On top of the fraud convictions, Trevor Milton was credibly accused of sexual assault by his own cousin and a girl he employed. Both victims were minors at the time.
> It was wiped away with a phone call. In March 2025, Trump called Milton to tell him he had signed an unconditional pardon. Milton had styled himself as a political victim of the Biden administration, and Trump agreed.
but isnt it weird how these women filed a complaint together 20 years later, after he became a billionaire?
I just read the article and by his cousins own testimony, they were BOTH minors, and he heinously sexually assaulted her by groping her breasts after she consented to... take off her own shirt down to a bra, during a "massage"... but the shirts off massage turned into a sexual assault when he touched her breasts/removed her bra?
He denies all of it, and it happened 20 years ago, and maybe he is a fraud, and maybe he is a creep, but there is no way to prove any of it.
> isnt it weird how these women filed a complaint together 20 years later
No. Not in the slightest.
From work I once did, essentially IT support for a Royal Commission inquiry into sexual abuse and assault, it's extremely common for all manner of sexual assault victims to remain silent for many years.
Regardless of the wealth of the alleged perpetrator(s).
Ahhh I see you quoted, and responded to only the FIRST half of the sentence I wrote, totally ignoring what I was implying, and answering a question I didn't ask !
edit: comparing Jimmy Seville, and this 17 year old kid who touched his cousins tits during a consensual massage 20 years ago is a reach
No not at all. There is no shock over women not filing complaints in situation where there is 100% guarantee they will be blamed for the situation, slut shamed and generally weak.
Them filing complaint when they are in better position in life, when politics slightly change so there is an illusion someone will care etc makes perfect sense.
And yes, consenting to massage is not the same as consenting to sexual assault or anything else sexual. Among other reasons, that is why married people can get massage without it being cheating.
I struggle to understand the psychology of how founders who are clearly incompetent charlatans get second+ chances -- they couldn't do fraud successfully but investors have a faith they could do business successfully. But they still get funding (like adam neumann of wework fame) and full on "narrative tongue baths" by the business media community (like this wsj article on trevor milton).
Why? I struggle to understand the incentives + motivations here.
This was the lesson from the Fyre Festival debacle. Most of his inside partners and enablers knew he wasn’t likely to succeed. They just saw an opportunity to benefits themselves and made sure their own risk was limited.
In return, he got to trade on their reputation which allowed him to rope in more respectable partners and appear more legitimateto potential customers. It’s a vicious cycle.
Whan I go to the Stacioners, I ever aske for mitigated Gal and meteoric Iron fillings. I fynde that it maketh the derkest and most persistente inke. Make sure that thou onlie bye swan quill, not goose, and specifie that they sholde onlie be from the right-handed wing.
The past failure is in the abstract, and in the past. And anyway, they were unfairly maligned. There is an inside version of the story that they will be happy to tell you, which was clearly not their fault.
But that is neither here nor there. What is important is the now, and in the now you are in the presence of someone who is Good At Making Money. And you too, by joining forces, will be Making Lots Of Money with this charismatic person, who can clearly achieve great things and will be clearly avoiding any past missteps that may have caused their downfall right before reaching greatness (but weren’t their fault anyway).
I took as beyond sarcasm, just a simple explanation of how they manage to keep going written in the first person. From my perspective it is incredible anybody could misunderstand.
That's how I took it too, and didn't realize someone might read it otherwise, but I can see how it could be misunderstood if someone isn't paying as much attention.
There is no tone of voice in writing. This is part of the problem with written social media. Some writers will say "only an idiot would believe what I wrote", showing themselves to be adversarial in their communications. I don't think that's you in this case.
It's hard for me to tell because I've seen this multiple times in my career (in tech). People wasting investors' money getting funding over and over while those actually building stuff get suppressed.
I swear there are some people who control a lot of money who are just having fun ruining people's lives for laughs.
There are people who spend years working for some company, betting their career on it but it turns out the whole thing was some kind of inside joke.
My view is that some companies are basically somebody's toy and the employees are part of the entertainment like a personal reality TV show for some rich person so they can play-act as a hotshot entrepreneur.
Probably it serves as some kind of inflation control mechanism. If you have a lot of money and want to spend it without driving inflation, you have to find things with extreme diminishing returns and you have to invest in people who value such things.
