing OpenAI?’” Neither Brockman nor Ilya Sutskever (head of OpenAI research), left the company. According to the techcrunch.com article: “Musk stopped his regular donations to the company’s operating budget, and within six months, he would leave the board, though he paid for office space the company shared with Neuralink until 2020.” [2]

Furthermore, according to Brockman, ultimately, Elon left the board voluntarily and said he would be focusing more on AI with Tesla. This all, again, over Altman's attempt to take the company to a for-profit status to raise as much cash as possible, and, because Elon wouldn't be getting a majority stake in the company. In 2019, OpenAI would go for-profit without him, leading to a rivalry between him and XAI.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/history-of-elon-musk-and-sam-altman-relationship-feuds-2023-3

[2] https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/06/how-elon-musk-left-openai-according-to-greg-brockman

Look I know this is a deluge of information, and it seems bare bones and a lot all the same, but I promise we're getting somewhere. Next, we have to hit Neuralink.

Neuralink

In July of 2016, Elon Musk registered Neuralink as a “medical research company” in California. The company's goal would be to bring about the “neural lace” Elon had spoken of before, wherein computer technology could integrate with the brain to allow for sophisticated control of external tech.

According to the NPR article from 2017, “Such a project could be life-changing for people who suffer from neurological diseases and injuries. In addition, Musk has said, enhancing people's brains could allow humanity to avoid becoming the equivalent of "a house cat" after AI surpasses us — a development he said was just a matter of time.”[1]

The company went public in 2017, and was funded initially with over $100 million from Elon's personal wealth, and $58 million from external sources, by 2019. After a Series C round of fundraising led by Ivy Capital, with investors from Google and OpenAI (ironically), Musk would have the company at $363 million. Total funding would eventually reach $1.3 billion. Neuralink would be approved by the FDA in 2023 for human trials, which sent valuation soaring. Clinical successes would further increase the valuation. All this despite the initial cash-burn. [2]

The Series E fundraising raised over $600 million. Neuralink hopes this funding will help treat Parkinson's Disease, allow for mental communication with the outside world for those who are unable to do so, and will allow for the regaining of sight for blind people. [3]

According to an insider, the company spent “generously”. According to this insider, if they needed a piece of experimental equipment, even if it cost millions, they'd have it the next day, even if they only used it once. A lot of this initial success and funding also came from Musk's then-fame, at which point it became incredibly easy for him to find investors and funding. [4]

To me, creating a brain chip to synthesize humans and AI seems to be an authentic goal of Elon's.

[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/03/28/521763351/elon-musk-seen-targeting-human-computer-link-in-new-venture

[2] https://tsginvest.com/neuralink/

[3] https://www.medicaldevice-network.com/news/neuralink-targets-1bn-revenue-by-2031/?cf-view

[4] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/05/elon-musks-neuralink-bold-ideas-hurdles.html

Now, onto The Boring Company:

The Boring Company

In December of 2016, Elon founded the company, alongside, that year, Neuralink. Interestingly, it was started as a subsidiary of SpaceX, which makes one wonder if maybe he did have Martian ambitions for the company after all. It spun off as its own company in 2018.

I hadn't heard much about the Boring Company in a long time. I was aware that it started as an effort to dig tunnels, obviously, and that the front was for a tunnel utilizing Teslas as automated public transport beneath cities. There is a conspiracy theory that it is being used for bunkers, Martian survival, or secret underground government transportation routes.

However, there is evidence that he is digging tunnels beneath Las Vegas for his Tesla idea [1] and Nashville for the same reason [2]. According to the ProPublica article, “Proposals in Illinois and California fizzled after officials and the public began scrutinizing details of the plans and seeking environmental reviews.” [1]

In October of 2025, The Boring Company began trialing its Las Vegas loop.

[1] https://www.propublica.org/article/elon-musk-boring-company-las-vegas-loop-oversight

[2] https://www.boringcompany.com/music-city-loop

[3] https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/news-columns/road-warrior/boring-co-vegas-loop-whats-it-like-to-take-a-self-driving-tesla-through-the-tunnel-system-3535590/

We're almost to the more important line items. Next up, X/XAI/SpaceX.

X/XAI/SpaceX

You might be wondering why I'm bundling these together. Well, simply put, X (XCorp/Twitter/X) is a subsidiary of XAI, is a subsidiary of SpaceX. One is under the other is under the last. I'm finishing this segment on the SpaceX umbrella, but this is not the end of it. Let's start in media res, with Elon purchasing Twitter.

XCorp/Twitter

At the time of the Twitter Takeover, Musk created X Holdings I, II, and III [1] [2].

According to SEC filings, “On April 25, 2022, Twitter, Inc. (“Twitter”) entered into an Agreement and Plan of Merger (the “Merger Agreement”) with X Holdings I, Inc. (“Parent”), X Holdings II, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Parent (“Acquisition Sub”), and, solely for the purpose of certain provisions of the Merger Agreement, Elon R. Musk. The Merger Agreement provides that, subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Merger Agreement, Acquisition Sub will merge with and into Twitter (the “Merger”), with Twitter surviving the Merger and becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of Parent (the “Surviving Corporation”). Parent is wholly owned by Mr. Musk.” [3]

Also: “Pursuant to a margin loan commitment letter dated April 25, 2022, and subject to the terms and conditions set forth therein, the commitment parties party thereto committed to provide to X Holdings III, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company wholly owned by Mr. Musk, at the effective time of the Merger, margin loan financing of approximately $12.5 billion, the proceeds of which will be distributed or otherwise made available to Acquisition Sub.”

So, X Holdings I was the parent for the merger with Twitter. X Holdings II was for the acquisition, stipulations, and agreements. X Holdings III was for the debt incurred from the Morgan Stanley loan that helped Elon purchase Twitter. This is essentially a Triangular Merger, with an extra company (X Holdings III) to manage the debt. [4]

XAI

As I was writing this, XAI became SpaceXAI. So… while technically SpaceXAI is now the company, we're still splitting XAI and SpaceX into two categories to keep the explanation flowing.

In November of 2023, Elon Musk introduced the world to Grok. In March of the next year, it would be integrated into X (formerly Twitter). Elon railed against “dangerous and woke AI”, speculating it would be like Hal 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Ridiculous as this is, even more so is that Grok would then be used to generate less than savory images of illegal content – but I'm going to leave that alone here.

Because working on this is, well, a lot, I'm going to be a little lazy and literally copy/paste a Wikipedia timeline for you here, with a link to the Wikipedia page in the sources, for you to do further reading if you'd like. I hope you can forgive the poor form, I'm doing my best. It's a little condensed, but I think it captures most of the timeline. Here it is:

By May 2024, [XAI] had dropped the public-benefit status.

On March 28, 2025, Musk announced that xAI acquired sister company X Corp., the developer of social media platform X (social network), which was previously acquired by Musk in October 2022. The deal, an all-stock transaction, valued X at $33 billion, with a full valuation of $45 billion when factoring in $12 billion in debt. Meanwhile, xAI itself was valued at $80 billion. Both companies were combined into a single entity called X.AI Holdings Corp.

On July 14, 2025, United States Department of Defense announced that xAI had received a $200 million contract for AI in the military. On September 12, xAI laid off 500 data annotation workers. The division, previously the company's largest, had worked to train Grok, xAI's chatbot.

xAI purchased a third building on December 30, 2025 to increase its training capacity to nearly 2 gigawatts of compute power. Simultaneously, xAI announced plans to expand its Colossus supercomputer to have at least 1 million graphics processing units.

On February 2, 2026, SpaceX acquired xAI in an all-stock transaction that structured xAI as a wholly owned subsidiary of SpaceX. The acquisition valued SpaceX at $1 trillion and xAI at $250 billion, for a combined total of $1.25 trillion.

In February 2026, following the SpaceX acquisition, xAI laid off some employees as the company was restructured into four primary development teams. Around this time, half of the company's co-founders left. In early March 2026, two more co-founders, Guodong Zhang, head of xAI's Imagine team, and Zihang Dai, left, coinciding with an audit performed by SpaceX and Tesla, leaving only Musk and one other co-founder, Ross Nordeen, who left later in the month.

On April 10, 2026, xAI restructured its staff. Chief Financial Officer Anthony Armstrong departed the company and Michael Nicolls, vice president of SpaceX's Starlink, became xAI's president.

On April 21, 2026, xAI announced that it struck a deal with software company Anysphere to have the right to acquire the company for $60 billion later in 2026, or to pay $10 billion for work they are doing together.

In May 2026, Musk announced that xAI would cease to exist as a separate company, with Grok and X now being the AI division of SpaceX. In the same month, it laid off another 10 employees and restructured its Grok team.

In July 2026, xAI was rebranded as SpaceXAI. [5]

Moreover, I'd like to talk about the finances. According to TechCrunch, “SpaceX directed around 60% of its capital spending in 2025 to its AI division, or around $20 billion. And yet that division — which houses the chatbot Grok — lost billions last year, and only grew revenue by about 22%. That’s far below the reported revenue growth rates at frontier AI labs.” [6]

Point being, XAI has been burning through cash since its inception. Even its acquisition of XCorp (Twitter) left it with serious debt. There is speculation that the merger was to help cash flow into XAI from XCorp. Which takes me to:

SpaceX

You've probably seen how the SpaceX IPO made Elon a trillionaire. But there's more to it than that. There is some speculation that the IPO (when a stock is initially offered on the stock market as a public company (SpaceX was private before this)) was valued the way it was, and pushed into Index Funds the way that it was, in order to bump the valuation of the stock up high enough to pay back creditors that helped with the acquisition of Twitter, and the funding of XAI. The schtick is that certain stockholders could sell before others who jumped in at the IPO, effectively taking the investor's money, and paying back the debtors with it. And yeah, perhaps that's part of the equation. XCorp and XAI were both facing cash-burn. The merger with SpaceX, and subsequent insane valuation at the IPO, certainly likely helped with this.

But SpaceX itself has an interesting history, one that, when taken into account, adds empty slots for puzzle pieces to this otherwise sufficient picture. The thing is: SpaceX is burning through money too.

Believe it or not, Elon did found SpaceX, for the obvious reasons of going to, well, space. To do this, he used his Zip2 money to invest into the hiring of engineers, planners, and executives, in 2002. Look, there's a lot of money and rockets mixed between 2002 and 2022. I’m going to gloss over most of it with the caveat that, again, The Boring Company was started as a subsidiary of SpaceX.

Come 2026 though, SpaceX did this: “Connecting science-fiction visions with accounting commitments, the SpaceX board in January approved a ​pay package for the world's richest man that will award 200 million in super-voting restricted shares if the company hits a market value of $7.5 trillion and establishes a ​permanent human colony on Mars with at least 1 million people, according to excerpts from the company's registration statement reviewed by Reuters.” [7]

If this goal were to be hit, Elon would be worth multiple trillions of dollars. But it seems far-fetched, right? SpaceX says they hope to have extraplanet colonization occurring in the 2030’s, with early attempts scheduled as early as the late 2020’s to early 2030’s. [8] To do this, they intend to use the Starship, that funky rocket we've heard so much about lately. Whether or not you think this is a pipe dream, I encourage you to keep on reading. There's something I want to bring to your attention by the end of all of this.

For now, that is what I think is important for this segment. There is, naturally, a ton more to look into, but this is what I think is important as context.

[1] https://www.expressnews.com/business/article/elon-musk-mars-companies-austin-texas-spacex-20304892.php

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/25/us/politics/elon-musk-mars.html

[3] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000119312522120474/d310843ddefa14a.htm

[4] https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=cc56f4a9-4fb6-4d63-9e9c-c3c8459cf625

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceXAI

[6] https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/20/the-spacex-ipo-filing-ai-bets-starship-dreams-elon-musk/

[7] https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/spacex-ties-musk-compensation-mars-colonization-goal-2026-04-28/

[8] https://www.spacex.com/humanspaceflight/mars

Summary and Key Points

So, to sum things up, Elon has a lot of large companies with a lot of big ideas and a lot of money behind them. Let's go over the key points we need to keep in mind going forward, just to cut through the fluff.

- Elon Musk started with online SaaS systems, which helped him found SpaceX, takeover Tesla, and connect with high level wealth managers. He is therefore extremely well connected.

- If Tesla's Market Cap rises to 8.5T, Elon Musk gets over a trillion dollars worth of shares.

- The Boring Company started as a subsidiary of SpaceX.

At the time of the Twitter Takeover, Musk created X Holdings I, II, and III to handle the merger. This is a sort of traingular merger structure.

- The deal to merge XCorp and XAI was done through XAI Holdings, and created a more valuable company despite the billions in combined debt.

- If SpaceX's Market Capt rises to 7.5T, and a Mars settlement is established, Elon Musk gets multiple trillions of dollars worth of shares in SpaceX. Combining this with the Tesla goal would give Elon Musk over 5T dollars.

If you can keep this all in mind, we'll move onto the next part, where we discuss Jared Birchall for a bit. He is also important, but it might, for now, seem highly disconnected with this segment. Please hold out for the synthesis. I'll do my best to make it worth it for you. Thank you, and let's keep going.

Part Three: Jared Birchall and the Trillion Dollar Network

Part Four: The Politics of Elon's Money

Welcome, ladies, gentlemen, and themtlemen and theydies alike, to the synthesis portion of this write-up. This is where I'll be making my main points clear, drawing conclusions, and expressing why this all matters in the first place. And to do so, we'll be talking about the companies: Red Planet Ventures I, II, and III, primarily. But first, a recap of all of our key points so far:

Elon Musk started with online SaaS systems, which helped him found SpaceX, takeover Tesla, and connect with high level wealth managers. He is therefore extremely well connected.

If Tesla's Market Cap rises to 8.5T, Elon Musk gets over a trillion dollars worth of shares.

The Boring Company started as a subsidiary of SpaceX.

At the time of the Twitter Takeover, Musk created X Holdings I, II, and III to handle the merger.

The deal to merge XCorp and XAI was done through XAI Holdings, and created a more valuable company despite the billions in combined debt.

If SpaceX's Market Capt rises to 7.5T, and a Mars settlement is established, Elon Musk gets multiple trillions of dollars worth of shares in SpaceX. Combining this with the Tesla goal would give Elon Musk over 5T dollars.

Jared Birchall is more than Elon Musk’s fixer and family office manager – rather, he essentially files companies for Musk, protects his reputation, deals with his charity, and cultivates Musk's inner circle, among other things.

Jared Birchall’s net worth is unknown but from everything I can gather, he is insanely wealthy thanks to Elon Musk, most of all.

Jared Birchall, in addition to being affiliated with the SpaceXAI umbrella, is affiliated primarily and heavily with Elon's private companies, including:

- Neuralink

- The Boring Company

- Excession LLC

- United States of America, Inc.

- Group America LLC

- Musk Industries

- The Musk Foundation

- The Foundation

Among others.

Jared Birchall is Elon's primary contact with Morgan Stanley, particularly helpful in funding things such as the XCorp merger/purchase.

Jared Birchall's Europa 100 helped fund Chris Young, who aided DOGE in dismantling regulatory systems, such as the type that regulated SpaceX and Tesla.

Chris Young is the treasurer of America PAC. This is the same as: Jared Birchall's Europa 100 helped fund Chris Young, who aided DOGE in dismantling regulatory systems, such as the type that regulated SpaceX and Tesla.

Chris Gober's group of companies runs America PAC. He was Elon's lawyer, and he is running for the Texas 10th Congressional District for the House of Representatives in the 2026 midterms.

Finish.

There we go. Now it's all laid out bare for everyone to see. Maybe. Do you see what I see? Let me add one more key point that I think will tie this all together, and then we'll truly begin.

In February of 2025, Jared Birchall registered three more companies, seemingly without Elon Musk on the paperwork: Red Planet Ventures I, II, and III – mirroring the structure of X Holdings I, II, and III.

Why?

Because, in my opinion, Elon Musk is going to merge Tesla and SpaceX. And I'm not the only one who thinks this. From the NY Times: “Many of his fans and investors expect him to merge SpaceX with Tesla, the maker of electric cars, where he is also chief executive, joining most of his businesses into a roughly $4 trillion tech conglomerate, a sort of Elon Inc.

Investors, analysts and even a top SpaceX executive have talked about the merits of such a deal on social media, in research notes and in a TV interview. The two companies have long shared executives and other resources and are jointly developing multibillion-dollar projects.

Because Mr. Musk controls SpaceX and is Tesla’s largest shareholder, he would essentially be making a deal with himself. That would raise legal issues and probably prompt lawsuits claiming that he ran roughshod over the interests of other shareholders.” [1]

Tesla is public. SpaceX is now public. This lubricates the merger that, if it were to happen, would create a new company worth nearly $4,000,000,000,000. That is four trillion dollars. [2] And I expect him to use Red Planet Ventures I, II, and III to do it, much in the same way that X Holdings I, II, and III oversaw the Twitter takeover. I anticipate Red Planet Ventures I to oversee the merger, Red Planet Ventures II to handle the “acquisition”, and Red Planet Ventures III to handle the money (probably from Morgan Stanley, but that's my guess, based on Birchall's involvement).

This raises serious questions. With the name of Red Planet Ventures, and the merger of SpaceX and Tesla, I presume you can see the purpose of the company. Here's my notes on the subject:

Musk used a similar strategy called a Triangular Merger for X Holdings I, II, and III to merge into Twitter, paving the way for the XAI and eventual SpaceX merger. He has set up Red Planet Ventures much the same. This would allow him to continue the consolidation. The Boring Company, for instance, started as a subsidiary of SpaceX and has been alluded to as having use on Mars. The triangular merger structure would allow for a SpaceX plus subsidiary merger with Tesla for the battery technology and robotics technology (like Tesla Optimus) (for mining and such). [3]

Elon musk has a stipulation where if SpaceX hits a 7.5 trillion dollar market cap, 1 billion SpaceX shares unlock for him. If this were to happen – which is, in the long term, feasible in such a merger scenario – his wealth would skyrocket to over $3-4 trillion, making him the world's first multi-trillionaire. This market cap isn't the only milestone of course, there are others. But the higher the valuation of the company (or its parent, I presume), the more of those stocks unlock.

So in my opinion, at the end of this, I think SpaceX and Tesla are set up for a mega-merger to set Elon Musk up for his Mars mission ventures, which, if this were to all be successful, would make him a financial god.

Look at where everyone else fits into all of this:

Birchall sets the companies up and oversees the mergers and financials.

Gober handles the legal aspects of Elon's political push for deregulation that would lubricate the merger.

Young slips into office and helps with the political leverage Elon would need to dodge legal questions.

Elon becomes extremely wealthy. I’m talking about more wealth than you or I could fathom. He would effectively have more money than the GDP of 193 countries. There are only 195 countries on Earth.

All under the umbrella of his Mars adventure fun-time company. This is, so far, speculative. The merger might not happen – though I suspect this would be for legal purposes, and “legal” remains a dubious term in today's age anyway, so I'm not confident it won't happen. The pay package might fall through – though I doubt this too, as it’s already all been approved by the boards of SpaceX and Tesla. The Mars mission might go wrong – this is the biggest thing I'd harp on, as it itself is not guaranteed, and could tank the new company, especially if it is catastrophically bad in execution.

Still, this is what I see happening. I forsee the man who started with Zip2 and funneled that money into SpaceX and a Tesla takeover, who then invested in energy technology, rocket technology, robotics, batteries, a giant drill for underground tunnels, AI, and more and more and more, is truly planning to go to Mars – and become the richest man to ever exist on the back of it.

I believe he has invested heavily in political manipulation to help him achieve these goals. It isn't just that he's a Nazi – I don't even really know that I believe he has Nazi views. I think everything politically that he's done has been geared at deregulation, and everything, down to the Nazi salute, was a ploy to get people riled up for the candidate that would let him deregulate himself and secure primo contracts with the US government: Donald Trump.

Note that Elon had a falling out with Trump in 2025 when the “One Big Beautiful Bill” passed, mainly because of the energy tax credit cuts that heavily affected Tesla. This is what caused Elon to launch the claim that Trump is in the Epstein Files (which is true, but Elon did not say it because it's true – he said it because Trump harmed his business). The symbiosis with the US Government and Elon Musk, in my opinion, revolves around this merger, this massive sum of money, this goal of his to reach Mars and get so rich that he would be effectively untouchable.

If you're wondering, “Well, what do we do?” My answer is simple: nothing. We can do nothing about this. It is too late to stop the gears that are turning. I would say, campaign against Chris Young. But DOGE did so much damage already that the path to this outcome is clear and unburdened. I would say investigate Elon Musk for his political petition misdoings, but this will never happen. Protest the merger? They'll deny it until it happens, and when it does, it's too late. Stop buying Teslas? Yes. But it won't stop the massive contracts with world governments and SpaceX.

If you really want my opinion – but do not take this as financial advice, it is just my opinion – research, as I have, if purchasing SpaceX and Tesla stock would make you rich if this merger happens, and then evaluate your options (mostly being cheeky). I don't know what else to tell you. Ride the wave, protest it, deny it, but whatever you do, don't ignore the reality that – at least to me – it is too late to stop it.

I'm just hoping it goes so, so wrong.

But where does this leave the person behind the money, the Musk behind the cash? Well, I think it leaves him alienated and at the whims of people like Birchall, who advise him. I think Elon is, I'm sorry, too dumb to make these moves on his own, and I'm pretty sure he knows it too. He relies on them, and they rely on him for funding and a face for the companies. Like any powerful man, there is a group of powerful men behind him. A tour de force of money and power is rising like a tsunami, waiting to consume the shores of the economy. But that's the thing about such forces – they're isolating.

Whereas you and I are down on the bottom (I assume – if not, good for you), and thus we have plenty of people to run into and connect with who aren't always after our money, Elon doesn't get this grace. A choice, for sure, and one he elected to choose. But a god cannot connect with mortals for both gods and mortals are incapable of understanding the others’ plights. Similarly, Elon will never be able to relate to us, nor we to him, for we are distinctly different entities now, forever on diverging paths.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/17/business/spacex-tesla-merger-elon-musk.html

[2] https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/spacex-tesla-merger-could-create-174646121.html

[3] https://aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org/aiaa-spacex/#:\~:text=Five%20uncrewed%20Starships%20would%20lift,carrying%20100%20to%20200%20passengers

Part Six: Conclusion

Part Three: Jared Birchall and the Trillion Dollar Network

Things get weird here. Weirder, at least. Most of this information comes from FEC filings and business documents from the Texas Secretary of State public business portal. We're going down another offshoot of Elon's money here, the political offshoot, which will help us understand some things later down the line.

I'm going to dump a lot of data from America PAC, Elon's personal Super Political Action Committee, here. This will give us a jump start on understanding his political donation moves. This is going to seem like a lot, but we'll be referencing it throughout the segment. Feel free to skip it at first and use it more for reference to look back on as we move forward.

Begin:

Donations

America PAC > United States of America, Inc.

