Okay, I want you to do something for me. If you're
not driving, just close your eyes for a second.
Don't do it on the treadmill either. Right. Good
point. But if you're safe, just picture it. Oh,
you go back in time. It's maybe 2014. You pick
up your phone. You open up Instagram. You start
scrolling. What do you see? Oh, wow. 2014. That's
a throwback. Probably a lot of really heavily
filtered photos of food, right? Some sunsets.
And then you'd scroll past a brunch photo and
then boom. There he was. There he was. Always.
The beard. The giant sunglasses. The stacks of
poker chips that look like skyscrapers. And the
private jets. The ones that looked more like,
I don't know, a billionaire's living room than
an airplane. And of course the women. So many
women. Usually on a yacht or draped over some
kind of military grade vehicle. And all of them
wearing like... less fabric than you'd find in
a single sock. You couldn't escape him. He was
the king of Instagram. He really was. It was
an archetype. Dan Bilzerian. He basically created
a new category of internet fame before we even
really knew what to call it. Exactly. For, I
don't know, a good five, maybe six years, he
was the guy that every kid in a college dorm
room either wanted to be or, you know, wanted
to prove was a total fraud. Is one or the other.
He sold this this explosive, completely unapologetic
action movie life. Guns, girls, high stakes gambling.
It was like he was playing Grand Theft Auto,
but with the infinite money cheat code turned
on. It was a really fascinating cultural moment.
Yeah. Because this was just before the word influencer
became like a legitimate job title you'd put
on LinkedIn. Right. Felt a little more raw back
then, a little more dangerous maybe. Yeah. He
wasn't trying to sell you a promo code for a
smoothie. Yeah. Not at first anyway. He was selling
a fantasy. A fantasy of just. Total unchecked
masculinity and bottomless resources. Exactly.
But here's the thing. And this is really why
we're doing this deep dive today. If you haven't
really checked in on the Dan Bilzerian story
since those, let's call them the glory days of
2015, 2016, you are in for an absolute shock.
That's putting it mildly. Because that whole
party boy persona, that brand. It hasn't just
faded away. It's collapsed. Or maybe mutated
is the better word. It's become something much,
much darker. Mutation is the perfect word for
it. And that's why we're here. We're not just
here to gossip about some Internet celebrity.
We're going to look behind the curtain. We're
going to look at the machinery that built the
myth. We're going to follow the money. We have
to. We're going to look at where he said the
money came from, you know, the poker winnings.
And then we're going to look at where federal
investigators and court documents suggest it
really came from. And we're going to dissect
a business empire that from the outside looked
like its main product was just setting piles
of cash on fire. A very, very expensive bonfire.
And we absolutely have to talk about where he
is now. Right now in 2024, heading into 2025.
Because the guy who positioned himself as this,
like... Fun -loving libertarian playboy has taken
such a hard pivot. A hard pivot into, well, into
some very dark corners of the Internet. We're
talking about a full -blown descent into conspiracy
theories, hardcore political extremism. And rhetoric
that has just completely alienated even his most
loyal followers. It's genuinely shocking. It's
a case study, really. A case study in radicalization.
How does someone go from being the literal poster
boy for hedonism to being a mouthpiece for some
truly vile hate speech? It's a wild trajectory.
So that's our mission for this deep dive, to
try and separate the man from the myth. We've
got a mountain of documents here, SEC filings,
lawsuit transcripts, interviews, financial reports.
We're going to try and answer the big questions.
Did he really win all that money? Was his company
Ignite a real business or was it just a personal
piggy bank? And the big one. Why is he now on
podcast denying the Holocaust? Yeah, it's a lot
to get through. A whole lot to unpack. So let's
start where all good stories start, at the beginning.
The origin story. Because the tale that Dan himself
has always told, the legend of Dan, is that he
is the ultimate self -made man. Right. The narrative
is that he walked into the jungle with nothing
but a knife, rustled a bear, and came out wearing
its skin. The ultimate alpha. That's the brand,
100%. The idea that he's just built differently.
He operates on a plane of risk and reward that
us normal people can't even comprehend. But if
you actually pull back the curtain on his biography,
the story doesn't really begin in some smoky
high -stakes poker room in Vegas. No. It starts
in Tampa, Florida, 1980. And it starts with a
trust fund. Ah, the trust fund. The kryptonite
for any self -made man story. It really is. And
you simply cannot understand Dan Bilzerian, the
brand, or the man, without first understanding
his father, Paul Bilzerian. Now, he is a character
in his own right. Oh, absolutely. Paul, back
in the 1980s, he was a big name on Wall Street.