The only thing I can add (regarding the motivations of people willing to invest with a fraudster) is that many people invest with the belief that they'll make money because they are just part of the scam and they assume there's a greater fool somewhere down the line.
The reason for this is the same as why real estate is so expensive and the price of gold is so high. There is far too much capital accumulation among the ultra-wealthy, who don’t know what to do with all that money. The expertise of someone like this founder lies simply in recognizing that this is the case and that it can be monetized.
There was a great Money Stuff blurb about that w/r/t Adam Neumann. I can't find it to quote it directly, but the gist was that if you disabuse yourself of the notion that Neumann was playing a game of entrepreneurship and good-faith empire building, and instead conclude that the game he was playing was shameless capital extraction, every step and action he took suddenly makes sense.
The truly amazing thing, especially the second time around, are the supposedly sophisticated investors who fall for it. "Oh, he's learned his lesson -- he won't do it again!".
Some of those sophisticated investors are also engaged in shameless capital extraction. Their investment thesis is based on the "Greater Fool Theory": they're gambling that they can dump the inflated assets on another bag holder before it blows up.
> ...if you disabuse yourself of the notion that Neumann was playing a game of entrepreneurship and good-faith empire building, and instead conclude that the game he was playing was shameless capital extraction, every step and action he took suddenly makes sense.
Sort of. I get the capital extraction part, but you also need to be a good steward of capital and make a profitable business out of it. He failed badly at the later part, and his reputation is an obstacle for the former.
Not saying you are wrong, but if I am a "capital allocator" at a16z, he would be no-go.
IMO you're being unfair; he talked his way into getting paid half a billion dollars for wework, and he's now a billionaire. That's a massive success at capital extraction.
This is too cynical for even a turbo cynic like me.
Basically, you’re saying he mislead investors and got a bunch of money, so those investors see themselves being ripped off as a valuable skill, so they invest in him again. Wut?
I say again — why would investors trust him if his only track record is losing investor money?
I misinterpreted you; I was arguing that he's already succeeded completely, so it doesn't matter if anyone gives him more money.
But, IMO the reason they're still giving him more money is that they're stupid and greedy. They know WeWork was a disaster, but it was a huge disaster. That shows them he's good at running a con, and they want to get in on the next one.
Class solidarity doesn't hurt either. Being a billionaire makes him an actual person in the eyes of other rich people.
EDIT: Also, it's funny you used a16z as an example:
> Not saying you are wrong, but if I am a "capital allocator" at a16z, he would be no-go.
because Andreesen Horowitz are the ones investing in his new WeWork 2.0 startup Flow.
If you know he is good at duping investors then you know he is good at gaining investors, and if you think you will be able to well time your exit you will make a shit ton of money off the other investor's investment. Many investors are just straight up gamblers and risk is just part of the game.
Its like people who invest into a ponzi scheme knowing full well it is a ponzi scheme, just thinking they are smart enough to leave before it all comes crashing down. And once you get enough critical mass, other people will invest based entirely on the fact that there is a lot of other investors and a rising price.
The type of person who funders fall for is a personality type. That they have failed in the past doesn't matter, they fall in love anyway. This time is different.
Venture guys aren't as smart or analytical as their propaganda would lead one to believe. A lot of them are just people who got lucky once.
It's distribution. Guy's got a brand name now. People and investors recognize his name. It's a lot easier to find an absolute quantity N of investor money for a fraudulent but well-known name than it is for an unknown upstart.
The fraud might have a low close rate but the top of the funnel is huge. The unknown upstart can't even get meetings.
I remember listening to a podcast (possibly complex systems?) that said the best way to find what kinds of frauds are out there is by looking at what known fraudsters are up to.
Charisma and connections are pretty much all it takes. Really only connections are needed but since these people are coming back from being exposed they need charisma to assuage the concerns of their connections.
I recently invested a small amount of money in an early stage company where I had to declare I was either a 'high net worth individual' or a 'sophisticated investor'. The mutually exclusive clause seemed important to me.
A lot of the investors are also bullshitters so they like bullshitting founders. I see a similar thing in companies. People wonder why people who don’t produce much but are politically savvy are moving up. The answer that most leadership is the same so they recognize each other.
My guess is that they're good talkers. They make it sounds like they learned their lesson or were framed but regardless if you hire them they'll make you rich!