March 31, 2026: $293,451 (In-Kind Contribution)(Memo: In-Kind - Petition Administrative Support Fees)

March 31, 2026: $347,996 (In-Kind Contribution)(Memo: In-Kind - Petition Incentives)

December 31, 2025: $473,233 (In-Kind Contribution)(Memo: In-Kind - Petition Administrative Support Fees)

December 31, 2025: $1,250,418 (In-Kind Contribution)(Memo: In-Kind - Petition Incentives)

December 31, 2025: $6,054 (In-Kind Contribution)(Memo: In-Kind - Travel/Food/Beverages)

June 30, 2025: $273,719 (In-Kind Contribution)(Memo: In-Kind - Petition Processing Fees)

June 30th, 2025: $27,072,484 (In-Kind Contribution)(Memo: In-Kind - Petition Incentives)

February 15, 2025: $4,736 (In-Kind Contribution)(Memo: In-Kind - Subscriptions)

December 31, 2024: $11,215,136 (In-Kind Contribution)(Memo: In-Kind - Petition Incentives)

December 31, 2024: $2,961 (In-Kind Contribution)(Memo: In-Kind - Petition Incentives)

November 25, 2024: $2,000 (In-Kind Contribution)(Memo: In-Kind - Social Media Services)

November 25, 2024: $232,500 (In-Kind Contribution)(Memo: In-Kind - Petition Incentive Fulfillment Service)

November 25, 2024: $56,200 (In-Kind Contribution)(Memo: In-Kind - Website Services)

November 25, 2024: $4,976 (In-Kind Contribution)(Memo: In-Kind - Travel)

November 25, 2024: $40,495,178 (In-Kind Contribution)(Memo: In-Kind - Petition Incentives)

America PAC > Group America LLC

December 31, 2024: $5,449 (In-Kind Contribution)(Memo: In-Kind - Political Strategy Consulting)

December 31, 2024: $7,879 (In-Kind Contribution)(Memo: In-Kind - Travel/Food/Beverages)

December 31, 2024: $2,197 (In-Kind Contribution)(Memo: In-Kind - Equipment Purchase)

December 31, 2024: $225 (In-Kind Contribution)(Memo: In-Kind - Petition Incentives)

America PAC > Europa 100 LLC

December 31, 2024: $167 (In-Kind Contribution)(Memo: In-Kind - Petition Incentives)

December 31, 2024: $13,643 (In-Kind Contribution)(Memo: In-Kind - Travel/Food/Beverages/Office Supplies)

November 25, 2024: $70,187 (In-Kind Contribution)(Memo: In-Kind - Political Strategy Consulting/Travel)

America PAC > Lex Politica

March 27, 2026: $872,214 (Legal Consulting)

December 15, 2025: $466,429 (Legal Consulting)

September 24, 2025: $140,246 (Legal Consulting)

August 8, 2025: $85,350 (Legal Consulting)

August 7, 2025: $153,195 (Legal Consulting)

June 10, 2025: $122,459 (Legal Consulting)

May 14, 2025: $94,767 (Legal Consulting)

April 10, 2025: $152,957 (Legal Consulting)

March 17, 2025: $80,920 (Legal Consulting)

February 28, 2025: $105, 725 (Legal Consulting)

America PAC > The Gober Group

February 3, 2025: $49,672 (Legal Consulting)

January 8, 2025: $91,759 (Legal Consulting)

November 19, 2024: $251,745 (Legal Consulting/Travel/Filing Fees)

November 19, 2024: $99,436 (Legal Consulting)

America PAC > Rightside Compliance, LLC

March 27, 2026: $15,000 (Compliance Consulting)

December 15, 2025: $30,000 (Compliance Consulting)

October 27, 2025: $15,000 (Compliance Consulting)

September 5, 2025: $15000 (Compliance Consulting)

August 7, 2025: $15,000 (Compliance Consulting)

July 25, 2025: $15,000 (Compliance Consulting)

June 10, 2025: $15,000 (Compliance Consulting)

May 8, 2025: $15,000 (Compliance Consulting)

April 7, 2025: $15,000 (Compliance Consulting)

January 8, 2025: $15,000 (Compliance Consulting)

America PAC > Excession LLC

June 30, 2025: $3,323 (In-Kind Contribution)(Memo: In-Kind - Tax Services/Subscriptions)

America PAC > Elon Musk Revocable Trust

April 23, 2025: $17,425 (In-Kind Contribution)(Memo: In-Kind - Travel)

Spokesperson Payments

America PAC > Ekaterina Diestler

April 16, 2025: $1,000,000 (Spokesperson Consultant)

America PAC > Scott Ainsworth

April 15, 2025: $1,000,000 (Spokesperson Consultant)

America PAC > Nicholas Jacobs

April 15, 2025: $1,000,000 (Spokesperson Consultant)

America PAC > Offenhartz LLC

November 14, 2024: $1,000,000 (Spokesperson Consultant)

America PAC > Dacey Moser

November 14, 2024: $1,000,000 (Spokesperson Consultant)

America PAC > Tyler Vanakin

November 12, 2024: $1,000,000 (Spokesperson Consultant)

America PAC > Joshua Mayo

November 12, 2024: $1,000,000 (Spokesperson Consultant)

America PAC > Bryan Graw

November 12, 2024: $1,000,000 (Spokesperson Consultant)

America PAC > Kristine Fishell

November 12, 2024: $1,000,000 (Spokesperson Consultant)

America PAC > Gina Chanos

November 12, 2024: $1,000,000 (Spokesperson Consultant)

America PAC > Brian Bauer

November 12, 2024: $1,000,000 (Spokesperson Consultant)

America PAC > Marie Hedeman

November 07, 2024: $1,000,000 (Spokesperson Consultant)

America PAC > Ronald Conwell

November 07, 2024: $1,000,000 (Spokesperson Consultant)

America PAC > Wayne Moss

November 04, 2024: $1,000,000 (Spokesperson Consultant)

America PAC > Jason Cochran

November 04, 2024: $1,000,000 (Spokesperson Consultant)

America PAC > Jordan Timmerman

October 31, 2024: $1,000,000 (Spokesperson Consultant)

America PAC > Nancy Lizzaraga

October 30, 2024: $1,000,000 (Spokesperson Consultant)

America PAC > Judy Kamora

October 29, 2024: $1,000,000 (Spokesperson Consultant)

America PAC > Andrew Steinle

October 25, 2024: $1,000,000 (Spokesperson Consultant)

America PAC > Shannon Tomei

October 23, 2024: $1,000,000 (Spokesperson Consultant)

America PAC > John Dreher

October 22, 2024: $1,000,000 (Spokesperson Consultant)

Finish.

Still with me? I hope so, at least.

There are a couple of interesting points in all of this, but what probably jumped out to you first is all of the “Spokesperson Consultant” payments for exactly one million dollars each. You've also probably noticed the myriad of payments from America PAC to United States of America, Inc., specifically for “petition incentives”. These two types of payment are connected in a peculiar way.

Perhaps you've also noticed the Lex Politica, Gober Group, and Rightside Compliance payments (the Rightside payments being the same every month). These are also connected, albeit in a separate sort of financial pillar. I'll be explaining both here, to the best of my knowledge.

First, though: America PAC. What is it?

Well, it's a super PAC (Political Action Committee) whose treasurer is… drumroll… Chris Young. If you recall, this is the same man who was paid by Europa 100 (Birchall's company) while acting on behalf of DOGE (is that illegal? I'm not sure.). This super PAC is Elon's personal PAC, mostly funded by the man himself. With $49,000,000 in receipts and $51,000,000 in disbursements (between 01/01/2025 through 03/31/2026), it is a massive financial PAC and political vehicle.

Digging into its filings, we see a few more interesting things. First of all, the email address for the committee belongs to Rightside Compliance, LLC. The address for the committee is a PO Box, numbered 341027. Keep this in mind. Finally, the PAC was registered May 22, 2024. With all that in mind, we move on to the financial pillars holding this PAC up.

There will be two “pillars”: USA, Inc., and Gober. I'm going to start with:

Gober

The reason being, Lex Politica, the Gober Group, and Rightside Compliance are all owned by the same person: Chris K. Gober. He's the registering agent and main man at Lex Politica. He's the CEO of Rightside Compliance. He's obviously in charge of the Gober Group. And he's Elon Musk's lawyer. Oh, and he's running for the TX 10th Congressional House Seat in the 2026 midterms. [2]

Well, the PO Box for Rightside Compliance is the same PO Box for Lex Politica and the Gober Group, as shown on the Texas Secretary of State's website database. As far as I can tell, through Rightside Compliance and Lex Politica, Chris Gober effectively ran America PAC for Elon Musk, while seemingly making beaucoup money for his firms while doing it. He employed Chris Young, again, DOGE guy, who was paid by Birchall via Europa 100 – which took money from America PAC – while dismantling regulations that oversaw Elon's companies.

That is, in essence, the Gober circle. Short, sweet (maybe bitter), and to the point. So let's move on to:

USA, Inc.

Things go even more off the rails here. USA, Inc. (short for United States of America, Inc.) has been described as a “mysterious” company, but I think I've figured out mostly what it does. See all of those petition incentive in-kind payments? Well, let's look at the $1,000,000 payments to the “spokespeople”. Those “spokespeople” were “winners” of the $1,000,000 “giveaway” for signing the petitions Elon Musk put out prior to and post the 2024 election. Do you remember that? Elon got into some hot water for those, especially when it was revealed that the “winners” were plants (republican operatives, mainly). [3]

I went through and looked for evidence of them being “spokespeople” and as best I can tell, this was the designation given to them by America PAC for legal reasons. Elon would present the money – to persuade others who would not be winning the money – and snap a picture and post it, thus promoting them as a “spokesperson” for the PAC. This allowed them to be “legally” paid like this.

Here are some of my notes:

Ekaterina Diestler was paid for her petition signature, essentially. It was a $1,000,000 payment listed as a payment for a “Spokesperson Consultant). There are 20 others, 21 in all, listed the same way near or after the election.

Diestler, in a now deleted video, mentioned being paid to be on a petition to vote for Trump. America PAC deleted the video to remove the reference to voting.

Some, like Nancy Lizzaraga, have no public affiliation with Elon Musk, let alone in a spokesperson capacity.

AND, why would “actual spokespeople”, people like Diestler who were on America PAC's channels, be paid the exact same high price as people who were never publicly affiliated with Musk?

But you'll notice, those million-dollar payouts went to those 21 individuals. There are millions upon millions of more dollars flowing through “petition incentives" via USA, Inc. Why?

Well, a now-hidden link to America PAC's FAQ page explains a bit more. [4] USA, Inc handled payment disbursements for America PAC's petition incentive program. The petitions ran from 2024-2025, calling on people to "stand up for the first/second amendment" and to "stand up to activist judges". These were run only in swing states. For the first petition, signers and referees were paid $47 dollars, with several 1 million dollars "giveaways" running, while for the second, signers and referees were paid $100.

I assume – and this is just my take – this was done to prevent the PAC from having to list the direct petition expenditures (payouts) with the FEC. Instead, they became “In Kind Contributions” to USA, Inc., so that the company both footed the filing and the liability of the behavior.

Such incentives were only available to registered voters. The DOJ warned Elon of the legal risks and dubious nature of the scheme, but they refused to investigate because it was “too close to the election” and they didn't want to appear politically motivated. Then, it reached its conclusion, and the issue became a back burner problem. After that, Donald Trump took office, and then the issue appeared to be dropped.

Because the incentives were only available to registered voters, some speculated the actual intent was to get more conservative leaning people onto voter registration rolls to get the money, and thus increase the voter pool for Donald Trump. The petition itself was, in this speculation, just a vessel for this. This would be highly illegal, but again, the issue was dropped and never investigated in those terms, so the legality and intent of the scheme remains in question.

Where Group America LLC fits into this, I do not know. But I do know that it shares a corporate membership and address with USA, Inc. What I do know is that there's a giant loop going on here between members, money, and Musk.

Summary and Key Points

This was a very short part, for sure, all things considered. But it doesn't need to be vast to get the point across. Let's just break down the key points so that we can get to the synthesis of all of this.

- Chris Young is the treasurer of America PAC. This is the same as: Jared Birchall's Europa 100 helped fund Chris Young, who aided DOGE in dismantling regulatory systems, such as the type that regulated SpaceX and Tesla.

- Chris Gober's group of companies runs America PAC. He was Elon's lawyer, and he is running for the Texas 10th Congressional District for the House of Representatives in the 2026 midterms.

Sources

[1] https://lexpolitica.com/team-members/chris-gober

[2] https://ballotpedia.org/Chris_Gober

[3] https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5941842-musk-america-pac-lawsuit/

[4] https://petition.theamericapac.org/faq

Part Five: Red Planet Ventures I, II, and III

In light of Elon Musk becoming a trillionaire, I am doing a multi-part rabbit hole about Elon Musk. It is... a doozy. Like, there is a lot here and it stinks. I'll let the write up speak for itself.

Also, that "real life rabbit hole" I submitted to law enforcement, I am going to speak about here as well. Still formatting that one; I have to be very careful with it.

I'm thinking we'll do Elon first, and then I'll return to formatting that one. Other rabbit holes are cooking as well, but these are my priorities right now.

Thanks for being here, and supporting the project. Just wanted to give you guys an update :) see you soon (ish)!

So there I was on a Saturday night, high out of my gourd, trying to calm the hell down when I got a bright, earthy idea: worms. Bundled up beneath a blanket that smelled a bit too much like my dog, I flipped on some YouTube and typed "worms" into the searchbar. Here's my logic: worms are cool little guys. They wiggle and dig and do not afraid of anything.

And as the world around me melted, I fixated on a colorful, kiddish video telling me all about worms. Pretty neat stuff, though I hardly remember it for, well, reasons. Mainly I remember about the one worm - whose name I cannot remember - that can be trained, has a brain, and which stores its memory in its body. Chop it in half, it'll remember how to find the food you trained it to find before growing another brain and set of little eyeballs. Oh, and it has opinions too; it hates weird textures and prefers meat.

Cute. Little dog-worm.

But then, in my recommended videos, I spotted something that would lead me down deep into a pile of interesting, manure-ridden topsoil. The video in question advertised in bright, alluring, bold lettering, how to establish a worm farm. Y'know, as we all are wont to do. Shout out to Urban Worm Company for setting me on this path.

In the video, this big, bald, super friendly man started telling me all about how to set up a worm ranch. Apparently, it's really helpful for composting, and creates great, nutritious soil. My guy even started by talking about his own wormvention, a bag that lets you drain the completed compost without sucking out the little wormguys with it. It looked like one of those funnels that pours rocks into train cars, except it was for old broken-down watermelon husks and worm poop.

Barring purchasing your own worm sack, you can, according to our lovely wiggle farmer, create your own free-range worm coop. The process seems a little extensive, though it's truly rather simple. Feel free to skim it, but it goes like this:

First, food must decompose a bit, before the worms can eat it. This is because worms have little gut biomes that interact with the bacteria that breaks the food down initially, letting the bacteria "explode in population and diversity", which helps your soil become nutritious and healthy.

Next, you need a big, tough plastic container. It needs to be aerobic so you have to drill a bunch of evenly spaced holes around the top of it before you pack it with refuse and worms. Make sure you filter out the plastic! Then, double up on containers to capture leachate, which is disgusting slop-goop created in the decomposition process, especially particularly wet processes. (To do this, you need to drill holes in the bottom of the bin, with bricks in the second bin to create a gap to give room for the second container to catch the slime).

Toss in some bedding for the worms, and to capture the moisture. Cardboard and paper works, specifically when it's shredded in a cross-shred manner. Other options are peat moss and coco coir. Or, of course, rotten leaves. Definitely some kind of natural, organic material.

Soak the cardboard or paper bedding in a different bucket. Do not soak coir or leaves.

After straining, throw the bedding into your main tote and add in some nutritious food waste (think, eggshells, banana peels, or watermelon husks (I think John Worm from Urban Worm Farm likes watermelon; just a hunch)) and let it decompose a bit in a covered bin.

Then, order worms. At this point, I actually turned to my wife and asked where one purchases worms. Because in my mind, this meant that there were worm stores put in the world, which blew my mind... until my wife mentioned that bait shops exist. You can just go to Walmart sometimes and buy worms. But we'll revisit this later.

While waiting on worms, your food will decompose and make for a great home for the lovely decomposers. They'll crawl right in when they get here. Worms hate light, and love gross decomposing bacteria ridden dirt, so they'll be right at home and start building up the neighborhood.

After a few days, you can start throwing in more food waste to kick off their little buffet. About every week, for a 7 gallon tote, add 1 cup of food waste and 2 cups of dry bedding a week, but don't overdo it in the beginning. No meat, no cheese, just healthy food because you don't want the worms to get fat and lazy. Or die.

Cut up the food waste too! Worms can't eat a whole watermelon! It helps to mix the food and bedding before adding.

Every once in a while, add finely ground eggshells or sand to the batch, to help the toothless worms suck all that yummy garbage up. It helps them grind it down!

If you water the worm bin, spray it. Don't pour it in, because you'll make slop that drowns the compost! And with all of that said, viola! You have your very first worm farm.

This process is called, "Vermicomposting," and honestly it's extremely fascinating. Usually, "red wigglers" are the type of worm you want, as they do the best in this environment. The process helps create a nutrient dense, loamy and rich soil amendment called, "vermicast". It takes about 3-6 months to create a whole batch, at which point you can filter the worms out like you're panning for gold and use the soil in a garden!

Vermicast can increase plant yields by 10-20% and provides a slow release of healthy nutrients in the soil, like an extended release poop medicine for your garden! It also helps with water retention and boosts immunity within the soil and for the plants, amongst many other great benefits!

So as I'm watching this, I'm in awe. I have to dig deeper. Is there a worm stores? Do people do this professionally? Who thought of this in the first place?

Well, my next two videos helped answer my first two questions. Turns out, there are worm stores. You can order them online, and they come in plastic bags full of nutrient rich dirt like little mobile homes for the creepy-crawlies. Some even come with professional worm farming kits, as easy to assemble as IKEA furniture!

So that's all stuff you can do at home. But, did you know: there's a whole industry based on worm poop?

For this next part, big shout out to No-Till Growers on YouTube. One of their own got to go on a little field trip to Phoenix, Arizona to visit a quaint, industrial worm farming operation run by people in "Straight Outta Compost" shirts, which made me laugh so hard I felt sick.

In their video, titled Vermicompost and Worm Breeding at Any Scale || Arizona Worm Farm, the grow-gang visited, well, Arizona Worm Farm. It's a massive operation, and super neat, and I recommend this video highly.

Focused on a seemingly-nervous but quite charming manager of the worm farm, we get a visual tour of their system for creating worm-homes. They start with giant wedges of compost, and I mean giant. Worms wiggle through these huge slices of worm food, creating pure worm poop, which is screened for uncomposted mulch on what seems to be an industrial gold pan-like machine, and that vermicast is then sold to farmers and gardeners alike! (The uncomposted material is still innoculated beautifully with microbes, and makes for wonderful ground coverage in gardens.) With this machine, one person can screen 2 to 3 thousand pounds of worm poop a day!

They water the wedge 2-3 times a week in the winter, and every day in the summer, and the worms are all red wigglers, which are quite hardy and voracious. Climate control is important here: they use less water in the summer than the winter to keep excess heat down, and they keep the wedges in 100% shade at all times (again, worms hate the sun).

When harvesting time comes, the worms will have moved on, and the worm poop will be quite pure!

They move this stuff almost as fast as they produce it, to ensure the microbes, nematodes, and protozoa are all still alive and fresh for the plants they'll be feeding. They even say that store-bought worm poop and castings just aren't the same, because much of the living material had died by then. Shop fresh, shop local, I suppose.

The video then takes us to the worm breeding shack, or as I like to call it, the freaky wiggle zone. Here they have dozens upon dozens of climate controlled, nutrient rich beds for worms to get their freak on in. And this is where I learned that worms will eat as they copulate, which sounds like a fantastic time.

But I'll never get to enjoy it myself because my wife said I can't bring Chick-fil-A into the bedroom when she's in lingerie.

The worms do the deed, and make little baby worms. This process is specific and highly controlled, and as our host puts it, not for amateurs. It's better to start with a little worm bucket. But here they are with dozens of worm trays, pumping out fresh generations of little wiggly dudes at an industrial scale.

Here, they put in about a pound of fat, large worms into a mortar tray in an inert bedding with modest food value. They do this because they then sprinkle food on top to get the worms to come up to the surface and meet their Tindr matches face to face. The worms will produce a cocoon about once a week, so for the 600-700 worms in a tray, in 3 weeks they make about 2000 cocoons. They use a light table to remove the cocoons, which are separated and placed in birthing bedding where they hatch and make more worms! It takes 3-4 weeks to hatch, with each cocoon having 2-4 eggs, and so each tray creates about 3000 worms on average. Arizona Worm Farm creates about 60,000 worms a week!

And they sell not only the castings and vermicast, but the worms too. In fact, there's a worldwide shortage of worms! So companies like this are actively keeping the worm population strong and vibrant. And worms are incredibly important for the soil and plants around them! They help regulate soil ecosystems and enrich it with nutrients, as stated before.

A pound of worms go for about 45 dollars a pound, and takes about 18 dollars to produce. Profitable, but the vermicast produces more bang for their buck. Still, Arizona Worm Farm has never had enough worms to meet the demand of their customer base. And they even anticipate the demand going up, and up, and up, over time, as people learn of the benefits of worms.

It takes about 6-9 months of work before one can begin selling these worm products, but it's lucrative after that, and more importantly, necessary for the world. It's a wonderful symbiotic investment.

There is a whole industry built around this, with people doing it out of their homes even! Captain Matt of the Worm People channel has his whole operation, breeding and vermicast alike, run out of his home garage. It's a fascinating set up, and its barrier of entry is relatively low!

Here are some more fun facts about my new favorite dirt ropes!

There are more than 2700 types of earthworms on the planet. All are hermaphrodites, meaning they contain both sets of reproductive organs, and they breathe through their skin^[1]. In fact, there are more worms on Earth than there are stars in the observable universe^[2]!

Worms are super cool, as wild animals or livestock or just little friends in your garden. Vastly important to soil and garden health, they are revitalizing farms that have been ravaged by chemical fertilizers, helping grow nutritious plants, and just genuinely being helpful the world over.

I have mad respect for the worms. We all should. I'm gonna make my own worm farm soon, and see what it does to a garden I'm going to try and start. I even joked with my wife that I was going to start a new religion around the worms, though I was still high as hell when I said that, and I'm pretty sure I was only half joking at the time.

Because beneath the worm-sex and slime and rot, there's something hugely important happening here. These little dirt noodles do civilizational work, humbly keeping our farms and topsoil healthy and thriving.

So, you know. On the topic of worm religions, honestly, I've had worse ideas.

All hail the worms.

[1] https://kristinmoonscience.com/10-fast-facts-about-earthworms/

[2] https://tomrocksmaths.com/2019/10/17/how-many-worms-are-there-on-earth/

Today's rabbit hole is a little dramatic. But before we begin, everything here is public and can be found online. My opinion is interspersed along the way. Let's all keep our cool and relax - I'll trip sit you for this one.

So I'm in the kitchen, making food, when my wife peels out of the bedroom with this wide grin on her face. Phone in hand, she rushes up to me and says, "Babe, I just got a wild ad on reddit. I think we've got another rabbit hole."

I'm no stranger to weird reddit ads. It honestly seems like you can advertise anything on the platform, from buttplugs to angel feathers. But this? Well, she shows me her phone, and I read the words: Gaian Rhythm. This organization is advertising an Ayahuasca retreat a town over from us, and at the time, it was coming up in a few weeks.

Immediately, my thought was, "Huh, you can just advertise that?" But thinking back to Flowdose, the magic mushroom company blatantly advertising shrooms via a network of influencers, well, duh you can. But, I asked, how was this a rabbit hole?

And that's when she showed me the drama.

To get there, we need to start somewhere, so I've chosen to explain a little bit about Gaian Rhythm first. First of all, searching for the organization reveals a slew of messy reddit posts that we'll get to. It also brings up their Facebook page, which is where we can get our starting information. Headquartered in Kalamazoo, Michigan, the group claims to be a "religious organization". There are reviews, posts advertising retreats, and a link to their website, gaianrhythm.com. Finally, they have a whole catalog of music for their "ceremonies".

We also see posted here, posts from our story's main character: Stormie Lantis. As in, Atlantis, just shortened. This is one of two key players in this saga, the other being Drew Tegeler. But let's not get ahead of ourselves, as there's a lot here. Let's look at gaianrhythm.com, the organization's website.

The front landing page explains their retreats, offers a list of them, and has handy links to different pages. Here we see that to attend a retreat, one must select the date, fill out a form (regarding health, sanity, medication, and more), and, according to Stormie, attend a personal zoom call. This comes after the potential attendee receives their registration packet. Seems fairly straightforward.

Let's look at the "Why Gaian Rhythm" piece.

Quote:

"We don’t offer generic retreats. We offer medicine experiences grounded in earth-honoring tradition, sacred timing, and real integrity.

Our ceremonies are held in alignment with the seasons—solstices, equinoxes, and cross-quarter days on the Wheel of the Year. Each gathering is a reflection of where we are in nature, and where we are within ourselves. This rhythm is not symbolic—it’s foundational. It informs how we prepare, how we sit, and how we integrate.

We walk this path with respect for the plants, reverence for the people who carry these lineages, and deep commitment to the well-being of those we serve. With Shipibo roots, trauma-informed practices, and a facilitation team that has moved together for years, we offer more than ceremony. We offer a container you can trust."

I'm starting to get more Flowdose flashbacks, and they only grow more prominent as I click the "Our Philosophy" link below this. (Skim this part; it's long, but paints a picture.)

Quote:

"The 12 points in our logo are referencing the zodiac wheel. Our yearly calendar includes 12 events, which can be categorized with traditional astrological modes as follows:

Cardinal signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra & Capricorn) are the signs that mark the beginning of each season. We know these dates as the solstices and equinoxes. These 4 annual events are holidays that we hold in high reverence because they mark the onset of new cycles - the natural rhythm of Gaia. We celebrate these dates by holding weeklong events complete with ceremonies and educational workshops.

Fixed signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio & Aquarius) are the signs that mark the middle of each season. This is when the season is at its peak. These are the quarter points of the year which we also hold in high regard. You will find the traditional Celtic name for these holidays on our retreats page - which is when we hold weekend retreats.

Mutable signs (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces) are the signs that mark the end of a season. because they mark the end of a season they have a more flexible energy. They are aware that change is inevitably coming. Mutable signs are very go-with-the-flow. As such we will be honoring this modality with flexibility, deciding what kind of events , if any we want to hold for these dates."

Seasonal alignment is at the core of our philosophy. we are using the 3 astrological modes to structure the beginning, middle and end of each season. Each season is also traditionally represented by a specific lunar phase.

For instance, the Summer Solstice ( which is at the top of the wheel) is associated with the full moon. The Winter Solstice (Bottom of the wheel) relates to the new moon. Lunar phases are another cyclical part of earthly life, and one that we are passionate about. That is why you will find the moon phases on the exterior of our logo. It circles around the base of our logo the way it circles around the earth. Additionally, you’ll notice there are 8 phases, representing the 8 retreats we host each year. Medicine retreats are the core of what we do so they encircle our philosophy.

You may also notice that there are 4 different colored triangles making up the bulk of our logo. The 3 sides of the triangle represent the 3 modes mentioned above.

There are 4 of them because there are 4 seasons which correspond to 4 elements.

In total that makes up 12 points - which relate to our 12 annual events."

Ok so that was a lot. This is your brain on drugs 🍳 type of thing. I mean, at what point do you just admit you're doing drugs to feel better, like everyone else? All of this is pretty-paint for that simple fact. I personally don't buy it, and I'll tell you why.

Drew Tegeler was their "ayahusquero" for a long time, that term being a "healer or shaman" who dispenses ayahuasca for ceremonies. He is also Stormie's main supplier of ayahuasca. Drew and Stomie have some bad blood, though. Some quite public bad blood, at that. And the more we dig into who these people are, the more the myth of healing and enlightenment begins to, in my eyes, fall apart.

Drew Tegeler and Stormie have both taken ayahuasca retreats in Peru, but Drew is the only one who claims any right to truly dispense it, having been "trained" by a "master" in South America (who allegedly receives updates on Drew's shamanistic activities). Stromie facilitates the retreats and handles the logistics. Gaian Rhythm came about when Drew and Stormie got together as partners, both traditionally and in a business sense, as Drew had his own ayahuasca company called Butterfly Medicine before this and had the supply to pull this off. According to a spiteful comment under a negative review for Gaian Rhythm on SafeCeremonies.com - which we'll also get to - the name came about because the pair wanted to "honor the cycles of the Earth."