He was what they called a corporate raider. Okay,
I've definitely heard that term, usually in movies
from that era. You know, someone's shouting it
into a giant phone. But what does a corporate
raider actually do? It sounds like a pirate with
a better suit. Honestly, that's not a bad way
to think about it. It's a pretty good analogy.
So a raider would identify a public company that
they think is undervalued. Maybe it has a lot
of physical assets. Like real estate? Yeah. But
the management is terrible. Or maybe it's just
sitting on a huge pile of cash and not doing
anything with it. The raider then starts quietly
buying up a ton of that company's stock. Enough
to become a problem. Enough to threaten a hostile
takeover. Right. They basically bully their way
to the table. From there, they have a few options.
They can force the company's board to buy their
shares back from them at a huge premium just
to get them to go away. What's that called? That's
called greenmail. Greenmail. Got it. Or... If
that doesn't work, they follow through on the
takeover. They buy the company, fire the management,
and then they will distribute it for parts. They
sell off all the valuable asset piece by piece
and pocket the cash. So it's super aggressive,
probably terrible for the company's employees.
Oh, devastating for the employees. But for the
raider, it could be incredibly, incredibly lucrative.
And Paul Bilzerian was one of the big names in
this game. He was very successful at it for a
while until the government caught up with him.
Paul ran into serious trouble with the SEC, the
Securities and Exchange Commission. What happened?
He ended up being convicted on multiple counts
of securities fraud, conspiracy, making false
statements. Big messy case. But, and this is
the absolute key to understanding Dan's story,
before the whole house of cards came down, Paul
did something very smart. What was that? He set
up a very complex, very sophisticated web of
trusts and offshore accounts. For his kids? For
the whole family. But yes, specifically for his
sons, Dan and his brother Adam. And our sources
are crystal clear on this. Paul Bolzerian established
significant trust funds for both of them. And
we're not talking about a little college fund
here. No, we are talking about millions and millions
of dollars structured in a way that was specifically
designed to be untouchable, to be out of the
reach of the U .S. government and... any creditors
who were trying to collect on the massive judgments
against Paul. So when Dan Bilzerian is in his
early 20s and he drops out of the University
of Florida, where he was studying business and
criminology, which is just perfect. The irony
is almost too much, isn't it? He wasn't some
broke college kid with a dream. Not even close.
He had a financial safety net woven from titanium.
And you have to understand how that changes the
entire equation of his life. Right. If you know
that you have a multimillion dollar backstop
that can never be taken away from you, you can
take risks that would seem completely insane
to a normal person. You can sit down at a poker
table and drop $100 ,000 on a single hand. Because
if you lose, who cares? You're not going to be
homeless. You're not worried about rent. You're
just... You're waiting for the next wire transfer
from the trust. But that completely contradicts
his entire narrative. His story has always, always
been, I never touched my father's money. I built
my fortune from scratch playing poker. That is
the foundational myth. That is the hill he has
chosen to die on. The poker narrative. And the
numbers he claims are just, they're astronomical.
I was looking back at some of the articles from
his peak fame around 2013, 2014. Yep. He claimed
to have won. $10 .8 million in one night, a single
session of poker. That was the big one in November
2013. That was the claim that really put him
on the map. And then he followed up by claiming
he won a total of $50 million over the course
of the next year, 2014. $50 million! I mean,
you have to put that in context. That's top -tier
professional athlete money. That's superstar
CEO money. It's GDP of a small country money.
And he's claiming he made it playing cards. Now,
his explanation was always, I don't play against
the pros. I play against whales. Right. His whole
thing was that he seeks out these private high
-stakes games with super -rich businessmen who
are, frankly, terrible at poker but have money
to burn and want the thrill of playing for huge
stakes. Which, I mean, on its face, that sounds
plausible. Those kinds of games do exist. They
absolutely exist. It's a whole underground economy.
But the numbers, 50 million in a year. That's
where you have to apply a serious reality check.
So how do we check that? What are the actual
verifiable records of his poker career? Well,
there's a database called the Hendon Mob. It's
basically the Bible of poker. It tracks the results
of every major live poker tournament in the world
for every player. And what does Dan Bilzerian's
profile look like on there? Is it $50 million?