A lot of companies are currently doing what (if you squint) Holmes was claiming Theranos would be able to do a decade ago. I agree with you that this is enough for her to claim, plausibly to some, that she was basically on the right track.
SBF, similarly, happened to have FTX invest in Anthropic early, and while we don't know how that's gonna play out now that they're at odds with the DoW, the value of Anthropic has already increased enough that it would have made whole all the money he was wasting/embezzling, so there's going to be a path for people to claim that he's directionally worth investing more money in, if he's out anytime soon.
Like it or not these people know how to contact people who hand out money. That is really the skill in the VC world, not competence in some domain. It is a fundraising job. It takes charisma. Just got to keep the music going until you cash out. How many founders are actually trying to make a company last 100+ years, vs securing retirable wealth early in life?
> SyberJet’s own history shows the challenges. Over the past 40 years, an eclectic mix of financiers from Dubai to Taiwan invested hundreds of millions of dollars in developing the plane maker’s lightweight business jets. But in all that time just four planes made it into the hands of customers.
Putting two and two together it seems to me that this business is a front for money laundering or something.
Look how many people couldn't care about Epstein and the fact he was a convicted sex offender. Bill Gates didn't care and he was literally the richest person in the world at one point.
The rich VCs and billionaires and aspirational billionaires only care about doing what they want to do and don't care what the peons like us think or care about.
These fraudsters who get second chances have got blackmail. Trust me, all the people we see in the media are sharks. They only help each other if they feel a threat or have something to gain.
They are charismatic. They know how to work people.
If you've ever worked with narcissists and sociopaths, you'll soon enough discover that they will do anything to get what they want. And they are professionals at playing people.
They know what to say, how to present themselves, how to make their story, and what strings to pull on the people they try to convince.
Some investors are also willing to suspend their disbelief - thinking that if they are the first to ditch to bag, there's money to be made...as long as they're not the ones holding the bag.
Because those investors have exactly same moral and ethical framework. The fraud is just another legitimate way to make money to them. It is the same thing with Epstein or meetoo ... they were actually fine with all that and whoever complains is just pesky idiot.
not speaking for upwards failures in general, but for the extraordinary cases of convicted frauds being pardoned, the incentives are:
1. his $1.8M donation to Trump shows other felons and fraudsters that paying Trump will pay back in dividends (Trump profits)
2. By pardoning thousands of frauds, con artists and outright violent nazis (Jan 6), Trump builds himself an army of loyalists who owe him their lives
3. By putting pardoned frauds, con artists and violent nazis in charge of government functions, Trump replaces the entire US government with one that will do his personal bidding
> Milton and his wife had also donated at least $3.2 million to Trump’s 2024 election and to political groups and people in Trump’s orbit, including Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The problem with Trump is that his only values are centered around business and deal making. It's all about loyalty, not about truth. Clearly he doesn't have much tolerance for disagreement.
To understand why you must understand the tax code. You can write off any investment losses. You can also recover losses if its from fraud. Though usually not fully. But you give 1 million for investment, boom its a fraud, and you get $800,000 back as opposed to keeping a million and paying $400,000 on it in taxes. It's a win-win situation. There is no penalty in betting on fraudsters. Whether this guy's schemes are deliberately for that is debatable. But on the flip side, putting downsides to investing on possible fraudsters considerably hinders any new genuine start up ideas from gaining investors.
The President has plenary authority to grant pardons and I imagine a time, in the near future, when questioning any authority of this administration would he deemed an act of treason.
Therefore, I wish only the best of luck to never-committed-a-crime Trevor Milton and to the infallibility of our dear leader in his wise and judicious use of the power he has been given by God and the Constitution.
> The President has plenary authority to grant pardons
This really needs to be taken away. Or at least severely limited. Maybe you could pardon at most 10 people. And that too has to be approved by congress or the senate.
Just for once I want "CEO convicted of fraud making their comeback" to come back with some really boring business. Like, I want Elizabeth Holmes to serve out her sentence then come out swinging to raise funds to vertically integrate pallet construction.
I feel like part of the secret to being that type of CEO is that whatever your business is, you can spin it into something "oh my god, much wow".
Like it won't be just "vertically integrating pallet construction", it'll be "a heartwarming revolution in the construction of pallets, now with AI and blockchain".