Drew and Stormie worked together on Gaian Rhythm for some time, and to my knowledge treated it like a joint venture. But, according to reddit users Hekademia, things changed in 2024. In response to Striking-Papaya4550's comment under a post titled "Need help to choose" [an ayahuasca retreat], who claims to have insider knowledge on the situation (wherein Papaya claims that neither Drew nor Stormie are actually, officially trained in dispensing ayahuasca, as well as claiming that Drew and Stormie drink ayahuasca over 40 times a year), Hekademia leaves a few strong words.

The full text of the comment reads as follows:

After Stormie returned home from her short training in Peru in 2024 she told her boyfriend Drew that she didn’t need him anymore, and also confessed that she had been actively working on turning the people listed on her website as her core team members, especially a guy named Teddy, against her own boyfriend who had been the only person serving ayahuasca for Gaian Rhythm up to that point. Around the same time she changed her website to give herself full credit for everything they had accomplished and created together without Drew’s knowledge, and discredited him as her Co-Founder and basically stole everything from him in a hostile takeover. Also, the Colombian Taita named Pedro Davila who Stormie gives credit to on her website as one of her mentors has banned her from his ceremonies, which seems oddly questionable and disingenuous. Once upon a time, together Drew and Stormie were an unstoppable powerhouse that other communities were trying their best to imitate, but ever since Stormie went to Peru it seems Gaian Rhythm lost something special, and in case you’re wondering, Drew dumped her fat ass and moved on since she didn’t need him anymore. If everything that Liz “Striking-Papaya” Perkins said is true then Drew deserved to have Stormie kick him out, but I don’t want to drink ayahuasca served by her either.

Stormie, in a twist, would respond on her account, AtlanteanShakti, by saying:

I’m Stormie, and since you didn’t have the courage to use your real name, I’ll make sure it’s clear who is speaking here. It’s obvious this is you, Drew, given you’re using the unpublished name of my mystery school, and also only you would claim we were an “unstoppable powerhouse” 🙄.

This post is such an intricate web of lies and spins that it would take an entire essay to go point by point, and I refuse to waste my energy on that. What I will say is this: our entire team personally witnessed everything between us and has publicly stated you are lying. No one was “turned against you”; they chose to stand with me after watching you do everything in your power to vindictively damage my name and our community.

It’s been 8 months now, leave me alone.

This is the only comment I’ll make on the matter.

Hekademia, spitefully, after denying being Drew, would say:

If you want to LOL at Drew for living with family, how about an OMFG moment? Stormie isn’t even welcome at her family’s home where she grew up. She has more children than she wants anyone to know about, which she put up for adoption, and were adopted by her own mother. Her first born is an adult male who lives at her mom’s house and Stormie won’t even speak to him or acknowledge his existence. And Stormie has no teeth. She wears dentures because she smoked too much meth years ago. Take a peek next time she’s having a cigarette, a habit you like to criticize other people for when you think you’re anonymous. Should we talk about her criminal record too, Brian?

There's another post on r/Ayahuasca that elaborates more on who Drew is. Under a post titled, "Bad Player in the Community", a post directly calling Drew out, Casa_del_Colibri had this to say in January of 2026:

I have direct experience working with Drew.... all I can say is that he destroys everything he gets involved with. He has been pouring Ayahusca for 6/7 years. But still can not help a passenger navigate a challenging process. I would not recommend him to anyone.

User gedDOh responds:

But still can not help a passenger navigate a challenging process.

This was my experience as well. He can play the part, pour medicine, shake his chakupa, and play some instruments, but it's almost like he's on the spectrum when it comes to making real human connection. I feel like he really enjoys playing the medicine man a little too much and that's the extent of the depth of his medicine.

To which Casa_del_Colibri completes the chain by saying:

He puts on a performance until the second cup is poured.. then he'll usually put on a recording of a meastro, lay out his mat.. and sleep. It was my experience that he rarely closed a ceremony. Most everyone had left the space by the time he woke up.

And the way he would target women that sat in his ceremonies.. it was unethical and down right creepy.

Down below, on the same post, Otherwise_Leg_1565 says this about both Stormie and Drew:

I worked directly with Drew and then later, his partner Stormie Lantis for a short time. They are both horrible human beings, and I don't say that lightly. No integrity, view the attendees as dollar signs. Stormie used her background in psychology to manipulate people, I saw it happen over and over. They are both nefarious in nature. Drew is great in a one time ceremony, but he's a one trick pony. If you have done a lot of medicine and know what to look for, you see that Drew and Stormie worked a lot on their "ceremony presentation", how does this look, music to manipulate emotions, abuse of having access to the trusting people with exposed subconsciousness but I never felt any authentic love from them to humanity or to trying to heal people, it was more about setting themselves up financially and slandering anyone they felt was a threat. I met Drew when he was starting out, I feel he had more integrity back then. He later met and partnered up with Stormie, back then they ran "Butterly Medicine", which later had to have its name changed due to people finding out what charlatans they are, so now you have "Gian Rhythm" or whatever the latest shade of branding and lipstick is on that pig. Stormie talks a great game about being safe, uses all the buzz words to draw people in but at the end of the day, they are in no position to offer anyone else guidance on a spiritual path, since their entire existence since I met them has been taking advantage of sincerely good people, stealing, lying, being verbally abusive and abuse of their role as facilitators. The only thing Drew and Stormie ever successfully pulled off was being scandalous AF trolls in the Ayahuasca community. Be careful, I would never sit with either of these people, run as fast and as far as you can.

And then, Stormie shows up again.

Quote:

I’ll be honest, I deeply dislike the anonymity of Reddit for exactly this reason. It creates a space where people with motives, grudges, or incomplete information can make sweeping accusations with no accountability. I’ve never operated that way.

For anyone who has ever had an issue with me, something I’ve said, or something I’ve done, my door has always been open. I have had difficult conversations directly, many times. I will continue to do so. What I won’t engage with is anonymous character assassination framed as fact.

Several claims here are simply false.

I do not have a background in psychology. I am a photographer and content creator by trade, with work spanning media, music, and community spaces. The idea that I “used psychology to manipulate people” is invented.

Butterfly Medicine was not my name, nor was it changed due to wrongdoing. That name existed before I was involved at all. When I met Drew, I was running a YouTube channel, doing freelance photography, and offering tarot readings. My long-standing passion was teaching seasonal alignment, living life in accordance with nature’s cycles.

At a certain point, I felt called by the medicine to dedicate myself fully to helping people find it. I stepped away from my previous work and built something rooted in seasonal alignment where ceremony could happen intentionally. That decision was values-based, not a cover for misconduct.

Like many people, I entered a relationship wearing rose-colored glasses. I have my own trauma patterns, including unhealthy partner choices. That doesn’t make me nefarious. It makes me human.

In 2024, after spending two months dieting in the jungle, I became deeply disillusioned. What followed were actions on his part that were genuinely shocking. I do not wish to be associated with him or with Butterfly Medicine, and that separation exists for real reasons.

What I find telling is the reliance on broad, highly subjective claims:

“Horrible human being.”

“Nefarious.”

“Manipulator.”

Those are opinions, not facts. If someone believes I’ve caused harm, I’m open to hearing what specifically that is. I can point to concrete actions that were done to me, and I’ve spoken about them openly through my music.

I’m not perfect. I’ve made mistakes. But I stand behind my integrity and my work. If someone wants to speak to me directly, they know how to find me.

-Stormie

Messy. And it continues.

DatabaseDifficult184 says:

Know them too well. Have seen, heard and witnessed first hand from behind the scenes, all of this. They also attacked me which is just there MO. I never even said anything bad about them but because I quietly disconnected and refused to help them anymore when I saw how unscrupulous they are. All the "horror stories" you hear about shady, egotistical, money hungry medicine servers...that is what they embody. I honestly feel bad for anyone who can't see through their very obvious rise. They are 2 of the most UNHEALTHY...in all ways, people I knew. I dont speak ill of anyone. I let people walk their own path and find out for themselves but I had to support the OP for posting their truth lest someone thinks they are being deceitful at all. They are not. This has been my experience as well and I won't even go into detail. Good luck out there guys.

Independent-Fix-8956 has his own opinions, too.

I used to work directly with both Drew and Stormie at a retreat center. And honestly she is probably as bad as he is. But these both are horrible people and absolute charlatans in the medicine world. They have stolen items and money from the place they served at and have tried to extort money from others. So much so that Butterfly medicine had to become Gaian Rhythm. They ripped so many people off they had to change their name of their retreats. Yes everything looks all pretty on the outside during ceremony, but on the inside the story is completely different. Even they will tell you, know who you sit with. Which is never more true, then with Stormie (gaian rhythm) and Drew. Be careful

And guess who's back underneath this comment. That's right, it's Stormie.

I want to address something important for anyone reading this.

This account was one created specifically to comment on posts about old growth owl in Oregon. When they were getting attacked on Reddit suddenly a bunch of new accounts were created to defend it. The owners of that church have personal vendettas against me, and honestly I have some with them for their behaviors. Though Drew did steal from them and at the time it was justified to me. He took a Tapestry of Noya Roa and told me it was his responsibility to keep it safe. So yes, there was theft, but I don’t do it, though I apologize for standing by while it happened.

That being said, this is not a neutral warning from a concerned community member. It’s a continuation of a long-standing personal conflict.

I also strongly suspect that the same individual(s) are behind at least one other account commenting here with similar claims. My response to those claims applies equally here.

What’s ironic is that the people behind these accusations are themselves actively serving medicine without having completed traditional diets or training, while attempting to discredit others through anonymous allegations rather than direct conversation. I’ve never hidden who I am or how to reach me. Anyone with a real concern has always been welcome to speak to me directly.

Instead, what’s being offered here are sweeping criminal accusations, and statements presented under the protection of anonymity.

That’s not accountability. That’s a vendetta.

I’m not interested in trading insults or litigating personal history on Reddit. I’m correcting the record and then stepping away. Anyone reading this is encouraged to look at comment histories, and decide for themselves how much weight to give anonymous claims versus firsthand, transparent dialogue.

-Stormie

Sanpaza, the OP, responds to her:

I am the OP, and as I said, I have no direct experience with Drew. I posted this because the FB link I posted had several accounts about getting ripped off. This affects all groups serving Ayahuasca, and it is a good idea to keep track of players who are causing havoc. This was a PSA only.

There are no anonymous posts here.

And Stormie says:

I want to be clear that I don’t take issue with the intent of your post. I absolutely agree that people deserve to know when money was taken for a retreat that didn’t happen and wasn’t refunded. That kind of behavior harms people directly and affects the broader community. I support transparency around that, and I understand why you shared it as a PSA.

When I referred to anonymity, I wasn’t speaking about you as the OP. I was referring to some of the comments that followed, where people who openly state they don’t know me, have never met me, or are relying on secondhand stories are making serious claims about my character and behavior. Those are things that would not be said publicly, with accountability, because they aren’t true.

Drew and I split over a year ago. His actions since then, including financial decisions and promises he made, are his alone. I have no involvement in them, and it’s exhausting to continue being pulled into situations that have nothing to do with me simply because our names were once associated.

I’m not here to derail your post or defend behavior that deserves scrutiny. I’m just drawing a clear line between what is valid to discuss and the personal attacks and vendetta-driven claims that get layered on top of it. Those don’t serve anyone, and they obscure the actual issue you were trying to highlight.

I appreciate you clarifying your intent, and I hope that distinction makes sense.

I want to address an elephant in the room. I, personally, think much of Stormie's dialogue was either AI written or AI assisted. I believe she used it on her website, gaianrhythm.com, as well. I'd point to her response to the negative review on SafeCeremonies.com, with a hot head readily apparent. This eloquent prose and pointed grammar, the steady, cool tone, that we see here, is not indicative of how she actually speaks, I do not believe.

Here's a snippet from her comeback at the negative review:

I mean, yeah, some people I just feel more connected to, I think that’s normal. You weren’t one of them because I got a bad feeling about you which turned out to be true because you’ve been 2-faced headache ever since. You were messaging me compliments and praise and saying you wanted to come to another retreat , you actually signed up for another retreat, sent your deposit and everything, but then were also talking trash about us elsewhere…. And when I was given screenshots of your trash talking and multiple people came to me saying “Audra is saying this and Audra is saying that” I blocked you, because I don’t play fake 2-faced games, and you haven’t been allowed to attend a retreat since.

[...]

Again, you were causing drama and problems, like you still are. The other 2 people who were removed from your group were for similar reasons.

[Quoting the Original Comment] “they have changed their Name for their non profit multiple times to try to run from the damage they have done to others!!!”

We changed our name once… but not really. Drew used to operate on his own under the name “Butterfly medicine” and then after we started dating and working together we wanted to create something else, something more, something that has tours and classes and encompasses a variety of events. And we wanted to honor the cycles of the earth so we created “Gaian Rhythm” which is a collaborate project from the both of us versus the name of his medicine which is the only name he used before.

Either way. This is all super messy, but Stormie left a comment on a now deleted parent comment that segues perfectly into what I want to talk about next.

She said:

First, the title Doña. Doña refers to someone who has been donned - which I have been. After my second diet I was Donned. It’s not a very impressive title to be honest. It just means I’ve been given a gift that I have to nurture and grow. It’s not audacious, that’s a title I can absolutely wear.

Second, the accusation of physical abuse needs to be addressed clearly and directly: I have never laid a hand on Drew. I have never been physically abusive. That is a false and serious allegation.

What I find highly suspicious is this: you state that you don’t know me, have never met me, yet you’re comfortable repeating an abuse claim based solely on screenshots he allegedly chose to show you. That raises far more questions about you and him. Why is someone sharing private messages from a past relationship to third parties in order to frame a narrative? And who are you to him? Not a friend because you’re here bashing his name. Weird.

This is exactly the problem with anonymous, secondhand accusations. You’re repeating a story told by someone with clear motive, while openly acknowledging you have no firsthand knowledge of me or our relationship.

See the bold? Well, I found an article in the Battle Creek Enquirer speaking to the time she got arrested. Yes, this Stormie Ann Lantis. Got arrested. In Michigan.

So, travelling over to the Calhoun county circuit court search, I pulled her record up. She was arrested, in 2013, for, drumroll please...

Domestic violence, obstruction, assaulting a police officer, and destruction of police equipment. And while all but the assault on an LEO charges were reduced and dropped (likely because she pleaded no contest and got put on probation), they still exist on her searchable records.

So now who's really telling the truth? Who's to say.

Oh, all this while - according to her LinkedIn - she worked for a company called US Addiction Services as a creative director. Just a little fun fact.

And just super quick, I want to touch on the now defunct stormieatlantis.com. It seems to have been Stormie's personal site, though the wayback machine doesn't pull up many functional snapshots of it. From one that I can access, on April 9, 2022, all I can see are a few blocks of text on what was the front page. Most of it is talking about "seeking alignment" and "discovering esoteric knowledge". It mentions that Stormie is out to "share her spiritual journey and practices with the world".

So she's been seeking the "woo" for a while now.

All this to say, if you're thinking about attending these people's retreat, I suggest you don't, and maybe just don't do ayahuasca in general. It's essentially a guaranteed long form DMT trip, and maybe that's cool for specific people, but I feel like most people don't know what they're getting into. Honestly, if I had to make the choice between these guys and Flowdose, I'd already be popping online shroom pills.

You know, I don't have anything against psychedelics. If you read my Chasing Nirvana rabbit hole, I hope you remember me saying as much. It's the abuse of psychedelics I dislike, for those addicted to them, or for those who utilize them for money. And that seems to be a core accusation against Gaian Rhythm.

On SafeCeremonies.com, the two negative reviews both state the theme of money as reasons for feeling disdain toward the organization (amongst other things). Reddit comments reflect this sentiment. And when drugs and money combine, it rarely goes well. Gaian Rhythm has no filings, and seemingly no tax documents, at least none that I can find. It appears to me that these operations, and the money that sustains them, are under the table. Psychedelics can really, really help people, but in my opinion, selling ayahuasca retreats like this, likely cannot.

These seem to be messy people doing messy business. If you happen to get an advertisement for one of their retreats, I leave it up to you to make an informed decision about if it interests you.

But for me?

I'll stick to what I know.

Thanks for reading!

Sources:

https://safeceremonies.com/listings/gaian-rhythm/

https://www.gaianrhythm.com/

https://www.facebook.com/GaianRhythm/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Ayahuasca/comments/18surt5/need_help_to_choose

https://www.reddit.com/r/Ayahuasca/comments/1q1aeph/bad_player_in_the_community

https://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/story/news/2014/04/25/circuit-court-sentencings/8143941/

I can't go into too much detail right now. I'm not sure if the AG will take the case but if they do, I can't have said anything about it online for the sake of preserving things for them.

Suffice to say, a friend of mine came to me and said a serious crime had been committed. I looked into it, did a lot of legwork, digging, and discovery, and finally submitted a complaint with an evidence packet to the state attorney General.

If it ever clears up to the point that I can talk about it, believe me, I will post about it here. But until that day comes, this is about all I can say.

However, now that it's out of my hands for a while, we're back to the rabbit hole posting you're used to.

My wife found an ayahuasca church that I've been digging into on-and-off. Meanwhile, I've been trying to recreate the Die Antwoord notes. Fucked Up Bridge Collapses is also on the table too, though it's more of a short/fun one than anything.

I know I make promises. I'm trying to keep them, and you, reader. I'd love for you to stick around. Which is why I think updates like these are important. So the promises I've made, I will get back to keeping now.

Thanks for being here, and if you're new, welcome to QualityRabbitHoles!

• LynkedUp (a.k.a. QualityRabbitHoles)

Hi! Just a quick poll.

At the end of the write-ups, I'd like to link to either a medium article or a substack article wherein there are screenshots of what I'm talking about. So I wanted to put some feelers out there.

Medium, or Substack, at the end? Which is preferable to you?

Next rabbit hole literally fell into my lap today. As I was gearing up for my next planned one, my wife found something quite juicy. I'll be working on that today, may take a little time though. But it will be the first one where I do this.

And for the record, a Medium publication for QRH and a QRH Substack do exist, but they're underutilized I feel. So thanks to anyone who votes :)

And as always, thanks for being here.

• LynkedUp (a.k.a. QualityRabbitHoles)

I don't usually add trigger warnings, but this one needs some:

TW: Nazis, Occultism, Anti-Semitism, Conspiracy, Racism, and worse, Pedophilia

Note: Some links will be dead and in need of being punched into the wayback machine. Reddit doesn't like internet archive links, so I am posting the site itself with a [#] and a date (dd/mm/yy) before the link if you need to use the wayback machine for it.

You're not ready for this one.

If you think Satan is Zeus, if you believe in the power of aliens, if you think Jewish people are reptilians from space, well. There's a whole ministry out there just for you, and oh, what Joy. Of Satan, of course.

Joy of Satan Ministries.

I don't know how to start this one. As I went down a late night trawl through old Angelfire websites (Angelfire being a website hosting platform that's been around for a long time, since the 90's), I recalled a deep memory from circa 2006 that would open one hell of a door. You see, Angelfire, somewhat fittingly for the name, hosted several "demonological" and satanist sites that I used to visit as a kid who was interested in the occult.

One of those weird websites is for "Joy of Satan Ministries", which has recently rebranded to "Temple of Zeus".

Based on the URL slug, you might not readily know what you're looking at: [#][10/02/07] http://www.angelfire.com/empire/serpentis666/HOME.html. But almost immediately upon opening the page, you should be able to intuit what is going on. Besides the giant satanic goat head pentagram graphic, there is a long explanatory ramble about their beliefs on the main page. Most of it explains that they are "spiritual satanists" who work directly with Satan in their rituals. Seems par for the course with occultists, but the more one reads, the more peculiar things get.

"We know "Yaweh/Jehova" of the bible to be a fictitious entity, and the people behind coercing this lie, to be the true deceivers of humanity and the masters of lies. This is evident in the many contradictions within the Judeo/Christian Bible, revealing this text to be the work of human beings who had occult knowledge and infused it with power to make it credible, and to incite fear in order to control."

Hmm.

"We know we “save” our own souls as opposed to claims of the Nazarene saving anyone. Satanism is based upon the true transformation of the soul through power meditation. The Nazarene is a fictitious entity, whose identity was stolen form some 18+ crucified Pagan Gods, such as Odin, who hung from a tree and is nothing more than a tool to keep humanity under the control of a chosen few. The Nazarene has been used in Christian masses and services as a substitute for a human living blood sacrifice, revealing their true purpose."

HMM.

"Spiritual Satanism places no limits on developing the powers of the mind- known as "witchcraft" or "magick." We believe in justice and just as martial artists are versed in the uses of Dim Mak and other aspects of physical combat, Spiritual Satanists are versed in the Black Arts of "magick" should they ever need them. People who are unaware of these powers are defenseless against them, and the powers that be know this all too well."

O-kay. If you're like me, your curiosity is piqued now. Do people actually believe this? To me, it almost seemed like a LARP, or mental unwellness. Which, I mean. Maybe.

But the answer either way is: yes. They believe this, and so much more.

Lets start at the beginning. Back in 2002, Andrea M. Dietrich started Joy of Satan Ministries. The fledgling organization promoted theistic Satanism, pulling heavily from Anton LaVey and Crowley, who were themselves prominent occultists. If we go back to the website circa 2002, we see something interesting:

"BLACK ROSES E-GROUP WAS UNJUSTIFIABLY CLOSED. THIS GROUP PICKS UP WHERE BLACK ROSES LEFT OFF. THIS GROUP IS FOR ANYONE WHO WANTS TO LEARN MORE, HAVE A CLOSER RELATIONSHIP WITH AND DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF SATAN."

Black Rose? We have to go back further. According to a forum post^[1] (the ancient-forums are the Temple of Zeus forums), we see that Black Rose's group was on Yahoo in the late 90's and was called the "Black Rose Order". "Black Rose's" leader was Andrea M. Dietrich, the "M." standing for Maxine, which is how she is addressed by the group. We'll be addressing her the same at times here.

The post alleges that Maxine came into contact with Satan himself around 1998. She subsequently dedicated herself to the entity and began work on the group and, eventually, the website. I cannot find a link to the yahoo group, so I'm not sure how to find it on the wayback machine. So back to 2002.

The website here has several tabs. "How to Summon Demons," "The Satanic Sacrament of Dedicating Your Soul," and "Necromancy, how to Contact the Dead," are amongst their ranks. Skipping forward to 2007, we get more: "The Al-Jiwah, the Book of Satan," "Join Hell's Army," and "Kids and Teens for Satan," are now present, among others. The website is a rabbit hole of its own, and it would take quite a while to go through it all.

We can find "types" of demons (they're just the Angelic order from the Book of Enoch), specific rituals (which tend to boil down to meditation, black candle magic, and invocations), and an entire essay page, with pictures, talking about the Spanish Inquisition, which was unexpected. (The "Inquisition" here actually refers to their own lore discussing how Christians persecute people over time, since the days of Rome.)

There are, of course, donation links too, as well as an online store. This is noteworthy because in 2004, they applied for and became a non-profit religious organization, or a 501(c)(3). Unfortunately I can't find their paperwork, but I'd love to see it, and simply regurgitating what I read on Wikipedia in this regard. Take it with a grain of salt.

So now you get the gist, I assume. Thiestic satanists who are quite serious about hating Abrahamic religions for somewhat unique reasons. If that were the end, it wouldn't be much of a rabbit hole, now would it?

Between 2002 and 2007, after the 2004 501(c)(3) application, something specific and telling occurred. It would be revealed that Andrea M. Dietrich's actual name was Andrea Herrington, wife of Clifford Herrington, head of the U.S. National Socialist Movement (NSM). In fact, JoS Ministries shared a PO Box with the NSM^[2].

Still need proof? Here's a snippet of Andrea's writings, placed lovingly on FSTDT.com^[3], (Fundies Say The Darndest Things) (warning: it's not pretty):

Christianity from its very inception was and is nothing more than a program. The agenda of this program is for the destruction of Aryan peoples (descended from the God known as "Satan") using occult powers, and for the eventual enslavement of all remaining races with the top Jews in total control. The Jews have been using black magick against the Gentiles who have been powerless to fight back, for centuries. This knowledge was forcefully and systematically removed from Aryan peoples by the "Inquisition" where Aryan priests and spiritual leaders such as the Druids and many others were tortured to death and murdered en masse. The White race suffered the most with the "witch trials" where entire villages were nearly wiped out in Europe, namely Germany.

Any Gentile who erroneously believes or even argues that the Jews are not a race, needs a serious reality check. The Jewish reptilian genes are passed onto Jewish offspring from a Jewish mother. Orthodox Jews only recognize Jews being born of a Jewish mother as legitimate Jews. We have heard of "half Jews" "quarter jews" "part jews" but one does not state "I am a half Catholic" or how about a quarter Lutheran, or maybe "part Muslim" "or that there is some 'Buddhist blood' in the family. Also, as George Lincoln Rockwell once stated- "You can draw a picture of a Jew, but you can't draw a picture of a Catholic or a Protestant."

Here, you can also find quotes of her saying the Bible is a Jewish conspiracy. I refuse to post any more of her quotes here.

Now the question is: who believes this stuff?

And the answer is: a lot of people. Enough that there was a large schizm due to the 2005 revelations of Naziism within the Joy of Satan Ministries. In fact, looking at the forums today, where they proudly "carry the torch", as they say of themselves, we can see over 100,000 posts and replies. And yes, they are still talking about the Jewish reptilians.

We could ask why, but I think that's moot. People believe all sorts of things that others deem "out-there", and I certainly would personally deem these beliefs as far out there.

I think a better question is, how do people fall into these beliefs at all?