It is. Not $50 million. Not even close. His single
biggest accomplishment, his crowning achievement
in the world of professional tournament poker,
came back in 2008. Okay. He played in the World
Series of Poker main event. It's the biggest,
most prestigious tournament on the planet. Thousands
of people play. And how did he do it? Did he
win it? He did not. Yeah. He didn't even make
final table. He finished in 180th place. 180th.
180. Yes. He won about $36 ,000 for that finish.
Look, I mean, finishing 180th out of thousands
of players is not nothing. You have to be a decent
player to do that. Oh, for sure. He's not a bad
player. He clearly knows the game. But there's
a Grand Canyon -sized gap between being... a
capable amateur who got lucky and made one deep
run in a tournament, and being a poker god who
can consistently extract $50 million a year from
the game. It's like saying I was the star quarterback
on my high school team, so it's totally believable
that I'm secretly making $50 million a year beating
NFL players and pick up games in my backyard.
It's the exact same logic. The math just doesn't
work. But there's one particular legal case that
shines a really bright light on where some of
these supposed winnings might have actually come
from. Okay. And to understand it, we need to
talk about a man named Bradley Witterman. Okay,
I saw this name in the research, and it's a wild
story. He was the Ponzi scheme guy, right? How
on earth does a Ponzi scheme connect to a secret
Hollywood poker game? It's one of the craziest
side stories in this whole saga. Bradley Ruderman
presented himself as a successful hedge fund
manager in Beverly Hills. He wasn't. He was not.
In reality, he was running a classic Ponzi scheme.
He was taking in money from investors, promising
them these huge guaranteed returns. And instead
of investing the money, he was just spending
it. The old Bernie Madoff special. Exactly. But
Ruderman had a particular weakness. He was addicted
to high stakes poker. He was desperate to be
seen as a big shot, to rub elbows with celebrities,
and maybe in his own mind, he thought he could
win back all the money he'd stolen. So he gets
himself into these super exclusive underground
Hollywood poker games. Very same games that were
famous for having players like Tobey Maguire,
Ben Affleck, Leonardo DiCaprio. And yes, Dan
Bilzerian. So Ritterman is at the poker table
betting with money he stole from his investors.
Precisely. He is literally betting with people's
retirement savings. And he was losing. He was
losing millions and millions of dollars in these
games. And a significant chunk of that stolen
money ended up in Dan Bilzerian's pockets. Wow.
So, OK, Dan wins the money fair and square at
the table. Ruderman eventually gets caught and
goes to jail. Is that the end of it? Not by a
long shot. Once the Ponzi scheme collapsed, a
trustee was appointed to try and claw back as
much money as possible for the victims. Right.
The trustee's job is to trace where all the stolen
money went. Right. And they see these huge payments,
millions of dollars, going to Dan Bilzerian and
the other players in the game. So they sued them.
Wait, they sued the winners? On what grounds
could they do that? It's a fascinating legal
argument. They argued that because these high
stakes private poker games were technically illegal
under California law, because the host was taking
a rake or a percentage of the pot without a gaming
license, that any transfer of money within that
game was legally void. So the argument is essentially
you didn't win that money in a legitimate enterprise.
You were the recipient of a fraudulent transfer
of stolen property. That is exactly the argument.
They weren't just winnings. They were stolen
goods. And what happened? Dan eventually settled
the lawsuit. He paid back a portion of the money.
But the case is so revealing because it just
pulls the curtain back on this whole myth. It
shows that his winnings weren't just the result
of him being a poker genius. Right. It was this
murky. unregulated ecosystem where millions of
dollars of questionable origin were flying around
with zero oversight. And if you're Dan and you're
sitting on a huge pile of trust fund money and
you're moving it through these games, it becomes
impossible for an outsider to tell which dollar
is a poker win and which dollar is just dad's
money being cycled through. That's the part that
really gets me. It's the opacity of it all. It's
the perfect cover story for having a ton of unexplained
cash. It's the ultimate narrative for wealth
that doesn't want to be traced. If you say you
made your money in the stock market, I can ask
to see the trade confirmations. If you made it
in real estate, I can look up the deeds. But
if you say you won it all in private poker games.
There's no paper trail. There are no receipts.
You just have to take their word for it. It's
the perfect way to explain away the trust fund.
And it's clear he wanted to be seen as more than
just a gambler. He wanted legitimacy. Which brings
us to the next chapter of the myth, the businessman.