Kind of like how TFA mentions that Milton's new SyberJet will "pioneer AI flight".
This could make a funny bit as well now that I think of it, advertise your new enterprise as an AI NFT Blockchain Distributed Pallet Revolution but under the hood it's just a sensible Harvard Business School rollup.
Exhibit A: Adam Neuman, who somehow convinced people that office rental + shitty app that didn't work was "The first physical social network" and therefore deserved a tech company valuation.
And to be clear he's not been convicted of fraud, he walked away from the cash bonfire with over a billion dollars.
How about Holmes comes back and works at Starbucks? Why should we want known criminals and con artists back in positions of power and trust? Investing in someone like that is a breach of fiduciary duty. Give the opportunity to some worthy unknown, not known liars and criminals.
If there were any justice, after jail these fraudsters would be working low paying jobs like fast food and retail, and the CEO jobs would go to people who haven't been convicted of fraud.
But of course they'll leverage their connections and get high paying jobs like in this case.
A few months ago he popped up in my Instagram feed. It looks like Trevor has been seeing a lot of success on that platform rebranding himself as a jilted genius who's on the comeback. Seeing his posts about how he'd been wronged by the system and comment sections full of people who are taking it at face value really highlights the shortcomings of social media to me.
In my experience, people who are compulsive liars or those who are willing to make large or repeated deceptions for personal gain never change. It is as natural to them as breathing. Some of them I am quite convinced believe their lies, but the net result is the same.
I don't know Trevor Milton. I have never met him. Maybe he isn't a compulsive liar but just got in over his head and was trying to make it work. But I know I would never invest in something he is doing.
Isn't this also in line with recent proclamations by at least two venture capitalists that they do not reflect / introspect / dwell on consequences in any way?
No because you don't understand what Andreessen means by reflection / introspection.
He obviously thinks you should learn from your mistakes and that you must be an avid and quick learner.
But learning skills is not what introspection / dwelling is.
It's spending times on thoughts like "what should I be doing with my life". "I can't believe how much of a victim of the system I am".
And he specifically contrasted it against doing stuff.
Writing code >>> walks in the woods.
Obviously reflection is necessary to recognize mistakes of the past. What Andreessen was talking about that you should spent majority of your time acting not reflecting. Not that you should spent 0 time reflecting.
There are those who would argue doing anything is better than doing nothing while you try to figure out what to do. I'm in a position where I know what my passions are and am sufficiently constrained by resources that I can't afford major mistakes; but if I were sufficiently wealthy and indifferent, throwing darts at a board with a couple of ideas on it and just doing whatever has a certain romance to it.
Don't do nothing while figuring out what to do. But you should still spend time thinking about what to do.
If you're wealthy time and personal energy are the most valuable, irreplaceable resources you now possess. Why squander them on fruitless, random pursuits if you could think strategically and do something that really matters?
Did we not understand when he said introspection was something made up in the past few hundred years? I was aghast when he said it right in front of my copy of Meditations given how much these guys also obsess over the Roman Empire
I have followed Trevor for many years. And I think anybody who has done the same will tell you, lying is very very central to his inner core. He lies even when he has zero need to. He just cannot help himself. It satisfies some inner need.
I grew up with someone like this. And otherwise he was a nice likable person. And his lies were benign, but he lied almost any time you talked to him. Most people didn’t even notice, but once you did you couldn’t unsee it. A couple of times we both witnessed the same event and he would have a completely different recollection of events that favored him and I think he believed those lies himself. I think for some people it is some kind of defense mechanism.
For anyone that hasn't seen it, or just wants to reminisce, here's Hindenburg's report on Nikola, Milton's previous scheme. It is a truly hilarious read.
Not only did they invest, but if I'm not mistaken, at the time that was the biggest single check that Andreessen Horowitz had ever written. It's completely baffling to me.
I love how the article talked about the big claims for improved flight capabilities without a single word describing what that supposed secret sauce may be.
"Investor documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal said the goal is for the plane to be the first light jet to focus on artificial-intelligence flight."
Oh cool, can't wait for the vibe-coded autopilot to CFIT into the Rockies or dump itself into the ocean that it thought was totally a runway while a completely untrained, inexperienced hot shot with $10 million to blow flies this generation's V-tailed doctor killer[1] to their final destination.