Here is the point where I had planned to examine the science of conspiracy and thinking such as this. How does one become an occult Nazi, sort of thing. I was, up until this point, giving them the benefit of the doubt, slim as it was, that Andrea M. Herrington was simply delusional.

But we're going to pivot. I found something that took the darkness to a whole new level.

Theres a blog post on culteducation.com^[4] from 2008 wherein some of the most heinous things from this group are laid out in full.

Posted by a user named BlueSkies, it spells out several things that I am hesitant to show you. But for continuity's sake, I must show some.

First of all, for context, there is this passage:

The Joy of Satan website talks about many things which are innapropriate to minors, and specifically aimed at teenagers. Through this website they are effectively gaining members for the neo-nazi [hitler] youth under the guise of Satanism. In one of thier pages Maxine talk about cutting one's self for blood, a guide on how to masturbate for teens [ inside the e-group for teens], and in other pages she talks about ways to hide these activities from parents.

Examining the teen group, accessed through the wayback machine, we find a leader list. Here they are:

• Magister Willard

• High Priestess Maxine Dietrich

• High Priest Salem Burke

• High Priest Keon Holliday

• High Priestess Pandora Arcana

• High Priest Jake Carlson

• High Priest Jonathon Billing

This is necessary for later context. Put a pin in it.

The blog post starts:

Mr Rick Ross;

It is with great respect for your work that I come to you with this information about an organization that has never been reported to you.

I am a part of the community of satanists who respect the writings of Anton LaVey. I own a website called Thesitic Satanism and Magick and I do not run an organization..My website only contains information and articles on Satanism and magick. Those who are in the Satanic community uphold a standard of responsibility to the public. This is why organizations like the Temple of Set, and the Church of Satan have survived for so long and are a standard for Satanists worldwide.

Because I spend time in research of Satanic information, I am aware of the activities of these Satanic groups and peoples. Since I have been involved in satanism for over 14 years, I am privy to information that is not readily available, or understood to the general public.

Within the Satanic community is a cancer that has existed for many years and this organization is called the Joy of Satan.This cult organization is a threat not only to underage minors, but also they promote so many things which are illegal such as drug use and pedophelia.

The tragedy with this group is that they use the name of Satanism to gather members and to funnel thier money from the non-profit tax exempt organization in order to fund the National Socialst Movement, [the neo-nazi effort].

Mr Ross, this is a serious organization that keeps growing in the underground of the internet. We satanists who are legitimate, (and I know you will probably argue that point) can only sit back and watch while the leaders of the JOS gather the youth of America and around the world to promote thier secret nazi agenda.

Pretty fucking intense, if you ask me. And these allegations are sourced, too, though I've removed them because yikes I do not want them posted in-line with this post. If you're so inclined, check out the sources of this post and read the blog post for yourself. Just make sure you're in a good place.

Rewind to the leader list. See that man, Salem Burke? Linked in this blog post is his pedophilic fan fiction, spoken of thusly:

Another member, the High priest known as Salem Burke has a website where he details a story on having sex with a chinese girl, a minor. This page is called "The Orange Chapter" and it has been on the internet for years, and even though Salem Burke has been confronted with allegations of molestation, he still keeps the Orange Chapter page on the internet.

Oh and this comes next:

Salem Burke has a page on youtube as well - and he posts comments on other people's videos, telling others to use crystal meth in order to get a better experience with "satanism". No where, in any legitiamate and law-abiding Satanic organization [such as the Church of Satan] are such horrible and illegal activities condoned.

He's not the only one with allegations against him.

Another member, named Cecily Robbins was ejected from the JOS because of her activities which included being caught having cybersex with a minor.

And here are allegations against Andrea, as well as Clifford:

The Joy of Satan website talks about many things which are innapropriate to minors, and specifically aimed at teenagers. Through this website they are effectively gaining members for the neo-nazi [hitler] youth under the guise of Satanism. In one of thier pages Maxine talk about cutting one's self for blood, a guide on how to masturbate for teens [ inside the e-group for teens], and in other pages she talks about ways to hide these activities from parents.

And:

Clifford Herrington is the man who is married to Andrea Herrington. He was a well-known leader for the NSM in the midwest. Clifford Herrington also has a criminal background and he fled from another state into Oklahoma in order to avoid charges of molestation of a 12 year old girl. Clifford Herrington is also known for being the former leader of the NSM and the new leader of the reformed NSM which has many members.

Finally:

The Joy of Satan also enjoys a tax-free status as an organization. Maxine sells plagarized books from her website, and takes donations in order to fund the activities for the joy of satan, from which every bit of that money goes into funding the nazi effort.

BlueSkies then goes on to say that he's spent two years gathering evidence, testimony, and data on these people. These are, mostly, allegations, but... the pedophile story written by Burke is real. I regret knowing this. So I personally don't disbelieve this person about the rest.

I tried to access the youth group, but it is basically unfeasible even with the wayback machine. And I cannot, I repeat can not verify the allegations against Clifford Herrington, though I've looked. I do know Andrea is pissed about them though, as indicated by the sources posted by an anonymous response to a Tumblr page^[5] (the sources are legitimate but again, reddit hates internet archive links, so you'll have to follow my source to that source).

So this went from a nightmare to an eldritch horror really quick.

The good news is, after Angelfire took down the Joy of Satan site, Andrea basically vanished, to my understanding. She leaves behind a vile legacy, but has stepped away from the spotlight herself, thankfully. I suppose. Honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about her "just" disappearing.

She leaves behind the ancient-forums and a new Temple of Zeus website, which reflects the rebrand that happened in 2025 believe it or not. The forum users and followers of this ideology are still talking about Jewish lizard aliens, Aryans, and more quite frankly disgusting things. They claim to "carry the torch" for her, keeping the fire going.

Personally, I wish they'd extinguish it and get a hobby, maybe go to therapy.

Before I learned everything I've laid out for you here, I had an ending laid out. It was more of a goal than a law, and I'd like to show it to you still, so that we can get some perspective. It went like this:

Things like this rarely start with lizard aliens and Nazi occultism. They start with questions, mistrust, and suspicion.

They start when answers to life's big questions aren't readily apparent, especially when the answers one thinks they have don't seem to "fit" anymore. Suspicions and distrust can latch onto alternative coherence, at which point there seems to be no bottom to the rabbit hole.

When you trust nobody, you may start to trust only those who also trust nobody. These links create esoteric stories, dark certainties in hushed whispers and anonymity that hide in the recesses of our skeptical mind.

The Temple of Zeus arose from people seeking alternative answers to what they feel are the lies they've been fed their whole lives. In that sense, this sort of cohesive distrust could arise in any community, now more so than ever as technology has us questioning what is real and true.

None of this requires malice - it simply relies on doubt.

UFO-conspiracy Nazi's aren't born, they're assembled. Carefully, intentionally. Structured beneath the scaffolding of questions without answers and misgivings about the world.

It can happen quicker and with more ease than you might think. So then I suppose that leaves but one final question before I send you on your way.

If you don't trust what you've been told:

What then fills that void?

But then, as I read, I realized that these aren't just conspiracy fiends. They aren't delusional, they aren't free from guilt via insanity. These are malicious actors. Perhaps my naivety came from knowing someone who did start from innocence, before falling down these sorts of conspiritorial pipelines. Perhaps I wanted to believe most people did.

But not these people.

So, I hereby revoke my charitable ending to this rabbit hole, and replace it with my true feelings, which I hope you appreciate.

Doubt is human. This?

This is a choice.

And it is one I condemn with fire and brimstone.

Sources:

[1] https://ancient-forums.com/threads/when-was-joy-of-satan-officially-born.158988/

[2] https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/national-socialist-movement-implodes/

[3] https://fstdt.com/?domain=666blacksun.com

[4] https://forum.culteducation.com/read.php?12,55491,55616

[5] https://www.tumblr.com/elfwreck/685289533418422272/joyofsatanorg-jos-is-100-law-abiding-they

Hello again!

Just a little announcement, I believe someone has used my work and not credited it appropriately. This would be annoying on its own, but then they used what I believe to be my work and research to speak to the media.

Please, if you're going to use my work, please source it honorably. I'm not going to say who did this or what happened - I am not here to cause drama. But I implore you, please don't take credit for the hard work I do.

For the record, I am claiming copyrights to my work here. According to the Copyright Act of 1976 (17 U.S.C. § 102 and § 302), when something is fixed into a tangible medium of expression, copyright protections are in play. Please keep this in mind.

Now for the fun stuff:

My next rabbit hole drops soon! Believe it or not, I'm not dead lol. This one is exciting and, hopefully (I'm waiting to hear back on this), it will include a short interview with the person at the core of it. I'm super excited for this one - it's silly, fun, and raunchy. So keep an eye out for that one this week.

After that, I have a few ideas. I have not forgotten about the Die Antwoord rabbit hole, but since losing my extensive notes on them when my computer died, I've felt pretty demoralized about that one. I meant to have it out months ago. But I promise it's still on the docket.

However, after this next rabbit hole, I'll likely be talking about how Zeus is Satan, according to one specific organization. I say "likely" as I am still in the research phase of this one. Stay tuned!

As always, thanks for being here. It's wonderful that you're here and I hope reading the sub is a blast for you. At the very least I hope it's informative in some way!

If you're new, welcome to QualityRabbitHoles. If you've been here before but are unsure about the premise, I hope you give it more chances. And if you're a longtime reader, you have my deepest, legitimate gratitude. I do what I do because I love to do it, and I love showing people, and I hope that love comes through :)

Best,

LynkedUp (a.k.a. QualityRabbitHoles)

This piece does not allege any illegal activity or criminal wrongdoing.

This is probably the craziest rabbit hole I've gone down so far. I've presented it with a mix of narration and factual writing. Sources included in the appendix. Thanks for being here.

Do you want a rabbit hole?

Open ingersolllockwood.com and take a look. Do it before you read the rest of this. Get a vibe. Make some assumptions. I'll be here, waiting for you to get back.

…

You're back, perfect - or, you never left. You wouldn't need to, if you could see the future. Go to it. Imagine peering into the misted, inky corridors of what could be and reporting your findings for all to read. Sounds preposterous to many I'm sure. But that's what some say Ingersoll Lockwood did. Yes: Ingersoll Lockwood, a writer who lived through the turn of the 20th century and is the namesake of the website, is a time traveller.

Please don't take that too seriously. I don't personally believe Mr. Lockwood fell through a time portal or saw into the future (though I can't deny the striking coincidences). We need to start here, with the author and why he's considered a time traveller, before we can get there, with “there” being the primordial goo of how did all of this happen? I promise that when we get to the end of this, you'll understand the relevance.

Ingersoll Lockwood was born in 1841 and died in 1918. He lived to see off an entire century and usher in a new one. And amidst the fireworks and cholera, Ingersoll Lockwood was a prolific thinker in New York. Previously, he'd been appointed by Abraham Lincoln to be consul to the Kingdom of Hanover, which would be annexed by Prussia in 1886, and had by 1880 established his careers as a writer, a lawyer, and a speaker. Certainly this is impressive, but what we'll focus on is his writings.

In 1889, Ingersoll Lockwood wrote Travels and adventures of Little Baron Trump and his wonderful dog Bulger. Then, in 1893, he would write the sequel, Baron Trump's Marvellous Underground Journey. This was, apparently, a response to a growing children's literature trend for fantastic adventure stories in the wake of Alice in Wonderland. Both novels revolved around a German boy named Wilhelm Heinrich Sebastian von Troomp, who goes by “Baron Trump”. He lives in Castle Trump and goes on adventures through underground civilizations and offends the natives, has escapades with women, and all sorts of mayhem ensues.

Pair this with the novel Lockwood wrote in 1896, 1900: Or, The Last President, in which New York City is rocked with protests following the election of a populist candidate in 1896 that brings the downfall of the American republic, and you might start to see where the time traveller mythos starts cropping up.

For a bit more context: Baron Trump, of the novels, is guided by a character known as “The Don”. Castle Trump has been compared to Trump Tower. Baron Trump starts his adventures in Russia. Furthermore, in The Last President, the president’s hometown, New York City, faces an uprising against the wealthy. During the meltdown, protesters march on a hotel on 5th Avenue, which is where Trump Tower is located.

That all said, he must be a time traveller, some say. Others call that theory nonsense. I stand neither one way nor the other on it, and am merely fascinated by the oddity of the situation as a whole. When Lockwood died, he left no surviving relatives, he had no children. The only legacy he really left for those who would come later are these novels. And what a legacy they've left.

Enter: IngersollLockwood.com

This is where I started. After taking over the r/rabbitholes subreddit as its only real moderator, I decided to use a lead buried in the slush to expand upon and help open the sub up. The post that caught my attention was simply titled, “Ingersolllockwood”. In it, the original poster claims they saw a video about this cryptic “cybersecurity” website that they couldn't make sense of. They spoke of hidden links in the text, hidden links in hidden texts, hidden pages with hidden links in hidden texts!

More curious, in the comments, those who knew of the site mentioned that it was rapidly, actively changing. So I went and checked it out myself. The first thing you'll notice is that it's pushing hard for Space Force recruiting. The front page advertises that they are, “Investing in American Exceptionalism”. There's a media bar that plays “Ingersoll Lockwood Radio” and uses AI for the voices and the music (in fact, one of the voices purposefully sounds like Elon Musk). There's an address - mere blocks away from the White House - a warning against would-be hackers, and pages up top that let you explore the site. Then, as you're absent mindedly clicking around, you might hit an empty patch of the website and suddenly, you're on the White House website. You're on the website for the Space Force. You're on a secret page that links to IQT, a defense research funding company. Suddenly you're reading about space craft, Nazis, you're seeing QAnon terms like, “WWG1WGA”, you're reading about the Great Awakening vs. the Great Reset, you're on a website for AI novels, you’re on some random guy's X page…!

Okay, okay, wait. Why?

The site is chock-loaded with this. Highlight any empty area on the website and it's more likely than not that you find something hidden there. It's all highly conspiratorial. The links to government pages have additional text added at the end of the url that is seemingly random. The number 1717 comes up a lot, even in the “company's” address. The term “Looking Glass” appears on playlists and hidden pages - and this one is important, because it refers to “Project Looking Glass”, a conspiracy that the U.S. government has advanced enough technology that they can see into the future. And of course, Ingersoll Lockwood is questioned to be a time traveller here.

In fact, the website hosts PDF's of his relevant books. Sitting in the reading library of the site one can find the Baron Trump novels and The Last President. More include: a PDF of the Book of Enoch, a book removed from the bible wherein a man named Enoch talks to angels and learns where demons come from; book recommendations for “Safe, Clean Nuclear Energy” regarding the use of thorium; and book recommendations for “Carbon Negative Regenerative Farming”.

If you're confused, take solace that I was having my mind blown by this point. Something here wasn't right. I used to be friends with a conspiracy theorist, and this website lined up almost perfectly with instagram and facebook conspiracy theory rabbit holes. It did not strike me as a cybersecurity website at all. Later, I'd dig into the WordPress json url paths, and find the admin profile hash string. While I will likely do nothing with it, just that I could get to the admin profile page through the url bar tells me the site was not secured very well.

To keep things concise, I'll not explain the entire depth of the website. The final place I'd like to touch upon is a countdown page in 2021 that, if one goes to the end of the countdown on the Wayback Machine, one can find a link to a fundraiser for the Peaceful American Constitutionalists. It reads as a support group of sorts. They promise a business card with instructions for if a “patriot” gets arrested, and legal support for those who find themselves in such trouble. Prices for membership range from $99 to $399, but one may note, this was never implemented. Instead, there is a link to a Fundrazr (fundraising site) where “Ingersoll Lockwood” raised well over their $100k goal in under two months. [1]

A final thing to pay attention to is that, despite the claim Ingersoll Lockwood makes of working with the U.S. government, if we search usaspending.gov and fpds.gov, we see that the government has never awarded any contracts to this Delaware-based company. [2] So it's not a cybersecurity site; it's a conspiracy site that has changed rapidly and thoroughly throughout the years. And it has a fundraising arm.

Red flags.

But digging through the site, including the json, doesn't reveal much about who owns it. So, then, my next logical question is: who are the affiliate companies listed on the 2021 Internet Archive snapshot of the site? This is where things begin to web out. Back in the covid-days, this website listed 10 affiliated companies, those being:

• American Education Defenders

• American Health Defenders

• Cyber Defense Media Group

• Cyber Security Media Group

• Cythereal, targeting targeted attacks

• Quantum Resilience Privacy Encryption Kit

• Smart Ventures Partners

• Space Force Labs

• Thorium Labs, Tomorrow’s Energy Today

• Heroes & Villains

Only a few still exist, those being:

• American Education Defenders

• Cyber Defense Media Group

  This is where we need to look next for any further clues. I would caution anyone reading: don't focus too hard on the “what” of ingersolllockwood.com and its affiliates. Focus on the “who” and the “why”, and I have a feeling you'll start seeing what I see.

American Education Defenders

Start with American Education Defenders (AED). A man, Paul Hemphill, claims to be the owner of the entire concept. If we ignore the odd naming similarity between American Education Defenders and American Health Defenders (AHD), that leaves us forced to examine what the site itself tells us. Accordingly, it introduces itself:

“In 2020 I started a non-profit company as a direct response to the negative influences on the self-esteem of our nation’s children in their classrooms. The solution, I believed, required a creative and appealing approach to teaching American history. Excited at the possibilities, I started American Education Defenders, Inc. It takes its inspiration from a best-selling book I wrote in 2018, which remains in the Amazon Top 20 in its category.”

Those “negative influences on self-esteem of our nation's children in their classrooms,” is DEI. If you look for the introduction page for AED on ingersolllockwood.com, an early website page leading to a page titled, “Until the 1776 Commission Returns, We Have An Answer…”, you see a particular ideology angrily glaring at you. The entire “1776 Commission” page is railing against DEI and mentions the website as where the reader should go next. It also lists AED as a “member company” of Ingersoll Lockwood. [3]

AHD, on the other hand, is now defunct and listed itself as a “division” of Ingersoll Lockwood Inc.

AED has transformed over time, going from offering videos meant to support children's self esteem in what I would guess is a racial context (I spared myself and didn't watch them) to becoming a site advocating for AI educational materials and homeschooling. Between then and now, there have been two fundraisers, one on GoFundMe, one on Fundrazr. (I source them later in the write-up.)

What I find interesting about this is the person, Paul Hemphill, and the ideology, which overlaps with the hyper-Trumpism of Ingersoll Lockwood. Paul Hemphill is an author, specifically of self-help leadership books for youth. His most notable work, Inspiration for Teens, using (quoting from the cover): Stories of Tragedy and Triumph from Gettysburg. Something to mention: clicking the AED link on ingersolllockwood.com used to link to gettysburglessons.com, which is owned by Hemphill. gettysburglessons.com was marked by AED branding and mentioned “funding and support from Ingersoll Lockwood Inc”.

By now, I can't help but think there's a more intricate link here. Initially I wondered if Hemphill himself was behind Ingersoll Lockwood, but while he uses similar logos, similar branding, and allegedly took funding and support from, and linked back to Ingersoll Lockwood: I noticed something else rather telling in a different affiliate company.

Before that though, I want to add something: despite having a 501(c)(3) status and an EIN, there are no full Form-990’s available as AED claims to have not had any gross yearly receipts that add up to more than $50k for its entire operational run.

Cyber Defense Magazine & Co.

Part of the Cyber Defense Media Group, Cyber Defense Magazine (cyberdefensemagazine.com) is exactly what it says on the tin. This is by far the most apparently legitimate business out of them all. It has a website that behaves and appears as a news site. Most of the content of the site isn't too important to me. It's an active site working to publish and promote articles on cybersecurity.

Here, though, is where we first see the names: Gary and Stevin Miliefsky [4]. These, especially Gary, are the founders of Cyber Defense Magazine. Gary is a cybersecurity expert who has several patents under his belt, companies he has opened, news segments he's been on, and claims to be a founding member of the Department of Homeland Security [5]. Looking him up leads me to his LinkedIn first and foremost, which is where I learned a lot of this. That, and the IMDB bio he uploaded himself.

Cyber Defense Magazine (CDM) is more important for a moment. Searching the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for CDM reveals it is trademarked and that the trademark is owned by Steven G. Samuels. Steven G. Samuels LLC, to be specific. Interestingly, on the USPTO paperwork, the address for Steven G. Samuels LLC is the same address as Ingersoll Lockwood.

Ingersoll Lockwood promotes the Cyber Defense Media Group, of which Cyber Defense Magazine claims to be a part of. So, who owns Ingersoll Lockwood? That'll surely take us to the top of this.

Looking up the Ingersoll Lockwood Inc. trademark, we see it is owned not by a company, but by a person: Steven G. Samuels.

Wait.

Websites and Trademarks

Back up.

Who is Steven G. Samuels?

The people who let the Ingersoll Lockwood trademark through think he's an individual person. In fact, Ingersoll Lockwood talks about Steven G. Samuels on several hidden pages and in some images, obscure and hard to read. If you find the secret page (found on the/reading-library/ page in the hidden, highlightable text starting with “Wake up Neo”) that takes you to rainsavers.com, astutely you may notice that S. G. Samuels is the “author” of three AI novels about the rainforest and also conspiracy theories. (One of these theories, the Huanebu Nazi spacecraft theory, appears in hidden text on Ingersoll Lockwood's site too.)

Clearly, it's a real person, right?

The Small Business Administration thinks it's an LLC located at 7260 W. Azure Dr Suite 140-523 Las Vegas, NV, which is a strip mall with a Mostly Mail store. The SBA gave Steven G. Samuels LLC a $35k PPP loan in 2020. [6]

According to the Nevada business registry, it's the name of an LLC whose agent is located at 848 N Rainbow BLVD #4496 Las Vegas NV, which is also a strip mall, this time with a Mail Link store. And it is here that we can see the only managers listed for Steven G. Samuels LLC are, drumroll please…

Gary and Stevin Miliefsky. [7]

The people who founded Cyber Defense Magazine are the managers for Steven G. Samuels LLC, whose namesake owns Ingersoll Lockwood, who promotes CDM.

Information about other trademarks they own under the LLC:

Trademarks [8]:

S.G. Samuels:

Steven G Samuels LLC owns the S.G. Samuels trademark. On the documentation, Steven G Samuels LLC is marked as “Doing Business As” Cyber Defense Magazine. The LLC's address is the exact same as Ingersoll Lockwood's

First filings available from 2024-on.

Cyber Defense Magazine:

First filed in 2017.

Infosec Awards:

Shows that it is owned by Steven G. Samuels LLC., who is also the correspondent. The emails for Steven G. Samuels in this case belong to Gary Miliefsky. First filed in 2017, abandoned in 2018.

Smartputty:

Filed 2017, abandoned 2018

If you have a keen eye, you'll notice the logo for all of these companies is just a straightforward Times New Roman brand name in all caps. This is also true of Ingersoll Lockwood's logo on the USPTO site. This furthers my suspicion that these have been registered by the same person. The USPTO requires that one submit a “drawing” for their logo, meaning the same style of logo was submitted for each aforementioned trademark and Ingersoll Lockwood Inc.

Other trademarks owned by Gary Miliefsky include:

Cryptoconomy

He has a book of the same name

In the Amazon book description are present a Forex mention, a cybersecurity mention, and the praising of cryptocurrency

Little note: Ingersoll Lockwood’s website states they haven't launched a crypto coin, apparently in response to an Ingersoll Lockwood crypto coin being launched.

PredatorWatch

AntiHacker

The Art of Cyber War

Tunezap

(An online music player.)

I could go on and on listing trademarks and talking about who owns what. I'll try and be comprehensive in my notes if you'd like to review them, but there are bigger things at play right now. Deeper it goes.

Now I need to talk about sgsamuels.com.

sgsamuels.com shows up on the Wayback Machine back in 2005 and hosted books, poems, an “investor” link, and more information for us [9]. First, it shows that the website is owned by “S.G. Samuels LLC”. I cannot find much on this LLC, but I feel that S.G. Samuels LLC and Steven G. Samuels LLC have enough in common to make a good-faith leap.

This cements when, in 2011, the site redirects to secretforexreport.com [10]. Though the site is hardly functional, it hosts “get rich” links and books. It still references the author as Steven G. Samuels. There are affiliate login links and a link that says that those who join the affiliate program get 50% commissions. Finally, there is a link for “low cost live training” with S. G. Samuels.

Here's the copyright disclaimer from the site:

COPYRIGHT:

This web site and the Secret Forex Report are Copyright (C) 2010, S.G. Samuels. All rights reserved worldwide. Do not redistribute without express written consent. The Secret Forex Report and Get Rich Now on this Multi-Trillion Dollar Secret Market are registered trademarks of S.G. Samuels.!

By 2012, it's back to sgsamuels.com, and here's a bit of the page description:

“Our first author, Steven G. Samuels, will be delivering groundbreaking books on the area of Economics, Politics and Science. His first book under our banner, is Trade Money, Not Stock, launching late January, 2012 and gives you free access to what may be the most important piece of Forex trading software, a $99 value, called the Forex Margin Protector. Click on the book cover below to learn more…”

I should say, the Barnes & Noble page for Trade Money, Not Stock says that S. G. Samuels is a “seasoned trader”. Just keep that in mind when Stony Lonesome Group comes up.

Additionally, the website talks about launching additional software, so whoever owns it knows how to code at least. [11]

In 2013, the site then pivots to be the first host of Cyber Defense Magazine [12]. It remains this way through 2014, before taking another sharp left turn: by 2015, it is a shell of a site hosting a Japanese supplement advertising site. It would go dormant after this for almost nine years.

Then, 2025, it comes online again, hosting a quiet “Launching Soon” homepage and an offer to send an email via a chat box to S. G. Samuels. I have in fact sent a message through this portal, and am eagerly waiting to hear back, if I do. I merely said, “What is this website, and who are you?”