Ah, yes. Ignite International Brands LTD. This
was Dan's attempt to go corporate. And what a
glorious, spectacular flame out this was. I remember
when this launched, that goat skull logo was
suddenly everywhere. It was. What were they even
selling? It felt like they sold everything. They
were trying to be a lifestyle brand. So they
had CBD oils. They had electronic cigarettes
and vapes. They had vodka, bottled water, T -shirts.
A whole gamut. The idea was to monetize the Bilzerian
lifestyle. You can't actually be Dan, but for
$19 .99, you can drink his vodka or wear his
hat. And they took this company public, like
on a real stock exchange. They did. In January
2019, Ignite listed on the Canadian Securities
Exchange. The ticker symbol was BILZF. So finally,
we get some actual receipts. Now we have public
financial statements, quarterly reports. We can
finally see under the hood. How did the king
of Instagram do as a public company CEO? It was
an absolute catastrophe. Yeah. The financial
performance is genuinely breathtaking and how
bad it is. In its first year as a public company,
2019, Ignite reported a loss of over $50 million.
Hold on. Say that again. They lost $50 million.
In a single year. Selling water bottles and vape
pens. How is that physically possible? Did they
build their headquarters out of solid gold? That's
not far from the truth, actually. See, the money
wasn't lost. because of high manufacturing costs,
the financial statements show that the vast majority
of the spending was on marketing and promotion.
But when you start to dig into the court filings
and whistleblower lawsuits that came later, that
marketing budget starts to look a whole lot like
Dan Bilzerian's personal expense account. And
this is where the former company president, Curtis
Heffernan, comes in. Exactly. Curtis Heffernan
was hired to be the adult in the room to actually
run the company. and in july of 2020 he filed
a wrongful termination lawsuit against ignite
and what was his claim why was he fired according
to heffernan's lawsuit he was fired because he
kept trying to stop dan from in his words misappropriating
company funds He claimed Dan was treating the
public company's bank account like it was his
own personal ATM. What kind of expenses are we
talking about here? The lawsuit listed some truly
unbelievable items. A $75 ,000 photo shoot set.
A $40 ,000 bed frame. A $40 ,000 bed frame. A
$15 ,000 ping pong table. An $88 ,000 vault.
A rock climbing wall. The list goes on and on.
Who needs an $88 ,000 vault for a CBD company?
The lawsuit alleged that these weren't even for
the office. They were for his personal mansions
in Los Angeles. Ignite was paying the massive
rent on these houses, claiming they were marketing
venues. So the justification was, my life is
the marketing, therefore everything in my life
is a legitimate business expense. That was the
argument. My parties, my jets, my yachts, the
models I fly around the world, that's all just
marketing for the brand. That is a bold strategy.
It's also, according to Heffernan, a guaranteed
way to bankrupt the company. You cannot burn
through $50 million in a year on parties and
private jets and expect to ever turn a profit
selling $20 t -shirts. The math is impossible.
So the public shareholders who bought stock in
this company were essentially just paying for
his Instagram content. They were subsidizing
the lifestyle. And this is where the story gets
even stranger, because the shadow of his father
looms large over Ignite. Paul Bilzerian is back
in the picture. Big time. U .S. prosecutors have
actually alleged that Paul Bilzerian, who remember,
is banned for life from the securities industry.
Right. That he retained de facto control over
the company. The feds claimed he was attending
board meetings, directing corporate strategy
and helping to structure deals all from behind
the scenes. So the allegation is that Ignite
wasn't just a failed lifestyle brand. It was
potentially a front, a vehicle for the father
to get back into the corporate world and for
the son to live like a king on other people's
money. That is the picture that the lawsuits
and federal investigations paint. And what was
Dan's defense when all this came out? What was
it? His defense was basically that he wasn't
really involved in running the company at all.
He said he just showed up for the photo shoots
and didn't know anything about the finances.
I'm just the face of the brand. Don't ask me
about the $50 million loss. Which is just so
ironic because the entire brand is built on the
idea that he's the ultimate boss, the one in
charge. So what happened to the company? Eventually,
in 2022, they took it private again. Why would
they do that? Well, when a company is public,
it's subject to intense scrutiny. You have to
file quarterly reports. You have to open your
books to the world. And the world was seeing
these massive losses. So by going private? The
curtain comes down. No more public filings. No
more having to explain the $40 ,000 bed frame
to angry shareholders. The problem just goes
away. It's a clear pattern. He craves the attention
and the glory, but he refuses any of the accountability
that comes with it and that mentality. it leads
us right into the really dark part of his story.