Airplanes have had autopilot (the genuine kind, not Musk's snake oil) for ages now. Commercial airlines have been using autoland on well-equipped airports for decades. Garmin's fully autonomous emergency autoland has already saved a few Cessna owners' lives. With the ongoing adoption of CPDLC the ATC-to-pilot link is also actively being automated and standardized.
There are no big technical hurdles left to solve! The main thing preventing fully-automated flight from taking off is the industry and regulators (rightfully) being incredibly conservative, and preferring paying pilots over the horrible PR fallout of an incident aboard an automated flight killing hundreds of people. Artificial intelligence isn't going to be of any help here!
You seem to be confused about the reasons. Fully automated flight is technically feasible (with the right equipment) under normal conditions. However, it will never be a replacement for a pair of human pilots for Part 121 commercial passenger flights — at least not without some fundamental advancement in AGI. The problem is not with routine flight operations but with emergency procedures. By their very nature, emergencies can't be anticipated and it's impossible to write code in advance to handle them. Whereas humans can improvise solutions on the fly based on first principles. A prime example is US Airways Flight 1549 "Miracle on the Hudson" where the pilots intentionally disregarded parts of the emergency checklist to safely ditch in the water.
The Garmin Autonomí autoland system is an amazing technical achievement but it's intended as a last-ditch way to save the passengers when a Part 91 single pilot is incapacitated. It would never be approved for routine non-emergency use and can't even take VHF radio instructions from controllers.
Pilots are supposed to rigidly follow their checklists - to the point of having to execute some of them from memory. A computer could easily do the same for the vast majority of emergencies.
The "Miracle on the Hudson" is called a miracle for a reason: the expected outcome is for everyone to die. Same with UA232. Nobody would've blamed the pilots if there had been zero survivors! Even with human pilots it is the exception, not the rule.
The fact that you are willing to blame an autopilot for not improvising a 1-in-1000 Hail Mary attempt is exactly the conservatism I mentioned: we prefer routine human failure and the occasional miracle over predictable automated performance.
The technical hurdle to solve they feel is getting the barrier to 'flying' dumbed down even more. They want this to be something that Joe off the street can get in with minimal flight training and go zip around in a high performance jet once their vesting clears and they can cash out a few mill.
So... basically, an even more digital cockpit with more touchscreens and less verbatim information presentation on the screens. Why give you multiple engine gauges for N1, N2, temps, etc, when we can just give you one dumb "Thrust" gauge? Why make programming the autopilot a fifteen day course on the ground when you can just have a LLM figure out what your flight plan should be and punch it all in automatically?
It's like how Cirrus positions themselves to be the family SUV of the skies with their products and falls back on "just pull the chute / push the Autoland button, bro".
> "There's a sucker born every minute" is a quotation often associated with American showman P. T. Barnum (1810-1891), although there is no evidence that he actually said it. Early instances of its use are found among salesmen, gamblers and confidence tricksters.
Fucking scamer piece of shit. I watched the whole saga and to anybody with a brain it was clear he was a scammer. Anybody that even did minimal research into the industry it was clear what he was doing. He spent most of the money on adds for his stock.
To make him sound credibly he agree to really shitty deals (for him) with credible companies. So he could say 'we are in business with X'. Of course GM was the biggest fish they got in that regard, of course the GM CEO at the time was on crusade to claim they were doing 'EV' so I think even they knew it was mostly scam, but it got them into the media.
I'm sorry, but anyone Donald Trump has pardoned for fraud should not be trusted at all. It's literally a matter of "game recognizes game". If Donald Trump gets a cut of the fraud, that's all that matters to him.
Why would you say that? The article was basically a hit piece on the guy. "We can trust you" was a quote from an associate, as you surely remember from when you read the whole article.
Messaging is attention-weighted. It always has been, but the exploitation of this fact has been on the rise and in 2026 everyone should know it and internalize the consequences: if you signal boost statement A and bury nuance B, you are promoting statement A, flat out, completely independent of what B brings to the table.
"We can trust you now" has quotations marks in the title. That means a verbatim quote from a source. Sure, messaging should be clear, but we must expect basic reading comprehension and jornalistic literacy from people that participate in a place like a Computer Science forum, while reading The Wall Street Journal.