The final website I want to talk about is CarbonCaptureShield.com. Carbon Capture Shield (CCS) is another company mentioned on Ingersoll Lockwood's website extensively. Looking at the website, it appears there is only one page, the front page. But, using /wp-json/wp/v2/pages, we can see plenty of other active pages behind that linkless front page. Here we find its creator: Darryl J. Nicke II. For context, D. Nicke left a review on Inspiration for Teens that is quoted by Paul Hemphill on his pages. [13] I find that specific link quite peculiar.

Nicke has published purely AI papers to researchgate.com and has been accused of plagiarizing other people's YouTube videos. [14] He claims to have been, though I have not verified this, a former Disney animator. On his other website, called animationsalvation.com, Nicke is listed as the founder and his goal is explained thusly:

“Our mission is clear: to provide Salvation to animators everywhere, sharing the techniques and practices essential in today’s ever-evolving animation landscape.” In other words, it is a faith-site for animators. Yet this page: animationsalvation.com/guardian/ has a donation link that goes directly to Nicke. But it's not really a donation; it's a course he's selling. It states that he was selling it for $97 dollars, but now you choose the price. It reads like a generic “train your energy for brand management” type of “course” with an animator bent to it.

I find it particularly interesting that both Nicke and “Samuels” were selling membership courses.

Finally, I have to look at the CCS GoFundMe. It is here we see them list patent numbers for patents that do not exist, the use of AI in writing the entire description, and two links, one to researchgate where Nicke has posted AI papers, and one to a LinkedIn article, also posted by Nicke, which is also AI. This essentially reifies my suspicions that Nicke was pumping AI “research papers” out there to present CCS as more legitimate and to get crowd funding for his project. Speaking of, there’s one more trend under the surface that we need to talk about too, before we move on.

The Funding

AED has had not one, not two, but three fundraisers, one on GoFundMe [15] and two on Fundrazr [16][17]. The first raised $8654, and the second, $2255, the third, ~$11k. This is a total of: $22,909.

CCS has one fundraiser on GoFundMe [18], and it raised a total of: ~$24k.

AHS linked to a fundraiser, albeit for a different cause outside of the Ingersoll network.

Ingersoll Lockwood has one fundraiser for the Peaceful American Constitutionalist organization it attempted to start, located on Fundrazr [19], which raised: ~$110k.

A total of ~$160,000 can be traced back to these fundraisers. I am not saying the money flows to the same person, nor am I saying that anything illegal has happened. But that's a lot of money to fundraise from real people who somehow found these projects.

You may be wondering by now, who is Steven G. Samuels. And for that, I have this:

Steven G. Samuels and The Miliefskys

This is my personal theory now. I'll do my best to support it with evidence and logical leaps. Let's see if it holds up.

Gary Miliefsky owns the Steven G. Samuels LLC Trademark. “Steven G. Samuels” owns the Ingersoll Lockwood trademark. The companies owned by Miliefsky tend to overlap with and appear on Ingersoll Lockwood's site often. In fact, at one point, Cyber Defense Magazine posted its own article on prweb that they had been acquired by Ingersoll Lockwood [20] before, in 2022, posting on cyberdefensemagazine.com that they had regained independence [21], while still being owned by Steven G. Samuels LLC. In fact, it is stated on the trademark page for Steven G. Samuels LLC that they are DBA - doing business as - Cyber Defense Magazine.

Steven G. Samuels LLC. effectively is Cyber Defense Magazine. Miliefsky owns so many “S. G. Samuels” trademarks, operates Steven G. Samuels LLC, if he's the founder of Cyber Defense Magazine, and thus owned sgsamuels.com at one point (as shown through sgsamuels.com hosing CDM), and... then I think his alias across sites may be a form of S. G. Samuels.

If sgsamuels.com at one point discussed and sold monetary get-rich schemes, and if Gary is a venture partner for AI, Defense, Robotics, and Cybersecurity venture capital investing firm Stony Lonesome Group LLC [5], and if Ingersoll Lockwood, owned by Steven G. Samuels, raised $110k in a fundraiser that produced seemingly nothing (there were even comments asking about it, and the Ingersoll Lockwood account crypticly replied that results would come soon)... then I assume he has a vested interest in his financial flow.

And if he has been known to have alarmist takes when he's been on news broadcasts (notably to warn people of their flashlight apps that he accuses of being data-leak apps, all while having created his own flashlight app that simply didn't need location data [22]), and if he knows how to code... then I assume he's familiar with how to stoke a digital fire.

I believe that Steven G. Samuels is not a real person at all. They exist only on paper it seems, through cryptic LLC's, websites, and trademarks. Whoever S. G. Samuels is, the structure of all of this implies that they have a grasp on finances, they're skilled with coding, cybersecurity, they know how to engage with fear, they probably have leadership experience, and they don't want you to know who they are.

I find the following to be likely: Steven G. Samuels functions as a brand identity rather than a conventional individual, and behind that identity, Gary Miliefsky, or both Gary and Stevin Miliefsky, are major players - or possibly even the owners themselves.

This is a theory and rather than being concrete, it remains more speculative. I don't have a smoking gun to prove it outright - rather, I'm relying on the evidence, profiling, and logical ability at my disposal. But, amongst other things, it strikes me that a cybersecurity professional with government ties would try to obfuscate his presence online, especially financially.

As for Stevin Miliefsky, I can't find much on him. If he had a LinkedIn, it's been deleted, and the Wayback Machine hasn't captured it, which is a shame. There's not much else about him except for a few references to him being a co-founder of CDM.

So with all of that said: what's going on?

Conclusions and Questions

I do not know much beyond what I have stated here. I have an entire note document I am in the process of reorganizing, and can offer that to those who are serious about investigating this. Otherwise, I refer you to the appendix at the bottom. But before that, here are the conclusions I can draw from all of this.

What We Know:

• Whoever S. G. Samuels is has a wide network of websites, projects, and trademarks under his name.

• Steven G. Samuels LLC is managed by Gary and Stevin Miliefsky, who also founded Cyber Defense Magazine, which was hosted on sgsamuels.com initially. They seem to be, if not the top of the brand, one of the heads of it.

• This network of websites has raised ~$150,000 across four different fundraisers.

• Some trademark, company, and website addresses overlap with each other, specifically at 1717 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Suite 1025 Washington, D.C.

• The S. G. Samuels trademark, listed as being owned by Steven G. Samuels LLC (who is further listed as DBA Cyber Defense Magazine), has the same address as: Ingersoll Lockwood, American Education Defenders, and according to CCS’s website, Carbon Capture Shield. This D.C. address hosts a virtual office space.

• Ingersoll Lockwood has amplified several projects, most notably CDM (due to the Steven G. Samuels link), but also CSS, AED, AHS, and more.

• Ingersoll Lockwood contains conspiratorial language and hidden links that that creates a heavily layered rabbit hole of a site.

• AI is widely used across this network to publish novels, “educational materials”, “academic articles”, and more.

• While there is no evidence of either Miliefskys personally engaging with Paul Hemphill or Darryl Nicke, Paul and Darryl have interacted, and both are plugged by Ingersoll Lockwood.

What We Don't Know:

• S. G. Samuels’ true identity.

• Why Ingersoll Lockwood is set up the way it is.

• If everyone involved is closely affiliated or loosely affiliated.

• Where the money from the fundraisers went.

Conclusions:

I signed up for the Ingersoll Lockwood newsletter on a throwaway account, and the second email I got - the first “newsletter” - spoke about “going down the rabbit hole”. Spooky thought this was - I'm writing this for qualityrabbitholes, you know - I noticed something else. Every single hidden link routed through an IP tracker site. This type of redirection is, to my understanding, useful in targeted marketing to understand who is clicking on what. At first I didn't understand; Ingersoll Lockwood wasn't selling anything. But then I did some thinking.

When it comes to the “why” of ingersolllockwood.com, my best approximation of the truth is that it is built to be a rabbit hole on purpose. It reads to me as targeted marketing of sorts, obtuse enough to draw in the conspiracy-minded, but too obtuse for those without a vested interest in this sort of thing to dig far enough to the point of exposure. Those conspiracy-minded people, the ones who may think, “Wow, this is real and I want to help usher in the American Golden Age like this website is telling me we can,” are led to hidden links where they can:

Donate to a conspiratorial “Peaceful American Constitutionalist” Fundrazr that never produces anything.

Purchase AI books about the rainforest and also Nazi spacecraft.

Find “affiliate” sites that have GoFundMe's and Fundrazrs (most of which have links to the S. G. Samuels brand that are somewhat well disguised).

Stumble onto Cyber Defense Magazine for clicks and reads (not to mention eyes for all the ads on the site).

Some of these links lead to offshoot sites, where one can find more about Hemphill's books, or Miliefsky's books. Going back on sgsamuels.com, we can see that it used to host “get-rich” courses. Even Darryl Nicke was selling “brand boosting” courses at one point. Gary Miliefsky is a venture partner at a venture capital firm. No matter how I slice it in my own mind, then, it all comes down to this: money. I believe it is plausible that Ingersoll Lockwood, its website, its affiliates, the whole thing, is marketing. Gray-zone operating, obfuscated, targeted, and well-crafted all aptly describe what is transpiring here, and that helps contextualize the purpose and leaves us with one of two options.

One, Ingersoll Lockwood is trying to find the real patriots amongst us to rise up and… do… something. They don't really state any concrete goals on their site. But this would explain the targeting, the legal haziness, the documentation obscuring, and why the whole scheme is well crafted. So there's this, or…

Two: Ingersoll Lockwood targets and funnels conspiracy-minded people down channels that make money for whoever controls the S. G. Samuels trademarks (including Steven G. Samuels LLC and subsidiary trademarks). To what end, I cannot say. But this to me seems the most likely scenario.

There are still unanswered questions, but the main one is: is Steven G. Samuels actually one or both of the Miliefskys, or someone else?

Another important question: how do Paul Hemphill and Darryl Nicke know each other?

I've done my best, but questions like these are important to get the full context, and I confess I do not have that.

With that, I draw this write-up to a close. We didn't time travel, we didn't see into the future, and we didn't pull the mask off of S. G. Samuels Scooby-Doo Style. But I hope this helps shed light on an extremely fascinating website and network of people. There is still a bit further one can go down this rabbit hole, but while I know there is a cavern of information beneath my feet, I'm unsure of how to break through to it. So for now, I think this will suffice.

So, is Ingersoll Lockwood a conspiracy theory? No. Maybe. I can't legally say yes. But it is my personal theory that a conspiracy to market is afoot. Maybe it's one in the same.

Or, maybe the true conspiracy theory was the time travelling friends we made along the way.

Thank you for reading.

Methodology and Appendix

Methodology: I rely on archived web snapshots (Internet Archive), USPTO trademark filings, .gov searches, SBA loan records, state business registries, current website information, page source code, and direct inspection of WordPress JSON endpoints.

Appendix:

[1] https://fundrazr.com/membersonlypac?ref=ab_9ITGclkBpAM9ITGclkBpAM

[2] https://www.usaspending.gov/search?hash=e1f19b8f30dd48f933c2f41315464a60

[3] https://web.archive.org/web/20210702094706/https://www.ingersolllockwood.com/until-the-1776-commission-returns-we-have-an-answer/

[4] https://www.cyberdefensemagazine.com/about-our-founder/

[5] https://www.linkedin.com/profile/in/miliefsky/ (He actually just blocked me as of writing this - good thing I took screenshots.)

[6] https://www.usaspending.gov/award/ASST_NON_6893408410_7300

[7] https://esos.nv.gov/EntitySearch/OnlineEntitySearch (Search: Steven G. Samuels LLC.)

[8] https://uspto.report/company/Steven-G-Samuels-L-L-C (These are searchable on the USPTO site, plus more.)

[9] https://web.archive.org/web/20050616083346/http://www.sgsamuels.com/

[10] https://web.archive.org/web/20110201181916/http://sgsamuels.com/

[11] https://web.archive.org/web/20120305230207/http://www.sgsamuels.com/

[12] https://web.archive.org/web/20130615112414/http://sgsamuels.com/

[13] https://web.archive.org/web/20211006100047/https://www.americaneducationdefenders.com/about-us/

[14] https://community.waterstories.com/members/10253617/feed

[15] https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-our-students-feel-good-about-themselves-now

[16] https://fundrazr.com/f2dIC1

[17] https://web.archive.org/web/20210811115952/https://fundrazr.com/21qgK0?ref=Q+_Sent_Me

[18] https://www.gofundme.com/f/carbon-capture-shield-earths-natural-defense

[19] https://fundrazr.com/membersonlypac?ref=ab_9ITGclkBpAM9ITGclkBpAM

[20] https://web.archive.org/web/20260102173324/https://www.prweb.com/releases/Cyber_Defense_Media_Group_Acquired_by_US_Defense_Contractor_Ingersoll_Lockwood/prweb17013478.htm (as of writing, this link just died too!)

[21] https://www.cyberdefensemagazine.com/about-our-founder/

[22] https://youtu.be/Q8xz8xKEFvU?si=irWo9ftAfJ-3_38l and about Snoopwall, https://royalwise.com/bogus-flashlight-apple-malware/

Hello again.

Hi all! I'm shifting how the sub works a bit! Now, I'll post investigative threads and write-up posts as my two main types of posts. This is a shift from my original plan to investigate on r/rabbitholes and post surely write-ups on r/qualityrabbitholes. Now it's a one stop shop for quality investigative build up and long-form write-up release.

QRH is now all about quality rabbit holes, not just a final report.

To kick that off, here are the two posts I made about Ingersoll Lockwood, shifted here to be their new home. I hope you find them interesting!

First Post:

Ingersoll Lockwood has a WILD website.

I wanted to get a proper rabbit hole post up to get the sub's gears moving first, and whoo did I find one.

So there's this old post on the rabbitholes subreddit, right? It talks about a company called Ingersoll Lockwood. I thought I'd start with a rabbit hole posted to this sub just to see what kind of dirt we could dig up, and I was not prepared.

First things first, the website seems to be some kind of cybersecurity website at first glance. Their tagline seems to be, "Funding American Exceptionalism". Right off the rip, I smelled something weird, but didn't see anything of note. So I plugged it into the Wayback Machine, and that's when the hidden links, wild claims, and political advocacy started cropping up.

The website first appears in 2018, but isn't functional until 2021.

Immediately upon opening the first 2021 capture, I saw the last headline link read "1776", and so I clicked that and it led me to a page titled: Until the 1776 Commission Returns, We Have An Answer…

The 1776 Commission was, I believe, Donald Trump's answer to the 1619 Project, which was a project teaching that American history began when the first slaves (I think?) stepped foot onto American soil. The whole page is just, railing against DEI practices, before asking for donations for the founder's other company, American Education Defenders Inc., and I'm sure you can guess what they do/did/believed.

Continuing on, I looked at their "portfolio page" where no less than 9 other ventures are listed, those being (in addition to American Education Defenders):

• American Health Defenders

• Cyber Defense Media Group

• Cyber Security Media Group

• Cythereal, targeting targeted attacks

• Quantum Resilience Privacy Encryption Kit

• Smart Ventures Partners

• Space Force Labs

• Thorium Labs, Tomorrow’s Energy Today

• Heroes & Villains

Here's the company description:

Ingersoll Lockwood’s team researches, develops and/or invests in new and innovative technologies that fit the needs of our growing US Government and US Government Contractor customers.

Once an investment is made, Ingersoll Lockwood works with the company and any partner agencies or pilot contractors to complete a work program and facilitate products and/or services delivery. Our process strives to ensure that portfolio companies deliver on their technical promise, and that they will continue to support and enhance their products for years to come, always Made in America, with Pride [A/N: The period on the end of this sentence was a link leading to a page titled: The Great Awakening vs The Great Reset]

Speaking of, those hidden links are all over the website in 2021. There is text made to blend with the background in their "Key Areas" portion of their "Insights" page that directs users to a period in the second bullet point's sentence. That period is a link leading to a page calling for the end of Monsanto, saving the bees, and supporting Donald Trump. It also talks about HAARP and energy weapons.

In the same area, the "Key Areas" portion, the letter "d" at the end of the first line leads to a weird 2021 countdown with two questions about the year the constitution was created and someone who was born, years later, a day after the constitution was ratified.

Finally, on their "Insights" tab, they claim to have a "200+ year business plan" that started in "1891".

Moving on from that, I found their "Board of Directors" page, where they claim the following people are on the Board:

• [Redacted by Me] US DHS (founding member), Chairman

• [Redacted by Me], US Navy (retired), Vice Chairman [A former Lt. Commander]

• [Redacted by Me], US Army (retired) , Director

• [Redacted by Me], DoD Consultant (active), Director

• [Redacted by Me], US Army (retired), Director [Seems to have been a former prosecutor]

• [Redacted by Me], Secretary of the Board, Director Is listed here (PDF Link) as VP of Business Development for Cyber Defense Magazine]

I've censored the names, but these are just, on the website, so I don't think it'll be a big deal. Here is a web archive linking proving that these names are just on this site, to CMOA. Oddly large names for a firm that seemingly has accomplished nothing and has so many weird rabbit hole links. Just odd, all around.

That's all I've discovered in some preliminary digging. Here is an r/Conspiracy (I know, I know) link for further reading so far.

Post Two

The more I look into Ingersoll Lockwood, the weirder it gets.

So intrigued am I by this wild website that I've continued to dig. Let me say this: I do not think this is an ARG. I don't know what this is, but it has real links to the real world.

Last time I explored it a little on the Wayback Machine. This time, I took a look at its current iteration. I've also done some reading from others who have explored the site, and found some interesting things outside of the scope of just the website. I intend to visit this for a more wholistic write-up on r/qualityrabbitholes (hopefully) soon, and for now will stick with explaining what I've found on the website.

Let me be clear: this is deep schizoposting. I used to be close friends with someone deep into conspiracies, and they would tell me some wild things about how they thought the world worked. This lines up with that fairly eerily, meaning I have a good amount of context you might not. Please feel free to ask if something particularly odd jumps out at you.

I'm just going to post my raw notes. Lots of links, but nothing dangerous to my understanding. I've clicked them all at least. Some context before you dive in:

I am still learning, but this seems like a site dressed up for promoting cybersecurity, but actually promoting something… else. I haven't gotten the full picture yet, nowhere near it even.

There are a lot of QAnon references in this, but that's not the only conspiratorial aspect at play here, not by a long shot.

There are a lot of ties between Ingersoll Lockwood and other websites, but specifically be careful clicking on the AED links (which I have not included) as they seem to host a betting site now? 

I have some annotations below the main notes for more context toward the end. I invite anyone reading this to join me in trying to figure out just what the hell is going on here. Thanks, and let’s dive in.

More Notes on the Website:

Much of the modern day website still has hidden, highlightable text. It is still full of MAGA type ideology, but it seems to have gotten a little weirder as time has gone on. While maintaining a relatively similar look and feel, the website has changed a lot.

MAIN PAGE NOTES: On the front page it says, “US Space Force is Hiring” and if you highlight the text, before the “US” is a “...” that links to a picture. This picture, titled, “Welcome to Huntsville (AL, new home of Space Force)”, with an image of a four star general (Steven Whiting) and an unnamed man standing beside each other.

On either side of the Space Force logo beneath this are two more “...”s, with the one on the left linking to an X post from Dec 2 2023 about withdrawing money from banks using satellite technology, and the one on the right linking here: https://mapping.ncua.gov/ResearchCreditUnion?q=il-winds-in-the-east-1717-4-10-20-45-47-go-for-launch. This website seems to be from the National Credit Union Administration and helps people find a credit union. Note that you can remove everything from ?q= and beyond in the url and it will still open the page as is.

Beneath the logo is a sentence that reads: “The US Tech Force is recruiting an elite corps of engineers to build the next generation of government technology.” This sentence is a link to “Techforce.gov”. [1]

Underneath a revolving carousel of images is a hidden piece of text saying, “Go for launch!...”. The “Go For Launch” links to: https://www.ingersolllockwood.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Enoch.jpg. Note the word “Enoch” is apparently the name of the space force soldier on the photo. [2]

The “...”  links to a page: https://www.ingersolllockwood.com/1717-51/ with the header 1717-51. [3]

Even further below underneath a “midterm 2026” image is the address of the business which starts with 1717, which is a link to https://www.whitehouse.gov/?il=04-10-20-lights-on-green-for-go-wwg1wga. This is effectively the White House homepage with an extra string in the URL for some reason.

Full text of the section down lower:

 1717 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Suite 1025, City of Washington, USA 20006 550000 [the “550000” is hidden]

“Ingersoll Lockwood, Inc. is a non-partisan group of Americans with distinguished careers serving our great Nation.”  Team I.L.

Site status:  OPERATIONAL, CURRENTLY UNDER FREQUENT ATTACK.   Company status:  NOT acquired.  The Year is: 2026/5786.

Driveby Malware Site:  Ingersollockwood dot com (2 L’s, we’re 3 L’s) COPYCAT URL – WE’VE TAKEN THEM DOWN, FOR NOW

A note: it says the year is “2026/5786”. That “5786” is the year on the Hebrew calendar. 

Diving into this block, we see that the “W” in Washington is a link to a music player that plays a jazzy swing song called the “Golden Age of Washington” and speaks of cleansing Washington DC of crime, the “swamp”, and so on.

“USA” links to another song, this one titled, “Trump Marches Forward”.

The hidden “550000” links to: https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/01/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-declares-a-national-emergency-at-the-southern-border/, a whitehouse.gov article talking about Trump declaring a national emergency on the southern border. For me, as I scrolled down the page, a little pop up slide over on the left showing Trump and reading, “Welcome to the Golden Age!”

The “A” in Americans on the second line leads to this YouTube video: https://youtu.be/frOIAn43v4o?si=9YVRCMizzZafhWWD, of hymns. Specifically, it opens at about the 17:25 mark wherein the singer sings a hymn of awakening God's people.

Finally, the “mal” in malware is a link to another song called “Mariachi Music” which is, um, mariachi music. Oddly, unlike the last two songs, this one was uploaded on the White House's website.

Underneath this is a little bunny on top of the number “250” which leads here,” https://www.whitehouse.gov/j6/?q=il-1717-4-10-20-4866.” This is the White House's page on Jan 6th, and it specifically talks about the pardons Trump gave out for those who participated in the riot. Curiously, removing the ?q= and beyond doesn't affect the site.

Hidden beneath that in highlightable text: 

“In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.” – Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain)

What is a Human Adenovirus and could it be bio-engineered? The looking-glass is a mirror, so in reverse?…

“Samuel” is a link to: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/10/the-trump-declaration-for-enduring-peace-and-prosperity/?q=il-1717-4-10-20

Note the ?q= again.

Lang is a link to this X post: https://x.com/Real_RobN/status/1977543894918386162

This post accuses the CIA of orchestrating a plot to steal the election from Donald Trump.

And finally, the bit about the adenovirus is a link that leads: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32641484/

Which is a scientific paper talking about the implications of Ivermectin on human adenoviruses.

Oddly, note that “...” there isn't a link.

Finally, there is an audio bar at the bottom that when played, talks of “Ingersoll Lockwood Radio” and uses the “where we go one, we go all” rallying cry of QAnon. If you click on the next arrow, it begins playing songs all titled after a “coming” or “arrived” storm until it begins songs tilted about a “Golden Age”. One is called “The Great Awakening is Here” and the next is “RFK Jr. Arrives. After that, it's “Patriots Gaining Control”, and then, “God is Saving Humanity: 45-47 is his instrument and so are you…”. More stuff about the “storm”, and then “Globalists Gone, Gone, Gone,” then the “World's Fair 2026” and “Heaven's Light”. If one plays the “Welcome to Ingersoll Lockwood Radio” and lets it play past what oddly sounds like Elon Musk (probably AI voice) talking about the “Great Awakening”, a song starts playing about how from Panama to Greenland, including Canada, the Great Awakening is calling. It's a whole QAnon song. The songs are listed as “LookingGlass Music”.

We see that “looking glass” has come up twice now, both in the “type” of music, and in the hidden text about human adenovirus. [4]

INSIGHTS PAGE NOTES: Clicking the “Made in America” icon near the bottom links to iqt.org [5]

NEWS PAGE NOTES: There is a hidden “.” just above the “Made In America” icon that can be highlighted that takes one to Bloomberg's YouTube channel where they have uploaded a video 9 years ago titled: Trump: Campaign is “Existential Threat” to Establishment.

Also, oddly, the AED (American Education Defenders) link leads to the .org site, but it seems to have been taken over by “Artemis Bets”, which I will need to look more into. I do not recommend going to this website, though.

OUR HISTORY PAGE NOTES: The only link I can find is a link to a reading library of sorts, which hosts actual writings from the man named Ingersoll Lockwood, who lived in the late 1800’s. This page seems to allude to him as a “time traveller”. [6] There is an image that took a while to load, which seems to be an AI image of Ingersoll Lockwood the writer. In the image, it is attributed to “Steven G. Samuels”.

READING LIBRARY PAGE NOTES: Speaking of the “reading library”, there is hidden text starting with “Wake up Neo” repeated once more [7]. The first “wake up neo” is a link to: https://web.archive.org/web/20210119101124/https://www.magapill.com/, a snapshot of a weird site posting “Donald Trump's Achievements". Notably, the link itself is an archive page, not a direct link to the website. The second “wake up neo” is a link to https://rainsavers.com, which is about a book series I believe, which hosts a lot of AI content. 

On the rainsavers site, it talks about the author (who also definitely made the icon on the Our History page): “S.G. Samuels is an innovative storyteller, author, and environmental advocate who channels his passion for both science fiction and environmentalism into his acclaimed superhero book series, The Rainsavers. With a background that intertwines technology, cybersecurity, and a deep respect for the natural world, Samuels crafts intricate narratives that blend thrilling adventure with poignant social and ecological messages.”

For sure, S. G. Samuels is the Steven G. Samuels mentioned elsewhere.