Yeah. Because if this is how he treats money
and business, just wait until you see how he
treats other human beings. This is where things
stop being about, you know, funny internet money
and corporate shenanigans, and they start getting
genuinely dangerous. We have to talk about the
violence. We do. And just a content warning for
our listeners, some of the stuff in this next
section is pretty disturbing. We're talking about
incidents of physical assault. And we should
probably start with the violence he inflicted
on himself. I mean, it's a crucial part of the
story. Before he even turned 32 years old, Dan
Bilzerian had already suffered two heart attacks.
Two? Before 32? How? By his own admission, it
was from a combination of extreme drug abuse
and exhaustion. He talked about binging on cocaine,
Viagra, and not sleeping for days on end to keep
the party going. He was literally killing himself
to maintain this image. But he survived, and
it seems like after that, he started projecting
that same chaos and violence outward onto other
people. The incident that always stands out to
me is the one with Janice Griffith, the roof
toss. Ah, yes. April of 2014, which was just
a banner year for terrible decisions for him.
So set the scene for us. What happened? He was
at one of his mansions in the Hollywood Hills
doing a photo shoot for Hustler magazine. Janice
Griffith, who was a pornographic actress, I believe
she was only 18 or 19 years old at the time.
The concept for one of the photos was, well,
it was peak Bilzerian. He was going to pick her
up while she was topless and throw her from the
roof of the house into the swimming pool down
below. Just casually throw a person off a building
for a picture. That was the plan. Now, just think
about the physics of that for a second. You're
trusting a guy who is famous for his nonstop
partying to execute a perfect life or death throw.
What could possibly go wrong? He completely botched
it. He underthrew her. She didn't clear the concrete
deck surrounding the pool. She smashed her foot
on the edge of the pool on the way down. It was
a severe break. And honestly, she was lucky.
She could have hit her head. She could have been
killed or paralyzed. And what was his reaction?
Was he apologetic? Did he immediately offer to
pay for all her medical bills? She asked him
for $85 ,000 to cover her medical costs and the
work she would lose while recovering. And he
flat out refused. This is the guy who claimed
to make $50 million that year. 85 grand is like
a rounding error to him. It wasn't about the
money. It was about the principle of it. For
him, he refused to accept any responsibility.
So she sued him. And this is where the story
gets even more disgusting. How? The lawyer for
Hustler magazine, who was defending the photo
shoot, actually argued in a legal letter that
the incident was an act of God. An act of God.
Or hurricane. Or an earthquake. Yes. The official
legal position was that Dan Bilzerian throwing
a woman off a roof and failing is an unforeseeable,
uncontrollable force of nature, like a lightning
strike. That is one of the most cynical, dehumanizing
legal arguments I have ever heard in my life.
It's unbelievable. It basically frames her as
a prop, a thing. And if the prop breaks during
the photo shoot, well, that's just bad luck.
It's not the fault of the person who threw it.
It tells you everything you need to know about
how the women in his world were viewed. As accessories.
And accessories don't get a say. And this wasn't
a one -off. It wasn't an isolated incident. That
very same year, he was banned for life from a
nightclub in Miami. For what? For kicking a woman
in the face. My God. This was the Vanessa Castano
incident. There was a big brawl on the dance
floor. Dan's story was that he was just trying
to be a hero and break up the fight to protect
a friend. But that's not what the witnesses said.
No. The victim... Vanessa Castano and other witnesses
claimed that during the chaos, he shoved her.
And when she was on the ground, he kicked her
in the face. There was even video footage. She
sued him for a million dollars. So we have a
clear pattern here. Violence happens. He claims
he was either the victim or the hero. And then
the lawyers come in to write checks and make
it all go away. But the escalation continued.
He went from fists and feet to something much
more dangerous. He was eventually arrested for,
and this sounds like a joke, for building bombs.
People forget about this one, but it's maybe
the most insane story of them all. In December
2014, federal agents arrested him at Los Angeles
International Airport. They pulled him right
off a plane. And the warrant wasn't for some
minor charge? No. The warrant from Nevada was
for possessing and manufacturing an explosive
or incendiary device. We're not talking about,
like... M -80s on the 4th of July. This was serious.
