Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hey, it's Jess.
And Ryan. Tickets for our live show in Los Angeles are on sale now.
Join us Tuesday, April 28th at the El Rey Theater at 8 p.m. There'll be special guests, conversations about the business of Hollywood, and afterwards, we'll stick around to meet you all.
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So when this big batch of Epstein files came out in late January, do you remember where you were?
I was really sick in bed trying not to work, actually.
That's our colleague Emily Glazer, who writes about the rich and powerful, including about people with ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
And I got a call from Khadija Safdar, who is our lead reporter on all things Epstein. And she's like, oh, my God, you won't believe it. And I was like, not really that with it. I'm like logging into these files, kind of like a little like out of it. And I was just like, oh, my gosh. And so I became obsessed.
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Chapter 2: What are the details of the recent Epstein files release?
typical rules or guidelines that exist when you're handling confidential information.
Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Ryan Knudson. It's Thursday, March 26th. Coming up on the show, how Jeffrey Epstein leveraged his elite network to make financial investments. We know that Jeffrey Epstein made hundreds of millions of dollars advising a few billionaire clients. But his other income is still somewhat of a mystery.
Most of Epstein's wealth came from advising billionaires like Leon Black, who ran a private equity juggernaut, Apollo, and Les Wexner, who oversaw L Brands, which owns Victoria's Secret and a number of other retailers. And he made a lot of money advising them over the years. And his estate...
when he, according to court papers filed after Epstein's death, put his worth at at least $577 million, which includes his private island and properties.
That's a lot of money.
It is.
And then it also, I mean, even the work that he was doing, at this point, it's still not extremely clear as to why he was being paid so much for that work. Because in the market, usually those services often are much cheaper than what it seems like he was being paid.
Yes, that's been a big question over the years and subject to a lot of, I think, elements of lawsuits and investigations. And it's hard to fully divorce what Epstein was doing with trafficking women and trying to like understand his whole empire because he had a lot of things going on at once.
And oftentimes, not always, his relationships with different people, you know, would have this like sort of business component and then also sometimes this social or like sexual component.
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Chapter 3: How did Jeffrey Epstein leverage his network for financial gain?
Nikolic said he didn't know he'd been named a backup executor in Epstein's will. A spokesperson for Gates didn't respond to requests for comment about the information sharings. The Gates spokesperson has said that when it comes to the negotiations over Nikolic's separation, quote, Gates has said he regrets his association with Epstein and wasn't aware of his crimes.
There are other examples in the Epstein files of people sharing confidential information. One involved his longtime client, Leon Black. In 2015, Black was Apollo Global Management's CEO, and Epstein was advising Black on tax and estate planning. Emails released in the Epstein files show a conversation between Epstein and the CFO of Leon Black's family office about Apollo's finances.
Epstein held 250,000 shares in the publicly traded company.
In March of 2015, Epstein got an email that was marked, confidential, material non-public info. This was from the CFO of Leon Black's family office. And the email projected, among other things, that Apollo's cash distribution, which is equivalent to a dividend... for the first quarter of 2015 would be about $0.34 per share.
And then when Apollo announced its quarterly earnings, two months later, the cash distribution was $0.33 a share. So he's getting information about a public company.
The amount of a future dividend payout can impact whether someone buys or sells that company's stock. And knowing it ahead of time could give an investor an advantage. A spokesman for Black said Epstein provided tax and estate planning services for Black's family office and was given information about his holdings in Apollo for these purposes. I've got another example for you.
This one involves Israel's former prime minister, Ehud Barak. Epstein's emails show that in 2016, Barak sent confidential information about a company he'd invested in. It was a tech startup called Reporte, where Barak was chair of the board.
Ehud Barak sent an email to Epstein in January 2016. He shared minutes from a reportee board meeting, and it showed the board had authorized the CEO to contact venture capitalists to raise $10 million. And Barak wrote, What's wrong with sharing meeting minutes from a board meeting? When you're a board member, those are sacred. Those are not shared outside the boardroom.
There's a very small number of individuals who are usually board members. And this is where they discuss all of the most confidential, sensitive information about a company, financials, personnel, strategy. And it's just known, like, you don't forward those around. It's just not the kind of information you share.
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