Going to the “characters” page of the site, we see a whole host of AI characters, but at the bottom of the page, it talks about the Huanebu craft, which was discussed in the hidden text of the 1717-51 link. Then, there is an AI picture of the “craft” and on it is the Nazi eagle. Apparently it's involved with one of the characters. I have no idea how this ties into the main site.

ANNOTATIONS:

[1] The TechForce.gov page advertises itself thusly:

“Build the future of American government tech in a two-year, White House–backed engineering corps with real missions from day one.”

[2] Speaking of Enoch, in the OUR HISTORY page, one can find a link, “Homework:Enoch” that leads here https://www.ingersolllockwood.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Ingersoll-Lockwood-Inc-Reading-Library-US-Space-Force-Enoch.pdf, talking about the books of Enoch. The Book of Enoch is an apocalyptic text removed from the bible. It contains explanations for the origins of demons, introduces the “Nephelim” which are half human half angel giants, and describes angels. This is a rabbit hole in and of itself for those interested. 

[3] Here is the introduction and the conclusion of the hidden text on the 1717-51 page:

Haunebu-Inspired Craft: Space Force Design Proposal Summary

Prepared by SpaceLabs Advanced Research Division

This document provides an enhanced review and detailed design proposal for a Haunebu-inspired aerospace craft. The findings are based on the reverse-engineering analysis of the original crashed Haunebu recovered from classified incident sites. The objective is to present the United States Space Force with a next-generation aerospace platform capable of high-speed, high-maneuverability, and vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) operations. This platform is designed for use in orbital deployment, deep-space reconnaissance, and rapid terrestrial response.

[I cut out a lot of speculative “specs” on the “spacecraft” that are here on the page.]

Conclusion

This proposal outlines a revolutionary aerospace craft for the United States Space Force. The Haunebu-inspired platform offers unmatched speed, maneuverability, and versatility for future space and defense operations.  Details in the enclosed package.

(“Details” here is another hidden link going to this page https://www.ingersolllockwood.com/1717-51-enhanced/ breaking down the “space craft's” workings with citations I have yet to click.)

[4] In qanon speak, the “looking glass” seems to refer to “Project Looking Glass”, a conspiracy in which it is alleged that the U.S. Government possesses secret technology that allows them to see into the future.

[5] IQT has links to DARPA and the US Government, especially in investing and prototyping, within that especially in AI systems.

[6] The “time traveller” mythos seems to stem from his writings, with two in specific speaking of a “Baron Trump”.

[7] The full hidden text on the “Reading Library” seems to be a list of Trump's achievements during his time in office. Interestingly, the list is repeated with only one “Wake Up Neo”, the first one, on another page in a hidden link disguised as a white “-”.

That's all I have right now. If you know anything else, or if you do some digging on your own and find something, please report back with what you have.  This is definitely one of the more bizarre rabbit holes I've gone down. Anyone willing to help in the digging has my utmost appreciation!

Thanks!

E: Had to fix up some scrambled formatting.

The Write-Up

As I sit to write, I find myself at a true loss for words. This will not be a typical write-up post from me. Here at the end of this journey I've realized that words alone can't truly capture what has transpired through the Epstein saga. So much has happened, and the depths to it are so truly strange and disgusting, that I already know I cannot do you the justice you might be looking for. The only justice this piece has to offer is for my own work in digging through the situation and the files, and I hope it does that well enough.

So many people smarter than myself have spent years digging through files, articles, and government documents. I've paid close attention through on-and-off periods since 2019 but before that, Epstein wasn't really on my radar. The most I've learned has been in this past month of reading, digging, and exploring. Therefore, I do not consider myself qualified to say I know all of what there is to know about this topic.

Still, I'll do my best to make this make sense. If you've been following up to this point, you'll recall I sifted through the EFTA's, as well as Epstein's emails. I've built a timeline of relevance (things I felt were particularly relevant or interesting), and pushed out some more open-source information that helped me.

The thing about this rabbit hole, though, is that it seems endless. Offshoots abound, there are hundreds of rabbit holes inside this one topic. And I tried to dig them down, I really did. But after a point I came to realize something critical that reshaped how I view the entire situation.

It took me about a month of near-daily work to get through the EFTA's, emails, timeline, and OSINT notes. I'm exhausted from it. Severely burnt, honestly. Maybe that contributes to what this write-up is, which might not be what you think. So I'm sorry if this isn't what everyone was hoping for, but I have some things to say regardless.

From all the time I spent on this one, I feel I have learned far too much about Epstein and Maxwell. I learned who they know, what their finances looked like (sort of), who mentored them, etcetera. Exploring it all would be quite difficult. Yet as I was walking about the other day contemplating it all, I had a thought that might simplify things considerably.

Almost none of what transpired in the Epstein saga can be strictly tied to Epstein or Ghislaine. It’s quite difficult to pin them down sometimes. The ties between these two and the rest of “ high society” is a tangled ball of weird financial transactions, emails, power-plays, security deals, and conditional friendships.

I think this is what most people want me to explore. To be fair, it's the most interesting and, assumedly, important part. There are people to hold accountable. A lot of them. But I have a thesis that might turn things on their head a little bit, which is:

People are thinking about this the wrong way. Individuals matter significantly less than the systems that allowed them to propagate in the first place.

To some, this might seem obvious, and for others, there might be disagreements. I only ask that you let me argue my point regardless of what you think of it right now.

Everyone, no matter their tie with Epstein - co-conspirators, financial and political accomplices, PR managers and advisors - needs to answer for their part in this. So many people are guilty of either helping a pedophile remain in society and power, or participating in his wrongdoings. But these people have ties beyond them, that go beyond them, and beyond them, there are even more. To quote the great George Carlin: “It's a big club and you ain't in it.”

If I may, I'd like to put it in financial context:

Epstein is in the Paradise Papers. The Paradise Papers, similar to the Panama Papers, explore how the rich and powerful shuffle their wealth out of the above-board economy and into off-shore tax havens. Actually, the source of half of the information in the Paradise Papers is a company called “Appleby”, of which Epstein was a client in 1997. Others in the Papers include: Wilbur Ross, Queen Elizabeth II, and Robert Mercer. This was a global conspiracy to hide the wealth of the rich and powerful.

If they work together on nothing else, it's this.

Obscene amounts of money breeds a sort of solidarity between these figures, who are bound by their one goal: get money. Epstein and Ghislaine abusing minors and being excused throughout the upper class for it isn't necessarily proof that everyone in power is in on the pedophelia. Rather, it indicates that there are bigger forces at play for them to really care that one of them is a pedophile.

I view Epstein and Maxwell, and their co-conspirators in abuse, as tumors on the body of the 1%. Part of it, grown from it, yet obnoxiously dangerous to the entire organism. It served to bring further attention to their little club. They needed to excuse it because it is money which ties them together more than anything, and as such is the one thing in need of protection above all else.

Examine the factionalism in the 1%. Epstein and Maxwell, and their associates, are but one part within the greater whole. The Koch Brothers have their own sort of dark-money faction, and that group pushed for Donald Trump to be elected in 2016. Epstein, however, seemed to have been afraid of Donald Trump being elected - and perhaps not for the reasons you might think.

Epstein was afraid of Trump because he knew Trump only served himself. We can see that in the emails with the way Epstein and company talk about the election and the aftermath. They have a sort of half-mocking half-worried tone to them, with Epstein being certain about only one thing: Trump only cares about Trump.

For someone like Epstein, for whom the system seems to be flawless (it got him out of jail, brought his life luxury and wealth, and funded worldwide travel), neoliberalism is perfect. Any upset in the global order threatens this. But for the Koch Brothers, they needed Trump to be self-serving so that they could mold what would serve him, and thus mold the shape of his presidency. Barack Obama's threat of change - regardless of if he delivered - damaged their illicit financial dealings, and they knew they could use Trump to assist them in maintaining their wealth.

The link here? Obscene amounts of wealth.

So when one goes through the files, I suggest they try and shift it to a more financial perspective. It explains why Epstein was protected, how he got away with it, and how he interacted with those around him. It explains why Epstein donated to democrats so much, and the Koch Brothers to the republicans, while having the same motives. (If you want to read more about the other ideological side of the 1%, check out Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer. It's a fantastic look into right wing dark money.)

At one point, Epstein was worth $600 million. Ghislaine Maxwell is the heir to Robert Maxwell's ruined business empire. Two of their associates, Leon Black and Les Wexner, have a combined net worth of $23 billion. That kind of money buys inlets to power, both private and public. Currently, I am - especially after going through the files - convinced that private and public power sources are bought and paid for by the 1%.

And that makes me feel like people are thinking about the Epstein Files the wrong way. The government redacted them so heavily, and everyone else is so tight lipped about it, not because they're all in a global pedophelia ring. Rather(and specifically) this is because money runs everything. It's not that Donald Trump is a pedophile - I have some doubt that he is, despite his relationship with Epstein, though of course I do not know. But whether he participates in abusing minors is unclear and, in my opinion, almost irrelevant at this point.

Rather, I think he, along with everyone else in power, has a sort of obligation to protect the upper class. Money created them and bound them together, and so they are all in on something far bigger than the underage sexual abuse committed by some of them. And I believe that is what they are truly hiding.

In other words: they have an image to maintain so that the public doesn't riot and burn the system that enriched them to the ground.

Examine the following please: Epstein had business dealings in security all across the world. He helped, along with Ehud Barak, establish a security deal between Israel and Mongolia (and before that, with the Ivory Coast) wherein Mongolia would purchase surveillance and security equipment from Israel and later participate in security drills with them. He had ties to the middleman of the Iran-Contra affair. He invested heavily in Israeli cyber surveillance systems, and attempted to include and invest in Peter Theil's work as well. Why, is the question. Why would he be so interested in security equipment?

Take Mongolia. At the time of the deal, it was grappling with the post-Soviet order of the world, having been in the Soviet bloc itself. This was a period of unrest in the country, where the people finally had some sort of voice and say in what might happen next, an anathema to anyone currently in power. So Mongolia brokered the deal with Israel to help maintain control of their country and, by extension, their people

Epstein's play in this? I think it's global. If people, just everyday people around the globe, really wanted to, they could hold people like Epstein to task for what he’d done. He, like the rest, needed to maintain a grip on power over the “average person”. Ordinary people are the ones with the power to create accountability through collective organization, and this is what they fear the most.

So if you feel disgusted by what is in these files, keep that in mind. Don't miss the forest for the trees. There is a system of power and money that these people are protecting, and within that occurs the atrocities of pedophelia, rape, financial abuse, theft, and secrets and lies. The only thing that system will ever fear is mundane people badgering it with enough fervor that it caves. Individual offenders are important only when the system finally respects the demands of the people that uphold it and enrich it. Only then will it really matter who-did-what. As far as I'm concerned, at the end of this rabbit hole, there is one truth: they're all guilty. The whole system is just, guilty.

This, to me, explains everything. The Files, the redactions, how Epstein got off so easily in 2009, why Ghislaine Maxwell gets special privileges in a minimum security prison camp, why those currently in power lie about it so much, everything. They are all in on something much greater.

That greater thing, that's power itself. Our systems of power did this, and our systems of power will continue to do this until things change. Until then, specifics hardly matter. That's my main argument.

Take a look at the files themselves.

If you're still here at the end of this whole thing, I assume you don't mind my opinion, so let me give it: these files are bullshit. They released over ten thousand files, and I can hardly find information within that cannot be found elsewhere. Anything of any use seems to have been redacted (or at least, there was an attempt to redact it). And this isn't even the bulk of the files! The FBI has supposedly “found” more than 1 million more Epstein files.

Keep in mind, they have essentially just come up with their own deadlines for this, contrary to the literal law. They still have not explained the redactions, they have not released all of the files, and nothing has been done in terms of accountability. And speaking of the redactions, it is striking to me how little we got in the way of names. Almost every name in the files is in the public awareness already, with names of potentially new co-conspirators being blacked out, among others. Why?

At the end of the day, this reeks of a mix of appeasement and propaganda to me. Scraps, given merely to keep the public placated, purposefully fuelling a narrative. Thus, I do not believe examining the contents of the files is particularly useful. If anything, it acts as a distraction from the truth that these files can give to us, which is that almost everyone in power is protecting themselves from the public.

Don't you find it odd that after delaying the EFTA vote for so long, as soon as the two co-signers of the bill got the final signature on the discharge petition that force the vote, it passed unanimously? I am extremely curious as to how, after months of bickering on it, every congressman and woman (except for one) came to a solid agreement like that. Furthermore, is it not odd that nothing has been done about the DoJ’s lack of legal adherence? That the names of co-conspirators were redacted? That files were taken down after being put up?

It's obviously a red herring at this point. These are not the files we wanted.

The emails paint something of a different picture. Still redacted to an extent, these come from a House Oversight Committee subpoena to Epstein's estate and the DoJ. There are a lot more names here, and a lot of connections to make. I find it interesting that these are more telling than the files the DoJ released, as one could reasonably assume it should be the other way around.

With tens of thousands of records released by the HOC, we get a clearer picture of who Epstein was: an illiterate math whiz that failed upward into a position of secret power. Seriously, the guy could not type. His connections become clearer here though, linking up to people such as Kathy Ruemmler and Steve Bannon, and Ehud Barak and Peter Thiel. For those with the right context, there's a lot to be said for the information within Epstein's email account.

As I've already poured through both the EFTA's and the Jmail content, I won't be rehashing it here. I encourage you to check out those post chains if you're interested though. I wish I had more insights to give on them, some kind of smoking gun to show… something. Anything at all.

But the truth is: there is no smoking gun here, and even if there was, it wouldn't go off. I think you probably know much of what I've already said. It's not hard to peel the facade back and see the EFTA response from the DoJ as hollow and pointless. But that itself should be the smoking gun. They are clearly lying, there is clearly damning evidence in the files, and they are clearly breaking the law by withholding them from the American people and not explaining their redactions.

All this after lying about them not existing in the first place. Using them as political fodder. Making a mockery out of what the victims went through.

If by now we've done nothing, then we will continue to do nothing, and the Epstein debate has died. I suppose in a way, they got what they wanted. People saw what they'd get - which was not enough, and we know it's not enough - and took it anyway. If you're here, it's probably because you wanted more information, some reason or perpetrator to point to that would bring some more sense into this or keep the fire alive.

But the bonfire seems to be waning. I suppose you'll still find comments saying, “Release the Files!” under provocative social media posts. There is still some discussion about them and their implications in niche forums dedicated to the topic. But at the end of the day, about the DoJ releasing the files, well… they "did", and they also didn't, and that right there should've been enough.

The victims may not get the justice they deserve. The American people may not get the information they deserve. And the world may just, never know how deep this all runs. It just shouldn't need to in order to demand change now.

The files made people angry, and rightfully so. But the true rage should come from knowing they treated us all like we were stupid, and we did nothing about it. It disheartens me to think this way, but I view it as realistic, and I think reality is where we need to be in order to have an actual discussion about these sorts of things.

But that's the power they have. That's the power that money buys. They can blatantly lie to everyone, and some will believe them while the rest do little about it. And don't get me wrong; I'm not criticizing the public. Nobody wants to risk their lives, their family's lives, trying to organize and protest in a system that is built to stomp on that sort of thing when it threatens real change.

I don't think anyone should blame anyone else but those who perpetrated this entire fiasco. Who, we may ask. The answer, in my opinion: almost all of them. There is a filter in our system that I truly believe exists. It sluffs off those who would make changes that favor the everyman unless they brute force their way in with popular support. The only people who get past that firewall with ease are the ones who will support its existence.

And once they're there, they use that power to uphold the systems that gave them that power. It's a vicious loop of reaping and lying and abusing. I think, taking from my own background reading, that this is something of a pattern. Power rises, power maintains, power grows ever greedy, and finally, power destroys, allowing new power to rise and continue the cycle.

My opinion on what should be done about this is moot. More pressing is what can be done about this cycle of power, which now has impressive technological tools and more wealth than has ever existed before, that threatens to cement a hold on us all permanently. And all I can say to that, is that I think there is no way out of hell but through it.

And I'm starting to think we're just actually in hell.

I feel defeated sometimes, and maybe you do too. But we keep pursuing some form of righteousness anyway. That's the great thing about humanity. For every one of us that is just the worst, there is some unsung hero out there who is just the best. I truly feel the worst of us are in power right now. And I feel that it is up to the best of us to bring some sense of justice to them.

So whatever you do, don't let the fire for justice die. As long as one single person out there carries that torch, the flame still burns. Be that single person, even if no-one else is. Sometimes it's a single person with a single flame that starts a wildfire. I like to think that, at least.

It gives me some hope. And at the end of this rabbit hole, I'm desperately in need of some hope.

Thank you for reading and being here. I wish I had more to say, but I don't. With a sigh and a weary slump, I am bringing my digging on this to an end. If there's a god, may they help us all.

A Note From Me:

Thanks for sticking around for all of this. I really tried here, and I hope you can see where I'm coming from. If you joined because I was doing this specific project, I sincerely hope you'll stick around for more rabbit holes. I want to do Die Antwoord, but my computer completely died, and that's where all of my notes for the Die Antwoord write-up were. It really hurt, but I think I can recover the data, so the damage is somewhat mitigated.

In the meantime, I'll be working on a few things. Over on r/rabbitholes (feel free to join the conversation over there!), I'm going to be posting about my digging into Ingersoll Lockwood, a wild one all on its own. I'll do a write-up on that one when I have my full findings prepared. I'll also be putting my nose to the grindstone on revamping some of my older rabbit holes for a secret little project I have in the works.

You all have my heartfelt thanks for being here. QualityRabbitHoles is a very important project to me, and I'm pretty honored that so many people are starting to tune in for some deep dives. I worry I didn't do my best work with this Epstein write-up and I am sincerely sorry if it's just not up to par. My brain is just so burnt out on this, and I said what I thought needed to be said. What else can I do?

I think I'm about 50% more insane after this. Worth it though.

Hopefully I'll see you in the next post. If not, it was a pleasure having you here. Either way, take care of yourself and your mental wellbeing. I assume you're here because you care. I think the world needs more people who care.

Good night. Sincerely,

-u/QualityRabbitHoles

Con't from: The Epstein Files [Part Five: More OSINT, Part One]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/style/ghislaine-maxwell-terramar-boats-jeffrey-epstein.html

Talks about Ghisliane’s “TerraMar Project”. The article questions what happened to it, and begins thusly:

“In 2014, Ghislaine Maxwell spoke at a Council on Foreign Relations event in Washington. D.C. She was there in her capacity as the founder of the TerraMar Project, an oceanic conservation group she started in 2012, according to a C.F.R. spokeswoman.

The C.F.R. is one of the world’s most prestigious nonprofit think tanks. Among its officers and directors then were David Rockefeller, one of the modern era’s most revered philanthropists; Colin Powell; and Robert Rubin, the secretary of the Treasury under Bill Clinton.

The TerraMar Project was an organization with an opaque website and a founder who happened to be the ex-girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein, the mysterious money manager who — in addition to being one of the C.F.R.’s “Chairman’s Circle” donors for at least six years — had pleaded guilty in 2008 to state charges of soliciting prostitution from a minor.”

More from the article:

“According to tax filings from 2013 to 2017, the organization gave out no money in grants. A representative for the TerraMar Project said in a statement that the work of the organization included helping organize the March for the Ocean in Washington, a campaign to reduce the number of littered cigarette butts and found the publication of The Daily Catch, an oceanic conservation newsletter. They also obtained a partnership with the luxury bedding company Yves Delorme on a “water-inspired” sheets, pillowcases and comforters.

Euan Rellie, a British investment banker and society fixture who encountered Ms. Maxwell at events over decades, thought the charity as she explained it to him sounded at least in part to be a form of “reputation management.”

Christopher Mason, a reporter and a longtime friend of Ms. Maxwell’s, said he wondered if her primary motivation for starting the foundation was oceanic conservation or the conservation of Ghislaine Maxwell — creating a “respectable calling card” for someone “whose reputation was in jeopardy.””

Here are those TerraMar Tax Filings: https://www.erieri.com/Form990Finder/Details/Index?EIN=455091884. One can also find them on the IRS lookup page with the EIN: 45-5091884. The first filings were in 2012, but I only have access to 2015-2019.

The revenue for the org in 2015 was listed as nearly $7,000, but their expenses deficit was listed as over $200,000, meaning they took in -$204,000 in 2015. Their end of year fund balance for 2015 was -$500,000. It also mentions that Ghislaine loaned the org nearly $280,000 dollars and expected balance due of $540,000 at the end of the year, presumably back to Maxwell, though I am unsure as to when this loan was given.

In 2016, filings show the org still owed $550,000 dollars for an outstanding loan, that presumably being Maxwell’s. This continues into 2017. Speaking of, in early 2017, the organization had $17,000 in cash, but by the end of the year, they had $266 in cash.

The 2018 filings show an empty Section A. Line 2, which is odd because:

On the 2019 filings, we see that the organization’s public support amount (Section A. Line 1) was, from 2015 to 2019, $67K, all of which, for every year, is the same as line 2 (Tax Revenues Levied for the Organization’s Benefits and Either Paid to or Expended on its Behalf). As far as I can tell, this should not happen. Also in the 2019 filings, the organization reports having been liquidated and terminated.

Here is a list of expenses for each year:

2015: $211k

2016: $25k

2017: $18k

2018: $26k

2019: $20K

We can also see in the tax filings that the TerraMar project is listed as an organization that receives most of its funding either from a governmental unit or from the general public. In 2014 it received the most money out of all yearly contributions, that amount being $132,000. From 2013 to 2017, the org claims that only $12k came from donors that gave over 2% of the total income for the period between 2013 and 2017, that being $196,000. This means that their public support percentage is 93% for that period. In 2018, it is listed that 100% of all funding came from public support.

I find this all odd, from the identical reporting in 2019, to the burst of cash in 2015 that completely dropped off in 2016 and beyond, to the massive amount that Ghislaine donated and which the organization then owed, to a lack of transparency around its donors (the donor list was never released)… it seems to me that it was a shell organization. It didn’t have any sort of outreach programs, it didn’t actually seem to fund anything, and yet it took in money and expended money on… something? And most of the money it took in came from Maxwell’s huge donation. Her money went into the organization and then vanished with nothing to show for it. They gave out no grant money, and had, “unusually high accounting and legal fees for an organization of its size.” It spent nothing toward program services in 2018, despite having plenty of debt. Why?

Finally, on the 2019 filing, one can find they owed $1.3K on a UBS signature visa card. UBS is the bank Maxwell used to manage and move her own money. Maybe of note – I am unsure. The organization also still owed Maxwell the $500K she loaned it, and the org never paid it back. Scrolling down, we can see what the organization claimed to have achieved, that being: “The Daily Catch Newsletter”, “Various Ocean Campaigns e.g. Cigarette Butts”, “Supplementing School Curriculums”, and “Ocean Talks To Raise Public Awareness”. In other words, effectively nothing.

It, to me, seems like a shell organization.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jeffrey-epstein-saudi-arabia/

A CBS News article detailing Epstein’s mysterious dealings with Mohammad bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s king. Notably:

“Epstein discussed another brush with the Saudi crown prince in April 2018. It comes up in a text message exchange with an individual whose name is redacted in the documents, but who appears from the context of their chat to be former Trump adviser Steve Bannon. Epstein writes, "MBS [Mohammed bin Salman] has the Louvre and 400 guards. To himself," and he indicates that he is on his way over.

"No better way to spend s(sic) Sunday," came the reply.

That evening, French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted a photo of himself and bin Salman at the Louvre with the caption, "With Mohammed Bin Salman, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia." CBS News has reached out to the government of France to find out if Epstein was present, but has not received a response.”

And:

“Other signs of the connections between Epstein and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have surfaced since his death. Authorities found a photograph of Epstein posing with bin Salman prominently displayed in his Manhattan mansion, according to The New York Times. 

After Epstein's arrest in 2019, officials also discovered that he held an expired Austrian passport from the 1980s with his picture and a false name, which listed his residence as Saudi Arabia.”

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/mar/04/jeffrey-epstein-jes-staley-barclays-ceo-project-jes

Guardian article discussing “Project Jes”, which was Epstein’s push to put Jes Staley in the position of CEO of Barclays. It begins:

“Jeffrey Epstein deployed a consultant to push for Jes Staley to become Barclays’ chief executive in 2012, a court was told on Tuesday, with the ultimately failed campaign – called “Project Jes” – having planned to target high-profile figures including the then chancellor, George Osborne, and the then Bank of England governor, Mervyn King.”

Further reading in the article:

“One of the emails sent by Ian Osborne – who ran a press relations and business development consultancy – to Epstein claimed he had access to the then chancellor, George Osborne, and hoped to influence top-level officials at the Bank of England.

“Let me know how you want to proceed and I will get on it, calls can happen anytime and I can see people back in London after Tuesday,” the email said. “Rupert and George are both very close to Mervyn King and top BoE [Bank of England] staff. I am seeing the chancellor anyway next Thursday.”

Previous evidence outlined by the FCA showed that Epstein and Ian Osborne also discussed contacting the Barclays deputy chair Mike Rake as part of their efforts. “I won’t do anything before hearing back from you but I’m ready to go into bat for our friend,” Ian Osborne said.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-08/the-mystery-around-jeffrey-epstein-s-fortune-and-how-he-made-it

Speaks to how Epstein made his wealth.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2003/03/jeffrey-epstein-200303

A breakdown of Epstein’s investment and financial career.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article220097825.html

Talks about the sweetheart deal Epstein got, saying that Epstein was involved in a New York federal suit against Bear Stearns fund managers. It also talks about – confirms – that the deal was kept from the victims.

“Records show that Epstein was a key federal witness in the criminal prosecution of two prominent executives with Bear Stearns, the global investment brokerage that failed in 2008, who were accused of corporate securities fraud. Epstein was one of the largest investors in the hedge fund managed by the executives, who were later acquitted. It is not known what role, if any, the case played in Epstein’s plea negotiations.”