He and a friend had taken a semi -truck cab out
to federal land in the Nevada desert. And what
did they have with them? They had a cooler packed
with a mixture of tannerite, ammonium nitrate,
and aluminum powder. This is a powerful explosive
mixture. Ammonium nitrate is? That's the same
stuff used in the Oklahoma City bombing. That's
not a toy. Not at all. It's highly unstable.
They packed it into the truck cab and blew it
up. For fun. For an Instagram video. The explosion
was huge. They had no permits, no safety protocols.
They just wanted to watch something go boom.
So he gets arrested on a federal warrant for
building a bomb on federal land. He must have
faced serious prison time for that. You would
think so. But no. He managed to get a plea deal.
To what? He pleaded no contest to a much, much
lesser misdemeanor charge of negligently failing
to extinguish a fire in the open. Basically,
a fancy charge for littering and not being careful
with a campfire. And the punishment for blowing
up a truck with an improvised explosive device.
He had to pay a fine of about $17 ,000. $17 ,000.
It's amazing what a team of expensive lawyers
can do. But it really shows you the trajectory,
the constant need for escalation. The poker wasn't
enough. The parties weren't enough. Now he needed
actual explosions to feel anything. And when
you've blown up everything you can in Nevada...
Where do you go for your next adrenaline hit?
Apparently, you go and get yourself involved
in an active war zone. Oh, it brings us to section
four, the Armenian connection. This is where
the story suddenly goes from Hollywood Hills
to international geopolitics. So to set this
up, Dan's family heritage is Armenian. Yes, on
his father's side. The Bilzerian name has deep
roots in Armenia. And in 2018, Dan, his brother
Adam, and his father Paul... all flew to Armenia
together. And this is a big deal over there.
It was a massive media event. They were all there
to formally take their oaths and receive Armenian
citizenship. They even technically registered
to join the Armenian Armed Forces. Which, you
know, on the surface, sounds like a pretty cool
thing to do. Reconnecting with your roots, showing
support for your ancestral homeland. It absolutely
could have been. But this is a Dan Bilzerian
we're talking about, so he couldn't just leave
it at that. He had to turn it into an action
movie. He decided to travel to the Republic of
Artsakh. Which is better known to most people
as Nagorno -Karabakh. Right. And for anyone who
doesn't follow geopolitics in that region, can
you explain why just going there is a hugely
provocative act? It is a massive deal. Nagorno
-Karabakh is one of the most intensely disputed
territories on the planet. For decades, it was
a source of conflict and bloody wars between
Armenia and Azerbaijan. It's internationally
recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but it was
historically populated and controlled by ethnic
Armenians. Exactly. It's a geopolitical flashpoint.
You don't just show up there as a tourist with
a camera crew. It's seen as taking a side in
a very real, very violent conflict. But Dan went.
He went. And he didn't go to visit a church or
a historical monument. He went to a military
shooting range near the front lines of the conflict.
And he started firing off heavy weaponry. Of
course he did. He posted videos of himself firing
a grenade launcher. In a contested war zone.
As you can imagine, the government of Azerbaijan
was absolutely furious. I bet. They sent a formal
note of protest to the U .S. State Department.
A court in the capital, Baku, issued an official
arrest warrant for Dan Bilzerian. They put him
on an international wanted list and notified
Interpol. So the king of Instagram became, for
all intents and purposes, an international fugitive.
In the eyes of at least one country, yes. Now,
to be fair to him, he did put his money where
his mouth was to some extent. During the 2020
war over the territory, he and his family donated
$250 ,000 to the Armenia fund. So there does
seem to be a genuine connection there. There
is. He spoke out very strongly against the attacks
on Armenians. But even his philanthropy is filtered
through this lens of conflict and weaponry. It's
like he can't engage with the world in any other
way. Everything has to be an action movie. But
recently, the script for that movie has changed
dramatically. And the new genre feels less like
an action thriller and more like a political
horror film. And that's where we have to go next.
Section 5. The Pivot. The deep dive into politics,
conspiracies, and extremism. This is the part
of the story that is genuinely alarming people
right now. It's definitely the most significant
and shocking transformation in his public persona.
Without a doubt. It all started, I guess, innocently
enough, back in 2015. He announced he was running
for president of the United States. Which was
clearly a publicity stunt. It was about selling
more t -shirts and getting his name out there.
Right. But then, a few months later, in December
2015, he dropped out of his fake race and endorsed
Donald Trump. And his reasoning at the time was
very on brand for him. What did she say? He said
he liked that Trump was raw and unfiltered and
that he was very pro -gun. It fit perfectly with
his whole anti -PC alpha male persona. OK, so
that makes sense in a way. But if you fast forward
from that moment in 2015 to where we are today
in 2024, we have left the realm of mainstream
politics far, far behind. We're in a completely
different universe now. And the major catalyst
for this shift seems to have been the Israel
-Hamas war that began in late 2023. And we need
to be very clear here. Dan didn't just adopt
a pro -Palestinian political stance, which is
a position many people around the world hold.
He went much, much further than that. He went
all the way into full -throated public support
for Hamas. Yeah, I have the direct quotes here
from his social media and interviews. He referred
to Hamas as a resistance organization. And he
called Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza,
and the man who orchestrated the October 7th
attacks a hero. I mean, look, whatever your personal
politics are on that conflict, calling the architect
of a massacre that killed over a thousand civilians
a hero is that's an exceptionally extreme position
to take. It's designed to be inflammatory. And
then he went on Piers Morgan's show and that
interview was just. It was a complete unmasking.
I watched the entire interview. It was one of
the most disturbing things I've seen in a long
time. He just launched into this torrent of pure
anti -Semitism, and I don't use that word lightly.
He wasn't just criticizing the actions of the
Israeli government. He was attacking Jewish people
and Judaism as a whole. He was just reciting
a laundry list of the oldest, most hateful anti
-Semitic conspiracy theories imaginable. He claimed
that the religion of Judaism itself promotes
supremacy and rape. He blamed the Jews for the
9 -11 attacks. He blamed them for the JFK assassination,
for the Iraq war, for the Holodomor famine in
Ukraine in the 1930s. It's the grand unified
theory of anti -Semitic paranoia. The idea that
every single bad thing that has ever happened
in world history was secretly orchestrated by
a cabal of Jewish people. And then he moved into
outright Holocaust denial. This was the point
in the interview that I think left even Piers
Morgan speechless. He said on camera that he
would bet his entire net worth that fewer than
six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust.
He then claimed that Jewish people invented genocide.
He also started spouting historical revisionism.
claiming that Nazi Germany was flourishing economically
after they removed all the Jews from the banking
system. This is word -for -word textbook neo
-Nazi rhetoric. There is no other way to describe
it. So the big question is, why? Why does a guy
who seemingly has everything, the money, the
fame, the lifestyle he always wanted, why does
he go down this dark, hateful rabbit hole? Is
he just bored? Is he trying to shock people to
stay relevant? I think it's probably a combination
of several things. One is definitely the relevance
factor. The whole Bikinis and Private Jets act
has a shelf life. It gets old. The engagement
numbers on his social media were dropping. And
nothing gets engagement like outrage. Exactly.
When you say something that shocking and hateful,
it creates a firestorm. The algorithm loves it.
He's a creature of attention, and this is the
ultimate attention -seeking behavior. So you
think it's mostly a grift? He doesn't really
believe this stuff. I think he probably does
now. That's the other part of it. When you immerse
yourself in these online echo chambers, when
you surround yourself with people who tell you
you're a genius and you spend all day consuming
red pill conspiracy content, you could absolutely
radicalize yourself. He sees himself as a brave
truth teller. In his mind, he's Neo from The
Matrix. He's waking people up. But in reality,
he's just become a vessel for regurgitating old,
discredited disinformation and hatred. It's just
such a bizarre and dark final chapter for his
persona. It's like he spent his whole life trying
to be Tony Stark, the Playboy billionaire, and
when that didn't quite work out, he decided to
become a full -blown supervillain instead. It
really is a cautionary tale about the professional
contrarian mindset. His entire brand was built
on doing the opposite of what you're supposed
to do. Society says don't gamble. I'll gamble.
Society says treat people with respect. I won't.
Society says don't engage in anti -Semitic hate
speech. Watch me. Like oppositional defiance
disorder that has been monetized into a career.