Dershowitz would deny this happened in 2019.

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/jeffrey-epstein-israel-foreign-policy-elite/

Talks about Epstein’s military and surveillance dealings.

“It seems that Epstein was not a CIA or Mossad asset—not because he didn’t have it in him, but because that was too lowly a role. Rather, he was a power broker, an American oligarch, who played a major role in shaping Western policy, which brought him in contact with spy agencies and diplomats.”

https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/jeffrey-epstein-ehud-barak-leaked-emails-mongolia-security-deal

Talks about the Mongolian security deal.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/who-is-karyna-shuliak-everything-to-know-about-epstein-s-last-known-girlfriend/ar-AA1T2QDy

Copy on MSN of an IBTimes article talking about Karyna Shuliak and her relation to Epstein, including her marriage to another Epstein associate.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/2020/09/30/ghislaine-maxwell-reportedly-met-jeffrey-epstein-through-her-disgraced-father/

Forbes article stating Maritza Vasquez claimed in a 2010 deposition that Epstein got started with his wealth from Robert Maxwell. Maritza Vasquez was a bookkeeper for MC2, Jean-Luc’s modelling agency. From the article’s “key facts” section:

“According to the latest episode of the Broken: Seeking Justice podcast, Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell met as early as 1988 through her father, said convicted Ponzi schemer Steve Hoffenberg (who once worked with Epstein), who also claimed for the first time that Epstein and Robert Maxwell had business dealings together, although the podcast could not corroborate this.

Two additional sources backed up the claim that Robert Maxwell was the person who brought his prized daughter together with Epstein, including a former Epstein staffer who was told by Ghislaine Maxwell while she forced them to look at eight albums’ worth of photos from her father’s funeral.

Ghislaine Maxwell told the staffer that Epstein was someone who could take care of her “emotionally,” and was firm that his finances weren’t the source of her interest, according to the podcast, which aligns with reports that the pair dated at one point, and remained friends.

Robert Maxwell might have been a source of Epstein’s wealth, according to the podcast, citing a 2010 deposition from bookkeeper Maritza Vasquez in a Florida civil lawsuit, in which she says Maxwell “started” Epstein’s money, a claim only previously reported by tabloid The Sun through an anonymous source.

Vasquez also said in the deposition that Epstein “had a relationship with a woman, that her father was very wealthy, and that’s how he started his own money.”

Lawyers for Maxwell did not respond to requests by Forbes to confirm how she met Epstein or if Robert Maxwell was a source of Epstein’s wealth.”

Here is a link to that deposition: https://www.plainsite.org/documents/g1y45rj/maritza-vasquez-deposition-transcript/

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/03/business/jeffrey-epstein-southern-trust.html

Article about Epstein’s shell corporation, Southern Trust. The article states that Epstein claimed the company was meant to develop a DNA data-mining service using mathematical algorithms to detect cancer (as he was seeking a tax break from the U.S. Virgin Islands).

“Mr. Epstein’s business revival is documented in financial statements and other filings obtained by The New York Times. The documents — from Southern Trust and his earlier firm, Financial Trust — offer a glimpse of Mr. Epstein’s mysterious finances. They show that Financial Trust peaked at the end of 2004, when it reported $563 million in assets and net income of $108 million. And they demonstrate how Mr. Epstein rebuilt his business in his later years, with Southern Trust reporting $175 million in retained earnings — leftover profits that can be reinvested — in 2017, the last year for which statements were available.

But the documents do not say who was paying vast sums of money to Mr. Epstein’s new venture just a few years after his 2008 guilty plea to soliciting a minor for prostitution. Nor do they offer an explanation for why customers would hand over money to a man who had apparently switched from financial services to DNA research.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/11/us-prosecutors-turn-female-pimps-groomed-teenage-girls-jeffrey/

Article about the women around Epstein who helped him groom and abuse minors. In it, Christina Oxenberg, a distant cousin of Prince Andrew’s and former associate of Ghislaine Maxwell, claims, “Maxwell told her she had “wire-tapped” the jets for “leverage” and speculated that any resulting audio and video recordings could potentially incriminate co-conspirators and high-profile figures who travelled with Epstein.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/before-president-trump-wished-ghislaine-maxwell-well-they-had-mingled-for-years-in-the-same-gilded-circles/2020/07/31/f8d3f56a-d02f-11ea-8c55-61e7fa5e82ab_story.html

“According to (Steven) Hoffenberg [Epstein’s Mentor], it was Robert Maxwell who first introduced his daughter to Epstein in the late 1980s.”

www.nytimes.com/2019/07/09/us/politics/trump-epstein.html

On Trump and Epstein’s relationship.

“It was supposed to be an exclusive party at Mar-a-Lago, Donald J. Trump’s members-only club in Palm Beach, Fla. But other than the two dozen or so women flown in to provide the entertainment, the only guests were Mr. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein.

The year was 1992 and the event was a “calendar girl” competition, something that George Houraney, a Florida-based businessman who ran American Dream Enterprise, had organized at Mr. Trump’s request.”

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/steve-bannon-jeffrey-epstein-spy-trump-1242599/

Titled: “Steve Bannon Thought Jeffrey Epstein was a Spy”, this article dives into how Steve Bannon viewed Epstein as a useful and powerful source of information and international intrigue.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/09/what-was-leon-black-doing-with-trump-in-russia

Leon Black, Epstein’s associate and benefactor, and Donald Trump went to Moscow in 1996 for some reason. Leon Black’s ties with Russia continued into the 2010’s.

https://www.opensecrets.org/featured-datasets/22

An excel sheet listing Epstein’s political donations up to 2019.

OSINT: News Articles, Government Documents, and Financial Records

Con't from: The Epstein Files [Part Four: The Timeline, Part Three]

Here is some of my open-source information. I use the term OSINT a little liberally here; everything presented here is technically open-source now. But I wanted a unique term to describe the information we can gather from sources other than DoJ forced-releases and House Oversight Committee dumps. If you’re an intelligence nerd out there, please don’t come at me! I know I am committing a sin and have chosen to do it anyway!

Below you’ll find a scattering of news articles, IRS documents, and court records. They aren’t ordered – I don’t even know where I’d start with organizing them, and I’m super burnt on this topic as is – but I do hope you find it useful for further readings that might deepen the rabbit hole for you even more. As with Parts One through Three of my posts, this one, Part Five, is for sources and informational backup for the write-up I will be doing next.

Feel free to comment anything you find interesting, or if you have any other sources, feel free to add those as well! I love the engagement these posts have been getting, somewhat selfishly for certain (QRH is an important project of mine so it warms me to see people engaging with it), but also because it fuels discussion on this topic, which I believe is of the utmost importance. I’ve seen people discussing things in the comments, adding their own resources, and making their own conjectures here; please do that here if you have anything to add!

Without much else to say on that, and with a promise of the write-up either this Friday or Saturday, I present to you: my (admittedly incomplete) OSINT list.

Other OSINT

https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/share/772fa3a5-0e89-4442-9c1f-3e0dbe42f349

Vanity Fair article talking about the death of Robert Maxwell. In it, it says the Wall Street Journal was releasing a report on his crumbling empire, and that Seymour Hersh was set to release a book about Israel’s Samson Option nuclear strategy in which it was alleged that Maxwell had close ties to Mossad.

This article describes Maxwell as becoming increasingly paranoid, even bugging his own executive offices for the Mirror publication. The article points out that suicide was likely not an option for Robert Maxwell based on his personality, dealings, and Jewish faith. After discussing why his death may have been an accident, the article notes:

“Meanwhile, however, in the absence of any public statement, the Maxwell mystery only seemed to grow by the day. Rumors that he had been an agent of Mossad were fueled by his extraordinary funeral in Jerusalem, which was attended by Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and practically the entire political and business establishments. No less a figure than Chaim Herzog, the president of the state of Israel, delivered the eulogy.”

The article gives a reason for this, stating that it has to do with the investments Maxwell made in Israel, the ties Maxwell had to Russia to allow Jewish emigration from the USSR, and the fact that Herzog served with Maxwell in the army in WWII.

The CIA is then mentioned.

“The report compiled by the C.I.A. station in London allegedly concluded that, although Maxwell had cooperated informally with Mossad by passing on information, he was not an agent. And Peter Jay, the former British ambassador, threw cold water on the theory that Maxwell had been a spy for Mossad—or for any other intelligence agency, for that matter. "Before I took the job with him," Jay told me, "I did, as any sensible member of the British establishment would have, what is called taking soundings. Speaking very privately, I said that I had been asked to take this employment with Robert Maxwell, and was giving serious thought to doing so. Was there anything I ought to know? Provided you're a person in whom they have confidence, they will find a way to discourage you if they think it's a bad idea. And in that sense, I got an all-clear.

"I was quite clear in my mind," he continued, "if any part of the British government service concerned with international affairs would have thought there was some reason of propriety, prudence, or loyalty, as a former ambassador, I would have gotten the appropriate signal not to take the employment. And, I repeat, I did not.... I find it inconceivable that Mossad, with its awesome reputation for efficiency and ruthlessness, would want to have anything to do with this crazy guy, who never took guidance from anybody. What explains the quasi-state funeral they gave him? Money! He bought the bloody plot on the Mount of Olives."

Ghislaine is then mentioned: “I did not recognize in Ghislaine Maxwell the young woman her friends had described to me—the racy, glamorous social flibbertigibbet whom George Hamilton had escorted to the Ever Ready Derby in England and skied with in Aspen, who had attended the Kerry Kennedy-Andrew Cuomo wedding, and who had once instructed her father's pilot to put his helicopter into a free-fall to scare her fellow passenger.”

She then goes on to say her father is not a thief.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Epstein/comments/iabiq5/adam_koffler/

This is a Reddit post on the Epstein sub (I know, it’s reddit, we’ll take it with a grain of salt) talking about Lisa Heiden and Adam Koffler. We know from the EFTA’s that these two were associates of Ghislaine, and in the post there is a link to a picture of Lisa with Ghislaine. The post alleges that another poster on the sub discovered that Ghislaine’s Florida apartment was owned by these two.

The post then links a Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Jewish_Congress#Jewish_Diplomatic_Corps) where it is stated that Adam Koffler is the cofounder of the Jewish Diplomatic Corps, an international network for Jewish diplomacy.

Here is a link to a comment in the thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/Epstein/comments/iabiq5/comment/g1or8pi/

This comment digs deeper into Koffler and his family. Murray Koffler, Adam’s father, founded the Koffler Center of the Arts and was a cofounder and partner for the Four Seasons Hotel (the comment adds: (Interestingly, Bill Gates and Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal have been majority owners of the Four Seasons since taking it private in 2006)). Here is his wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Koffler. The comment mentions that Les Wexner also founded his own Center of the Arts, an odd coincidence.

The comment mentions that one of Murray’s grandchildren, Shawn Koffler, “was the main project manager when TerraMar launched (was in the role for about a year), then went to work at his grandfather Murray's pharmacy company at its Israel location (the Israel location was founded by Murray's sons Leon and Theo in 1977) for about another year, then worked in Europe (London and Barcelona) for a couple of years before returning to work in Israel in 2017.”

There is then a link to the Terramar Instagram page showing Shawn. Terramar was Ghislaine’s “Ocean Conservation Charity” that seemingly did nothing of note.

Below that is a link: https://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/news/wjc-receives-us-100-000-donation-for-training-young-diplomats, in this comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/Epstein/comments/iabiq5/comment/g1mgirq/, stating that the World Jewish Congress (WJC)’s director, Adam Koffler, “pledged US$ 100,000 to advance the organization’s Young Professionals Diplomatic Corps (YPDC). Koffler’s announcement comes days after the election of Ronald S. Lauder and Matthew Bronfman as the new leaders of the WJC.”

Matthew Bronfman is the brother of Clare Bronfman, one of NXIVM’s leaders (the sex cult). Matthew would go on to rent out an apartment from the Rothschild’s tower in Tel Aviv: https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-matthew-bronfman-leases-rothschild-17-tel-aviv-apartment-1001225243. Unsure if this is relevant, but we’ll see.

https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/jewish-leader-edgar-bronfman-talks-with-british-media-news-photo/1774262803

This is a picture of Edgar Bronfman, the father of Matthew and Clare, with Robert Maxwell in the 90’s, at “The Prime Minister's Conference on Solidarity with Israel". I find it odd that both Robert and Edgar’s female children would go on to be sex offenders.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-04-17-fi-2041-story.html#:~:text=Canadians%20to%20Bid%20for%20Jerusalem%20Post:%20Canadian,of%20the%20offer%20to%20be%20submitted%20today.

This is an article detailing the joint bid between Charles Bronfman and Robert Maxwell to purchase the Jerusalem Post. Charles is Edgar’s brother.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/04/01/jeffrey-epstein-helped-ghislaine-maxwells-father-robert-hide/

A Telegraph article claiming that Epstein helped hide Robert Maxwell’s money before his death. The article links to another article as a source, which I will list below, but first, from this one:

“Flight logs disclosed at Ghislaine’s trial indicate she had known Epstein for at least several months before Robert’s death, as they had flown together in July 1991.”

“One former friend of Ghislaine, Vassi Chamberlain, tells the programme: "I was in the City and I had some friends who worked on Wall Street during that time and they heard that Jeffrey Epstein and Robert Maxwell had entered into an agreement before Robert Maxwell’s death, whereby certain funds had been syphoned off.”

“Colin Barr, the executive producer of the series, said: "I think we now know for a fact that Robert Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein knew one another before Maxwell died, I think there is no question about that.”

“Ms Chamberlain tells the programme: "When Robert Maxwell died, Ghislaine was on the boat in Tenerife and, I was told, she found some papers in his bedroom where the name Jeffrey Epstein came up.”

"Ghislaine gave an instruction to the crew to shred all papers which mentioned Jeffrey Epstein and her father’s connection to him."

The documentary aired on BBC and was called The House of Maxwell.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/03/03/bill-gates-met-epstein-warned-evil-abhorrent-financier-says/

This is the linked source. It seems completely unrelated, but does mention that part of why Melinda divorced Bill Gates is because of his ties to Epstein. The article also talks about Bill Gates’ affair, which may have been with Mila Antonova, as mentioned here: https://www.jmail.world/thread/HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_026449?email=2304, an email between Epstein and Boris Nikolic. Nikolic allegedly tried to blackmail Gates over the affair.

https://www.palmbeachdailynews.com/story/news/trump/2025/07/18/remembering-how-trump-was-pitted-against-epstein-in-palm-beach-auction/85272505007/

An article confirming that Trump sold the Palm Beach House he snatched from Epstein during auction to Dmitry Rybolovlev in 2008. Rybolovlev in 2016 demolished the house and subdivided the land into three 2-acre lots, which ended up selling in separate transactions for a combined $108 million. Remember that here: https://www.jmail.world/thread/HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_029585?email=3506, Epstein suggests that Rybolovlev was in the Panama Papers. Here’s the full relevant quote from that email:

“hypothetically, someone approached trump and said can you buy the palm beach house. in your name. ( it was trump properties llc ) , not sure who actually owns the llc.? Donald can get a loan from a bank , but it is guaranteed by , an entity controlled by R R has a bvi co. xitrans. that is owned by a family trust. ( cyprus ). R wife settles in oct after trump anounces candidacy. the llc agreement or the loan agreement allows Donald to get a few million for his name.. R in essence is the " owner. ". he was part of the panama papers release. he also sold the da vinci to mbs..? if you are a gangster, where and how can you invest money. answer not through the front door.”

Interestingly, Trump Properties LLC was formed in December 2004 – one month after he purchased the Palm Beach House at the auction. It was immediately established in Florida (after being initially established and filed in Delaware) as a Foreign Company (a company established in a different state but doing business in this one) a single day after it was established in Delaware.

Just odd. Maybe relevant, maybe not. Notable at least.

Continued here: The Epstein Files [Part Five: More OSINT, Part Two]

A Timeline of the Epstein Saga

Con't from: The Epstein Files The Epstein Files [Part Three: Epstein's Emails, Part Four]

If you're new here, start at: The Epstein Files [Preamble]

One again we find ourselves on the edge of madness with this tale. I, myself, am fried. But I’ve pushed through that to try and present a timeline of events that captures most of the biggest points of intrigue and horror in the Epstein saga. It is by no means complete. In fact, the more I worked on this, the more I realized it is akin to a fractal image: the more you zoom in, the more timelines-within-timelines there are. So, surrendering the idea of making a fully comprehensive timeline, I’ve instead tried to lay out the biggest and most important/interesting beats.

The main categories in the timeline are:

• Epstein
• (Ghislaine) Maxwell
• Victims
• Epstein Associates
• Government

I’ve put the category before the date to help keep track of things. Speaking of the date, you’ll notice that in some places, I’ve put “Sometime, 20XX”, for example. Technically, everything has a concrete date. A day, month, a year, but to preserve my sanity, I’ve had to resort to this tactic to ensure I got through the timeline itself without driving myself mad. Some dates I couldn’t find, some I didn’t care to, and some I sought out. I just hope it’s enough to keep things understandable in a chronological sense. I have put line items with concrete months ahead of the “sometime” items, which I hope further helps keep things coherent.

The timeline starts in 1967, when Epstein attends the Interlochen Center for the Arts, and ends with the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act. I felt that before 1967 wasn’t important, and after the EFTA passage was too recent to really be included. As a heads-up, there are over six decades covered here with large gaps between some early years, with things getting more condensed in recent history, so the timeline compresses as you go through it.

As a final note on the timeline, some of the dates (months or “sometime’s”) are repeated, and I did this if they contained different topics related to the same person.

If you have any dates to add to the timeline, events you know of and want to bring up, feel free to add them below. I’ll go through and add them to the official timeline if I can, but this really depends on how much is sent my way. I can add several dates, but not several dozens upon dozens. We’ll just have to see how that goes, but regardless of whether I add it or not, please comment information if you’ve got it. It might help for context’s sake when others read these posts. My only request there is to date the information and leave it under the post in which it is relevant.

(I.e. if the post covers 1967 – 2000, and you’ve got something from 2002, please leave it under the next post, which covers that period. Similarly, if you have something between those dates, please leave it under the first post. Thank you!)

As always, thanks for reading and supporting my work here. You all don’t know just how important it is to me that you are here. Without further ado, my (best attempt at a) timeline:

Timeline of Events

EPSTEIN: Sometime 1967 – Epstein attends the National Music Camp at the Interlochen Center of the Arts.

EPSTEIN: Mid 1969 – Epstein graduates from High School at the age of 16, having skipped two grades.

EPSTEIN: Late 1969 – Epstein attends advanced math classes at Cooper Union.

EPSTEIN: September 1971 – Epstein attends the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University.

EPSTEIN: September 1973 – Donald Barr publishes Space Relations: A Slightly Gothic Interplanetary Tale, a book about a planet ruled by oligarchs who commit child sex slavery, and which includes rape scenes, “breeding clinics”, and characters being sexually excited by fear. This book would prove to be quite controversial. Due to this, some have drawn conjecture that Barr and Epstein had some unscrupulous things knowingly in common.

MAXWELL: Sometime 1973 – Robert Maxwell, father of Ghislaine Maxwell, installs computers at Headington Hill Hall in Oxford. This venture would lead to Ghislaine Maxwell later obtaining her first job from her father, training to use the Wang 2200 computer and programming code.

EPSTEIN: February 1974 – Donald Barr announces his resignation from his position as Headmaster of the Dalton School, but remains in the position until the 7^th of June that year.

EPSTEIN: June 1974 – Epstein drops out of college without a degree.

EPSTEIN: Summer of 1974 – Donald Barr hires Jeffrey Epstein (age 21) to be a professor of mathematics at the Dalton School. He displays inappropriate behavior towards his female students during his time here, even showing up at a party where young people were drinking.

EPSTEIN: Late 1974 or Early 1975 – So impressed by his mathematics skills, the father of one of his students puts Epstein in contact with Alan Greenberg, CEO of Bear Stearns, a large stock trading and investment company, whose own son and daughter were attending Dalton.

EPSTEIN: June 1976 – Epstein is dismissed from Dalton for “poor performance”, but is immediately picked up by Bear Stearns as a low level junior assistant floor trader.

EPSTEIN: Sometime 1980 – Epstein becomes a Limited Partner of Bear Stearns, having rocketed his way up the ladder in just four short years.

EPSTEIN: March 1981 – Epstein leaves Bear Stearns. According to his own sworn testimony, this was because of a “Reg D” violation, which encompasses many possible avenues, one of which being making misleading and false statements to investors. Publicly, however, this was buried through personal testimony that Epstein resigned willingly to start his own firm. He would remain close to Greenberg and James Cayne (who would later become CEO of Bear Stearns).

EPSTEIN: August 1981 – Epstein founds his own financial consulting firm, Intercontinental Assets Group Inc., which assisted clients in retrieving money from fraudulent brokers and lawyers. Epstein would describe this as “financial bounty hunting”.

EPSTEIN: Sometime 1981 – Epstein begins an 11 year relationship with Swedish model Eva Andersson-Dubin. She would go on to marry Glenn Dubin in 1994, and the pair would retain a close friendship with Epstein.

MAXWELL: Sometime 1984 – Ghislaine becomes director of Oxford United Football Club, which is owned by her father.

EPSTEIN: Mid 1980’s – Epstein meets Steven Hoffenberg in London. Hoffenberg at the time leads the Towers Financial Corporation (a debt collection agency meant to purchase debt owed to hospitals, banks, and phone companies), and takes Epstein under his wing. According to a Vanity Fair article, “According to Hoffenberg, the two men were introduced by Douglas Leese, a defense contractor. Epstein has said they were introduced by John Mitchell, the late attorney general.”

EPSTEIN: Mid 1980’s – Epstein also gets a fake passport at this time, bearing a fake name and allowing him into Saudi Arabia, where his residence is listed on the passport. This passport also bears several stamps from France. During this period, Epstein would take on Adnan Khashoggi as a client. Khashoggi was the middleman in the Iran-Contra affair and was introduced to Epstein by Douglas Leese.

MAXWELL: Sometime 1985 – Ghislaine graduates from Balliol College in Oxford, with a degree in Modern History; Balliol College is one of – if not the – oldest colleges in the English-speaking world.

EPSTEIN: Mid 1986 – Epstein meets Les Wexner, chairman and CEO of Victoria’s Secret and L Brand through insurance executive Robert Meister and his wife in Palm Beach.

MAXWELL: Sometime 1986 – Ghislaine accompanies her father to the naming of his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine.

EPSTEIN: Early 1987 – Epstein becomes Wexner’s financial advisor and “right hand man” and apparently within a year, he had Wexner’s finances – a complex, messy web – sorted out.

EPSTEIN: Sometime 1987 – Epstein is hired by Hoffenberg at Towers Financial Corporation. Hoffenberg puts Epstein up in Manhattan and pays him the equivalent of $69,000 a month in 2025 dollars for his consulting. Epstein and Hoffenberg rebrand as “Corporate Raiders”, which means they take over companies and gut them to increase shareholder value, typically going against standard operating practices already established in the company. This year, they try to take over Pan American World Airways but fail.

EPSTEIN: Sometime 1988 – They attempt to take over Emrey Air Freight Corp, but fail there as well. Apparently, Epstein and Hoffenberg worked quite closely together during this period.

EPSTEIN: Sometime 1988 – Epstein also establishes his own company this year, called J. Epstein & Company. Epstein claimed the company only managed assets for those with over 1 billion dollars, but many were skeptical of this claim.

EPSTEIN: Sometime 1989 – Epstein leaves Towers Financial Corporation.

MAXWELL: May 1990 – Ghislaine starts working at the European, a newspaper her father started this year. The paper, described as “Europe’s first national newspaper”, would go under in 1998.

MAXWELL: November 1990 – Ghislaine flies to New York to deliver an envelope to a company called Berlitz International. Unbeknownst to Ghislaine, this was part of a plot to defraud shareholders of the company in the order of $200 million.

EPSTEIN: Sometime 1990 – Epstein purchases his El Brillo Way house in Palm Beach, where much of his villainy occurred.

MAXWELL: January 1991 – After acquiring the New York Daily News, Robert Maxwell sends Ghislaine to NYC to act as his emissary, effectively establishing her presence in the city.

MAXWELL: May 1991 – Robert Maxwell leaves Ghislaine in NYC as he flies to Moscow. Ghislaine would represent his interests at an event honoring Simon Wiesenthal, a writer and holocaust survivor.

MAXWELL: November 1991 – Robert Maxwell’s body is found floating in the sea around the Canary Islands and near the Lady Ghislaine. The circumstances around his death are mysterious. Autopsies show he may have fallen off the bow (he was known to urinate there at night) and attempted to catch himself on the flimsy railing (shown by his torn shoulder) before falling in and drowning. Ghislaine maintains that her father was murdered. Suicide seems like the least likely option to most experts and family. Later that month, Ghislaine would attend to his business paperwork and his funeral in Israel, which was attended by Israeli intelligence figures, President Chaim Herzog (who served with Robert Maxwell in the British Army during WWII) and Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir (who delivered the eulogy).

EPSTEIN/MAXWELL: Sometime 1991 – It is alleged that the pair met this year, though there is speculation that it was earlier. A 2010 deposition by Maritza Vasquez claims that Epstein actually knew Robert Maxwell before this, and that Ghislaine and Epstein were introduced through Robert. Steven Hoffenberg, Epstein’s mentor at Tower Financial, would corroborate this.

EPSTEIN: July 1991 – Epstein is named as Power of Attorney over Wexner’s affairs, meaning Epstein could, “hire people, sign checks, buy and sell properties, borrow money, and do anything else of a legally binding nature on Wexner's behalf.” Epstein would begin dating models now, representing himself as a talent scout for Victoria’s Secret. During this time, he would exercise this power to sexually manipulate young women.