And speaking of careers, we have to quickly touch
on his other great ambition. Because before he
was a political extremist, he was desperate to
become a real Hollywood star. He's had a few
tiny roles over the years. Little cameos in movies
like Olympus Has Fallen and The Equalizer. But
there is one story from his acting career that
perfectly encapsulates his entire life. The Lone
Survivor lawsuit. Oh, this is the ultimate pay
-to -play story. It's incredible. So Lone Survivor
is the big Mark Wahlberg movie about Navy SEALs
in Afghanistan. Dan, a failed SEAL trainee himself,
desperately wants to be in this movie. So what
does he do? He can't get a role through a normal
audition, so he finds another way in. He agrees
to invest $1 million of his own money into the
film's production budget. But there were strings
attached. There were. You had a contract drawn
up. And that contract explicitly stated that
in exchange for his $1 million investment, the
filmmakers had to guarantee him at least eight
minutes of screen time and at least 80 words
of dialogue. He literally bought the role. He
paid for his screen time by the minute. That's
exactly what he did. He bought himself a part
playing a Navy SEAL. But here's the best part.
The director of the movie, Peter Berg, apparently
thought he was a terrible actor. So when it came
time to edit the final film, he just cut. Almost
all of his scenes out. How much was actually
left in the movie? Less than one minute of screen
time. And one single line of dialogue. One line.
For a million dollars? That has to be the most
expensive line of dialogue in the history of
cinema. I think it might be. And what was Dan's
reaction? Did he just laugh it off as a bad investment?
No. He sued the producers of the movie. Of course
he did. For how much? He sued them for $1 .2
million. His original million back. plus a 20
% penalty for breach of contract. Did he win?
He eventually dropped the lawsuit. He claimed
it was because the movie ended up being so successful
that his small percentage of the profits actually
made him $1 .5 million anyway, so he came out
ahead. But the money isn't the point. The point
is that his entire approach to life is transactional.
He couldn't earn the role with talent, so he
tried to buy it. And even when he bought it,
the creative people involved were like, yeah,
no, you're still not good enough, you're getting
cut. It's the theme that runs through everything.
He believes that fame, respect, credibility,
movie roles, they're all just commodities that
can be purchased if you have enough cash. But
some things, like actual talent, just can't be
bought. He also wrote a book, didn't he? The
Setup. He did. I've read parts of it. Yeah. It's
exactly what you would expect it to be. Just
more stories of his conquests, more myth -making.
And there was even a T -Pain song about him.
Dan Bilzerian. For a brief moment in 2016, he
achieved total cultural saturation. He got the
fame he so desperately craved. You can't deny
that. No, you can't. If you stop the average
guy on the street between the ages 25 and 35
and ask who Dan Bilzerian is, they'll know that
name. But at what cost? We've taken this deep
dive today. We've looked at the money. And it's
built on a foundation of trust funds and questionable
dealings. We looked at the business and it's
a spectacular failure that burned through millions
of investor dollars. We looked at the lifestyle
and it literally gave him two heart attacks and
led to a string of lawsuits from people he hurt.
And we looked at his current worldview and it's
a toxic sewer of hatred and conspiracy theories.
When you step back and look at the whole picture,
it's not an aspirational story. It's a tragedy.
It's a tragedy wrapped in a veneer of gold leaf
and bikinis. It feels like a story about the
absolute spiritual emptiness of modern excess.
He spent 15 years meticulously building this
giant monument to himself, and it turns out the
entire foundation is completely rotten. So as
we wrap this up, what's the big takeaway from
all this? I think Dan Bilzerian is a warning
sign. He's a cautionary tale. He is what happens
when a person has access to virtually unlimited
resources, but has no internal moral compass.
He just chased every possible dopamine hit he
could find. The money, the sex, the fame, the
violence, the explosions. And when all of those
stopped giving him a rush, he turned to the only
thing that was left. Pure, unadulterated rage.
It also makes you look inward a bit, doesn't
it, at the culture that built him. I mean, we
all clicked on the articles, we looked at the
photos, we fed the beast. That's the really uncomfortable
part of this whole story. For a while there,
society celebrated the king of Instagram. A part
of us was fascinated by that fantasy of total
freedom. But we weren't really looking at the
collateral damage. We weren't looking at the
woman with the broken foot or the investors who
lost their shirts. So I guess this is the question
I want to leave everyone with today. In our current
Internet culture, a culture that rewards shock
value over substance and engagement over truth,
is Dan Bilzerian really an outlier? Or is he
the inevitable final boss of the system that
we've all helped to create? Did he break the
system? Or is he just the purest expression of
what the system was designed to produce? That's
a pretty terrifying thought. It really is. But
it's why we do these deep dives. To try and look
past the filters and the carefully constructed
myths. Stay curious out there. And always, always
check the footnotes. Always check the footnotes.
Thanks for joining us. We'll see you for the
next one.