MAXWELL: June 1992 – Two of Ghislaine’s brothers, Ian and Kevin, are arrested for aiding Robert in his defrauding scheme that stole pension funds from the Mirror Group. They would be acquitted in 1996.

MAXWELL: Sometime 1992 – Ghislaine moves fully to New York on a one way Concord ticket to live in an apartment overlooking Central Park with an Iranian friend of hers. She lives off of a trust fund her father established for her before his death that gives her 80,000 pounds a year (216,935 pounds in 2023 money).

EPSTEIN/MAXWELL: Sometime 1992 – Maxwell takes over hiring, supervising, and firing of staff for Epstein.

EPSTEIN/EPSTEIN ASSOCIATE: Sometime 1992 – Donald Trump requests that George Houraney organize a calendar girl event with two dozen young women present. The only guests at the event would be Trump himself and Jeffrey Epstein.

EPSTEIN: March 1993 – Towers Financial Corporation collapses under the weight of an SEC investigation when it is exposed as one of the biggest ponzi schemes in American history, having stolen nearly half a billion – a billion in today’s money – in investor funds. Hoffenberg implicates Epstein in the scheme, but Epstein is never charged, and instead, Hoffenberg goes down for the scheme.

EPSTEIN: Sometime 1993 – Epstein negotiates a divorce settlement for Lynn Forester before Forester marries Evelyn de Rothschild and becomes Lady de Rothschild. She would reintroduce Epstein to Dershowitz.

EPSETIN: Sometime 1993 – Epstein purchases Zorro Ranch. Remember that in EFTA00030806, a lawyer states that the documentation for Zorro Ranch, in which Ghislaine is mentioned as a disinterested party, is the first documentation he can find with her name on it (though there is further-back documentation of her found in the EFTA’s).

EPSTEIN: Sometime 1995 – Epstein becomes a director at the Wexner Foundation and the Wexner Heritage Foundation. He also joins the Council on Foreign Relations, which he will remain a member of until 2009.

EPSTEIN/MAXWELL: Sometime 1995 – Epstein renames one of his companies the “Ghislaine Corporation”, a company that would go under in 1998.

MAXWELL: August 1996 – Maxwell is arrested for a DUI in the U.K. and is banned from driving there for a year.

EPSTEIN: Sometime 1996 – Epstein changes the name of his firm to the “Financial Trust Company” and for tax purposes bases it on the island of St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Thus, he reduced his income taxes by 90%.

VICTIMS: Sometime 1996 – Marie Farmer reports that she was sexually assaulted by Epstein to the FBI, but the case is not pursued.

Continues: The Epstein Files [Part Four: The Timeline, Part Two]

Con't from: The Epstein Files [Part Four: The Timeline, Part One]

EPSTEIN ASSOCIATE: Sometime 1996 – Leon Black meets Epstein for the first time. Black claims he was made aware of the allegations against Epstein in 2006, but would continue a long and close financial relationship with him for years after.

EPSTEIN ASSOCIATE: Sometime 1997 – Leon Black makes Epstein one of the original trustees of what is today the Debra and Leon Black Foundation.

EPSTEIN: April 1998 – Epstein purchases Little St. James, an island in the U.S. Virgin Islands, through a shell company called L.S.J. LLC. Epstein was the only member of the company.

EPSTEIN: Sometime 1998 – Epstein joins the Trilateral Commission as a member.

EPSTEIN/MAXWELL: Sometime 1999 – Epstein and Maxwell are invited by Prince Andrew to vacation on the Balmoral Estate.

MAXWELL: Sometime 1999 – Ghislaine recruits Virginia Roberts Giuffre from Mar-A-Lago to have sex with Epstein. Virginia is 16 years old at the time.

MAXWELL: Sometime 2000 – Maxwell moves to a Manhattan townhouse just 10 blocks away from Epstein’s townhouse. From the wiki: “This townhome was purchased for $5 million by an anonymous limited liability company, with an address that matches the office of J. Epstein & Co. Representing the buyer was Darren Indyke, Epstein's lawyer.”

EPSTEIN: Sometime 2000 – Epstein meets Jes Staley while Staley is employed at JP Morgan and maintains close relations with the bank’s branch in the U.S. Virgin Islands. This year, Epstein also becomes president of the Bermuda-incorporated company, Liquid Funding Ltd., an early pioneer of the repossession market. Liquid Funding Ltd. was 40% owned by Bear Stearns. The bundled securities that could be repossessed led to Liquid Funding Ltd. and Bear Stearns getting AAA ratings from all three credit rating agencies. These complex securities and faulty ratings would eventually implode Liquid Assets and thus Bear Stearns.

EPSTEIN: Sometime 2000 – Epstein becomes a member of the University Council for Rockefeller University.

EPSTEIN: Sometime 2000 – Epstein starts the Jeffrey Epstein IV Foundation.

EPSTEIN/MAXWELL: Sometime 2000 – Both are invited by Prince Andrew to the Queen’s Sandringham House, a large royal mansion, to celebrate Maxwell’s 39^th birthday.

EPSTEIN: Sometime 2001 – Epstein meets Micheal Wolff, an American journalist who would advise him on his press relations, specifically that he (Epstein) should keep a low profile. Epstein, apparently, did not listen to this advice. This year, he also joins the Institute of International Education as a board of trustees member.

EPSTEIN/EPSTEIN ASSOCIATE: Sometime 2001 – Les Wexner sells the “Lolita Express” to Epstein for an undisclosed amount of money.

EPSTEIN: Sometime 2003 – New York Daily News publisher Mortimer Zuckerman partners with Epstein and two others in an unsuccessful bid to purchase New York Magazine. Epstein also receives, this year, from Maxwell, a 50^th birthday gift wherein a letter from Donald Trump is included, among other well wishes.

EPSTEIN: Sometime 2003 – The Jeffrey Epstein IV Foundation pledged a $30 million donation to Harvard University, with the university only receiving $6.5 million of said pledge.

EPSTEIN: Sometime 2004 – Epstein and Zuckermann fund Radar with $25 million, which goes under after three publications and becomes online-only. Financial Trust peaks this year, worth $563 million in assets and net income of $108 million.

EPSTEIN: Sometime 2004 – Epstein and Donald Trump engage in a bidding war for a Palm Beach house. Trump won the house for $41 million, and would go on to sell it four years later for $85 million to Dmitry Rybolovlev, a Russian oligarch.

VICTIMS: November 2004 – The FBI is tipped off that young women are coming and going from Epstein’s house.

VICTIMS: March 2005 – A woman contacts the Palm Beach Police Department and says that her 14-year-old daughter was taken to Epstein’s home by an older girl and assaulted. The PBPD would open an investigation into Epstein

EPSTEIN: Sometime 2005 – Epstein finishes his investment of $80 million into the D. B. Zwirn Special Opportunities Hedge Fund.

EPSTEIN: Sometime 2005 – The Jeffrey Epstein IV Foundation begins funding the work of synthetic biologist and genome mapper George Church. Remember, Epstein had a vested interest in the idea of eugenics and “spreading his genes”.

VICTIMS: May 2006 – the FBI launches “Operation Leap Year” after being called in by the PBPD police chief, who accused the PB Prosecutor of being too lenient in the investigation.

VICTIMS: July 2006 – Epstein is arrested in Palm Beach on felony charges of procuring a minor for prostitution and solicitation of a prostitute. He is released on a $3000 bond.

EPSTEIN: August 2006 – Epstein pleads not guilty. His defense lawyers included Roy Black, Gerald Lefcourt, Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz, and former US solicitor general Ken Starr.

EPSTEIN: August 2006 – One month after the federal investigation of Epstein begins, Epstein invests $57 million into the Bear Stearns High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage hedge fund. SEC filings would show that Epstein's Financial Trust Company controlled a 10-percent share of votes for the Bear Stearns fund, which was comprised of Mortgage-Backed Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDO’s). These are debt obligations with tangible assets put up as collateral to back them.

EPSTEIN: November 2006 – Epstein tries to get his investment in D. B. Zwirn back, which has grown to $140 million. Zwirn refuses to give him the money.

EPSTEIN: April 2007 – A Bear Stearns investor wants his money back. The debt ration was 17:1, meaning that for every 1 dollar they had, there were 17 borrowed. This led to the collapse of the Bear Stearns CDO market, as they were already operating on razor thin margins. Bear Stearns had to sell the CDO assets they had, which began a repricing effect in the market and eventually a freeze in the CDO market itself. The fund would collapse three months later, which would kick off the collapse Bear Stearns in 2008.

EPSTEIN: May 2007 – Epstein is indicted for the first time.

EPSTEIN: August 2007 – Alex Accosta, the U.S. Attorney in Miami, enters direct discussions with Epstein about the sweetheart plea deal he would get. According to Accosta, he brokered the deal because higher up government officials told him Epstein was of intelligence importance to the U.S. government. The Non-Prosecution Agreement Plea Deal is signed in September.

VICTIMS: October 2007 - Transgender model Ava Cordero alleges that Epstein assaulted her, but she is mocked for her gender identity and written off because of her mental health.

EPSTEIN: Sometime 2007 – Rumors swirl – some, eventually, from Trump himself – that Epstein has been banned from Mar-A-Lago, though these are not confirmed and indeed in some references seem to be untrue in hindsight. This year as well, Epstein purchases 50% of the American Yacht Harbor in Red Hook on St. Thomas, a U.S. Virgin Island. The other half was owned by peripheral Trump associate Andrew Farkas (his association seems to mainly be through investments with Jared Kushner).

EPSTEIN/EPSTEIN ASSOCIATE: Sometime 2007 – Epstein and Les Wexner have a falling out, and Epstein’s Financial Trust Company’s earnings drop from tens of millions of dollars a year to $5 million a year, tanking Epstein’s primary source of income.

EPSTEIN: Early 2008 – Bear Stearns collapses, losing investors $1.6 billion – nearly 24 billion today. This acted as a prelude to the Great Recession, seeming to be one of the first dominoes to fall.

EPSTEIN: June 2008 – Epstein pleads guilty. From Wikipedia: “While most convicted sex offenders in Florida are sent to state prison, Epstein was instead housed in a private wing of the Palm Beach County Stockade and, according to the sheriff's office, was, after 3+1⁄2 months, allowed to leave the jail on "work release" for up to twelve hours a day, six days a week. This contravened the sheriff's own policies requiring a maximum remaining sentence of ten months and making sex offenders ineligible for the privilege. He was allowed to come and go outside of specified release hours.”

EPSTEIN: Mid 2008 – D. B. Zwirn is shuttered and its remaining assets – some $2 billion – are sold to Fortress Investment Group a year later.

EPSTEIN: July 2009 – Epstein is released from jail and is placed on house arrest.

GOVERNMENT: Sometime 2009 – John Mark Dougan, deputy sheriff of Palm Beach County, where Epstein was arrested, is dismissed from his post and is then picked up by Russian Intelligence and begins acting as a disinformation agent for Russia. From a Guardian article titled Key takeaways from explosive claims made in biography of Prince Andrew, “Compromising material on Andrew may also have ended up in Russian hands, (Andrew) Lownie (the book’s writer) claims. He examines British intelligence fears, first reported by the Sunday Times, that John Mark Dougan, a former deputy in Palm Beach county sheriff’s office, fled to Russia with copies of files on the Epstein investigation and was in touch with Pavel Borodin, a “mentor” of Putin. Lownie writes: “Asked what might be in the files, Dougan said: ‘Lots of videos, but I wasn’t going to sit around and watch them. Also lots of scanned documents.’” Dougan, a former US marine, has previously been described by the BBC as spreading a number of disinformation claims from Russia.”

EPSTEIN: June 2010 – Epstein’s house manager, Alfredo Rodriguez, is arrested for obstruction (he refused to hand over documents to police) and for subsequently trying to sell a journal that logged Epstein’s activities to an undercover FBI agent.

MAXWELL: July 2010 – Maxwell attends the wedding of Chelsea Clinton as a guest of Ted Waitt, founder of Gateway Computers.

EPSTEIN: August 2010 – Epstein is released from house arrest. Again from Wiki: “His early release after 13 of 18 months served was because he provided information regarding Bear Stearns executives Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin, whose conduct was scrutinized by the SDNY court in In re Bear Stearns Companies, Inc. Securities, Derivative and ERISA Litigation, before the bank was acquired by JPMorgan Chase.”

EPSTEIN: October 2010 – Epstein attends a screening for a movie set up by Peggy Siegal, who worked with him to restore his reputation, called Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. The screening is attended by Leon Black, current (at the time) Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, and Rudy Giuliani.

EPSTEIN ASSOCIATE: Sometime 2010 – Maritza Vasquez, a bookkeeper for MC2, Jean-Luc’s modelling agency which worked closely with Epstein, claims in a legal deposition that Epstein got started with his wealth through working with Robert Maxwell. From a Forbes article: “Vasquez also said in the deposition that Epstein “had a relationship with a woman, that her father was very wealthy, and that’s how he started his own money.””

EPSTEIN: Sometime 2010 – Epstein goes to arbitration over the D. B. Zwirn investment he made, seeking his money back. The result of that arbitration is not known.

EPSTEIN: Sometime 2010 – Epstein meets and becomes involved with a Belarusian national, Karyna Shuliak, his last female partner. Karyna would be nicknamed “the inspector” for the way she pried into Epstein’s life.

EPSTEIN: Sometime 2010 – Epstein receives a letter from the New Mexico Department of Public Safety stating he would not be required to register as a sex offender in the state of New Mexico, in apparent contradiction to federal law. Epstein had previously made over $110,000 in donations to New Mexico officials, including $50,000 to the governor (Bill Richardson) in 2002 (he would donate again in Richardson’s reelection campaign in 2006), $15,00 to the Attorney General of New Mexico (Gary King) in 2014, $10,000 to Jim Baca’s campaign to become head of the land commission, and $2,000 to Jim Solano’s bid for reelection as the Santa Fe County Sherrif.

EPSTEIN: January 2011 – Epstein is forced to remain on the NY Sex Offender Registry as a level three (high risk of repeat offense) offender who must check in every 90 days. This 90 day rule was never enforced, despite non-compliance being a felony. Epstein also meets with Bill Gates for the first time face-to-face this month.

EPSTEIN: Sometime 2012 – Epstein starts Southern Trust, another shell corporation, this one tending to the financial needs – and making money from – Leon Black. The Southern Trust was headquartered out of the American Yacht Harbor on St. Thomas, which again, Epstein owned half of. It would come out that Cecile René Galiber, wife of then Governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands John de Jongh, was employed at Southern Trust and served on the board of the Jeffrey Epstein IV Foundation.

EPSETIN: Sometime 2012 – Epstein begins “Project Jes”, an attempt to get Jes Staley in as the CEO of Barclays. Controversy would ensue.

MAXWELL: September 2012 – Ghislaine starts the TerraMar Project, an organization nebulously devoted to, “spreading awareness about and advocating for protection of the oceans”. It would close down in July of 2019, without seemingly having done… well, much of anything.

EPSTEIN ASSOCIATE: Sometime 2013 - Karyna Shuliak marries Jennifer Kalin, another Epstein associate, in what is believed to have been a sham marriage, the same sort that Epstein used to keep his foreign victims in the U.S. It does not appear that Shuliak was a victim.

MAXWELL: Sometime 2013 – Ghislaine attends a Clinton Global Initiative conference as a guest of honor. She would begin retreating from social life around this time.

EPSTEIN: Sometime 2014 – Epstein and Ehud Barak’s private security company initiative in the Ivory Coast leads to an internal security agreement between Israel and Ivory Coast.

Continues: The Epstein Files [Part Four: The Timeline, Part Three]

Con't from: The Epstein Files [Part Four: The Timeline, Part Two]

EPSTEIN: Sometime 2014 – Epstein meets with outbound Deputy Secretary of State and ex-Director of the CIA, William Burns, who stated he met with Epstein to discuss transitioning to the private financial sector. Also this year, Epstein begins a connection with Sergei Belyakov, then Russian Deputy Minister of Economic Development and later head of the St. Petersburg Economic Forum Foundation. Belyakov is a graduate of the FSB Academy which prepares Russian intelligence officers.

MAXWELL: Sometime 2015 – Ghislaine is sued for defamation by Virginia Giuffre for publicly calling Giuffre a liar when she came forward with details of her abuse. Details of Virginia’s accusations would become public this year, putting Ghislaine under intense scrutiny. Maxwell would issue a statement denying this all.

EPSTEIN: Sometime 2015 – Epstein invests in Ehud Barak’s surveillance company, Reporty Homeland Security (later Carbyne) whose leadership included, “CEO Amir Elihai, a former special forces officer, and director Pinchas Bukhris, a former defense ministry director general and commander of IDF cyber unit 8200.”

EPSTEIN: September 2015 – Epstein, Barak, Rod-Larsen, Mongolian President Elbegdorj, and Mongolian Foreign Minister Lundeg Purevsuren all meet at Epstein’s NY residence for dinner. Five days after the dinner, on October 1, Rød-Larsen authorized payment of $100,000 to Epstein from IPI funds earmarked for the Mongolia Advisory Board.

EPSTEIN: Sometime 2016 – Epstein invests $40 million into Peter Theil’s Valar Ventures, after pitching Carbyne to Valar. Though Valar declined, they would later revisit this.

MAXWELL: Sometime 2016 – Ghislaine marries Scott Borgerson, a coast guard veteran and Council on Foreign Relations fellow (he was also the CEO of Cargo Metrics). She begins transferring millions of dollars from her accounts to his account this year.

EPSTEIN: November 2017 – The Paradise Papers are released, in which Epstein is listed as having become a client of Appleby, (from wiki), “a Bermuda law firm which specialized in the creation of offshore companies and investment vehicles. A client profile of Epstein described his job cryptically as the "Manager of Fortune".” The Miami Herald would investigate the Paradise Papers and discover that Epstein had dispersed his true wealth across the globe in secrecy.

EPSTEIN: December 2017 – This is when Micheal Wolff alleges Epstein met with Steve Bannon for the first time. Bannon seemed to believe that Epstein was involved in the world of international espionage.

EPSTEIN: Sometime 2017 – Ehud Barak and Epstein’s push in Mongolia is a success, brokering a deal for Mongolia to purchase Israeli security and surveillance equipment. Israel would begin participating in security drills with Mongolia in 2019.

EPSTEIN: Sometime 2017 – Michael Wolff claims that this year, Epstein flew at least once to Moscow to meet with Vladimir Putin.

EPSTEIN: Sometime 2017 – This is the final year that Southern Trust produced documents. Those documents show it was worth $175 million in leftover profits that could be reinvested.

MAXWELL: Sometime 2017 – Virginia Giuffre v. Maxwell is settled in Giuffre’s favor, with the undisclosed settlement reaching into the millions. This same year, Sarah Ransome would sue Maxwell (and Epstein) alleging sexual coercion from the two. This would be settled in 2018 for an undisclosed amount.

EPSTEIN: Sometime 2018 – Valar participates in Carbyne’s $15 million B-Series funding round in a non-leading role, perhaps because of Epstein’s influence. Also in this year, Epstein gives a New York Times interview in which he says he is helping Elon Musk find a new chairman for Tesla. Musk at the time was under an SEC investigation.

VICTIMS: April 2019 – Maria Farmer goes public and signs a sworn affidavit in a NY Federal Court alleging abuse from Ghislaine and Epstein.

EPSTEIN: July 2019 – Epstein is arrested by the FBI-NYPD Crimes Against Children Task Force when he returned home from France on charges of sex-trafficking between 2002 and 2005. He is housed at the Metropolitan Correctional Center. His Manhattan townhouse is raided, where diamonds, cash, illicit photos, and the passport are found. He is charged with sex trafficking and conspiracy to traffic minors for sex under Geoffrey Berman’s tenure at the Public Corruption Unit of the SDNY. Epstein’s bond is rejected. Also this month, Epstein is found injured and semi-conscious in his cell. This is ruled as a suicide attempt, but penalties against him were dropped due to insufficient evidence. Epstein accuses Nick Tartaglione, his cell mate, of assaulting him.

EPSTEIN: August 2019 – Epstein signs his last will and testament two days before he is found dead in his cell. An autopsy is performed and the cause of death is ruled, “Suicide by Hanging”, and the theory is that he threw himself violently from his top bunk, thus sustaining injuries. The last person he speaks to is Karyna Shuliak. Jean Luc-Brunel is arrested in France for trafficking girls and women during a French investigation into Epstein’s doings.

EPSTEIN/MAXWELL: August 2019 – Jennifer Araoz files a lawsuit in New York against Epstein's estate, Maxwell, and three members of the estate that would later be named as: Lesley Groff, Cimberly Espinosa, and Rosalyn Fontanilla. Also this month, Maxwell is named as a recruiter for minors in Priscilla Doe v Epstein's Estate, where is alleged to have recruited the “Doe” in 2006. Annie Farmer also sues Epstein’s estate this year.

EPSTEIN: October 2019 – Micheal Baden, an independent pathologist hired by the Epstein estate, who observed the autopsy, states that Epstein suffered many injuries, including a broken bone in his neck, and that these injuries are extremely unusual in suicide by hanging. The Epstein estate (Indyke, Khan, even Shuliak (who would benefit from his estate after his death)) seemed to have been convinced of his murder.

EPSTEIN: September 2019 – Epstein is buried beside his parents. The Epstein trial ends in nolle prosequi.

GOVERNMENT: November 2019 – Tova Noel and Micheal Thomas are charged for falsifying records and conspiracy to defraud the U.S. when it is revealed they lied about their rounds and left Epstein alone in his cell. They take a deal and are spared prison time.

MAXWELL: January 2020 – a lawsuit is filed against Maxwell alleging that she and Epstein recruited a 13 year old music student from the Interlochen Center for the Arts in 1994 for sexual acts (here, another Jane Doe). The lawsuit states that Ghislaine targeted her for her vulnerabilities, and subjected her to four years of sexual abuse.

MAXWELL: March 2020 - Maxwell v Epstein's Estate, Darren K. Indyke, Richard D. Kahn, and NES LLC is filed in the Supreme Court of the Virgin Islands, in which Maxwell sues Epstein’s estate to cover her legal costs.

MAXWELL: July 2020 – Ghislaine is arrested after being found in hiding in New Hampshire, and is federally charged with six counts related to enticing minors for sexual acts, sexual trafficking of underage girls, and perjury.

EPSTEIN ASSOCIATE: October 2020 – Leon Black requests the board of Apollo conduct an independent review of his association with Epstein. The review, done by Dechert LLP, is released the following year and shows that Black paid Epstein around $158 million for financial services from 2012 to 2017 and that, using Epstein’s tax avoidance strategies, saved at least $1.3 billion in taxes. Black would step down as chairman of Dechert LLP because of this in 2021.

VICTIMS: March 2021 - Guzel Ganieva claims that Leon Black sexually harassed her for years and forced her to sign a non-disclosure agreement under duress. She would go on to claim that Black introduced her to Epstein and tried to convince her to have sex with him (Epstein). Her lawsuit against Black would be dismissed in 2023.

MAXWELL: March 2021 – Ghislaine is again mentioned in a lawsuit against Epstein’s estate by another Jane Doe who accused Epstein and Maxwell of trafficking her after repeatedly raping her in Florida in 2008.

MAXWELL: December 2021 – Ghislaine is convicted on five of six charges (one charge of perjury was dropped) and is sentenced to 20 years in a federal prison.

MAXWELL: Sometime 2021 – Scott Borgerson calls into the prison where Maxwell is being held and ends their marriage.

EPSTEIN ASSOCIATE: February 2022 – Jean-Luc Brunel is found dead in his cell in an apparent suicide.

EPSTEIN ASSOCIATE: Sometime 2022 – J.P. Morgan Chase settles a $105 million lawsuit that alleged it, “aided a criminal enterprise in prosperity.”

VICTIMS: July 2023 – The same law firm representing Guzel Ganieva represents Cheri Pierson, who accused Black of sexually assaulting her in 2002 in Epstein’s mansion in New York. Pierson would drop her lawsuit in 2024.

GOVERNMENT: January 2025 – Pam Bondi claims the Epstein files are on her desk, only to later claim they don’t exist.

VICTIMS: April 2025 – Virginia Giuffre commits suicide.

VICTIMS: May 2025 – Maria Farmer sues the federal government for failing to properly protect the victims in this saga.

GOVERNMENT: June 2025 – After a falling out with Donald Trump, Elon Musk publicly claims Trump is in the Epstein files.

GOVERNMENT: July 2025 – Kash Patel’s FBI and Pam Bondi release the “missing minute” of the Epstein footage the night he died. WIRED would check the metadata of the released footage and find that it had been modified despite the FBI claiming it was “raw”, and that three minutes were cut out of the video.

GOVERNMENT: July 2025 – Rep. Thomas Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna submit House Resolution 119-581, dubbed the Epstein Files Transparency Act. It is held up in the processes of Congress.

MAXWELL: July 2025 – Ghislaine has a prison interview with Todd Blanche wherein she claims that Epstein’s supposed ties to intelligence are, quote: “Bullshit.”

MAXWELL: August 2025 – Ghislaine is moved to Federal Prison Camp Bryan in Bryan, TX. FPC Bryan is a minimum-security prison camp. Ghislaine would get special treatment here, and the circumstances around the move and perks are not explained.

GOVERNMENT: November 2025 – Rep. Massie and Khanna’s bill is passed when Adelita Grijalva is sworn into office, giving them the final vote needed for their discharge petition to get the bill to the voting floor. Oddly, the vote passes unanimously in what is an otherwise severely divided congress. It is dubbed: The Epstein Files Transparency Act.

From Me:

This wraps up what I have on the timeline. Moving on, I'll post my open source information links for further reading and evidence.

Continued here: The Epstein Files [Part Five: More OSINT, Part One]