'We Can Trust You Now' is a quote in the story from the subject. The subject himself claims:
“I walk into meetings now, and I’ll get high-fives from the most wealthy people in the world,” he said. “They’re like, ‘Welcome to the club. You can withstand the fire. We can trust you now.’”
The WSJ interviewed him and is reporting information about his past. I think the article portrays him as extremely shady and untrustworthy. Not sure what you could be seeing here to demean the WSJ.
My rule has always been, forgive people, but never forget what they did. After they've made restitution, help them back to their feet, but don't let them ever get to the place where they can fail the same way. And whatever you do, don't let them get into a leadership position. They've already proved they can't help themselves when the pressure in on.
Personally, I almost always forgive, however, I never allow that person to take advantage of me again. Trust has to be the gold standard. To err in human, thus forgive. To be taken advantage again by the same person is foolish.
I agree with you on the first part. But, if one needs to read past headline to find the opposite of the headline is truth, headline deserves all the criticism in the world.
Headline is what is presented to the world. Headline is the claim being made to people who dont find the topic interesting. And majority of the people dont find all the fine details of pardoned CEO situation interesting. So, yes, if the headline lies, the news deserve to be criticized.
And pretty much rule number 1 is if someone says "you can trust me" you cant' trust them. Trustworthy people generally don't need to say things like that.
https://archive.is/https://www.wsj.com/business/trevor-milto...
On top of the fraud convictions, Trevor Milton was credibly accused of sexual assault by his own cousin and a girl he employed. Both victims were minors at the time.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/29/two-women-file-sexual-abuse-...
I guess we know how he managed to get the funding.
> It was wiped away with a phone call. In March 2025, Trump called Milton to tell him he had signed an unconditional pardon. Milton had styled himself as a political victim of the Biden administration, and Trump agreed.
Birds of a feather flock together.
Party of family values (just don't ask what goes on behind the front door).
> Milton had styled himself as a political victim of the Biden administration, and Trump agreed.
That and a $1 million donation. He bought his pardon fair and square.
Cheap at the price!
Wonder what the price will end up being for Maxwells inevitable pardon
devils advocate here...
but isnt it weird how these women filed a complaint together 20 years later, after he became a billionaire?
I just read the article and by his cousins own testimony, they were BOTH minors, and he heinously sexually assaulted her by groping her breasts after she consented to... take off her own shirt down to a bra, during a "massage"... but the shirts off massage turned into a sexual assault when he touched her breasts/removed her bra?
He denies all of it, and it happened 20 years ago, and maybe he is a fraud, and maybe he is a creep, but there is no way to prove any of it.
> isnt it weird how these women filed a complaint together 20 years later
No. Not in the slightest.
From work I once did, essentially IT support for a Royal Commission inquiry into sexual abuse and assault, it's extremely common for all manner of sexual assault victims to remain silent for many years.
Regardless of the wealth of the alleged perpetrator(s).
Eg: ~ 50 years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Cable#Sexual_abuse_claim...
also, say, Rolf Harris, Sir James Wilson Vincent Savile, and numerous other rock spiders.
Ahhh I see you quoted, and responded to only the FIRST half of the sentence I wrote, totally ignoring what I was implying, and answering a question I didn't ask !
edit: comparing Jimmy Seville, and this 17 year old kid who touched his cousins tits during a consensual massage 20 years ago is a reach
> Ahhh I see you quoted, and responded to only the FIRST half of the sentence I wrote, totally ignoring what I was implying
Read more carefully, note well: " Regardless of the wealth of the alleged perpetrator(s)."
> comparing Jimmy Seville, and this 17 year old kid who touched his cousins tits during a consensual massage 20 years ago is a reach
No, they had a reach around.
Moreover, I didn't compare them, I merely noted that large time gaps are common place. Again, please read carefully.
No not at all. There is no shock over women not filing complaints in situation where there is 100% guarantee they will be blamed for the situation, slut shamed and generally weak.
Them filing complaint when they are in better position in life, when politics slightly change so there is an illusion someone will care etc makes perfect sense.
And yes, consenting to massage is not the same as consenting to sexual assault or anything else sexual. Among other reasons, that is why married people can get massage without it being cheating.
I struggle to understand the psychology of how founders who are clearly incompetent charlatans get second+ chances -- they couldn't do fraud successfully but investors have a faith they could do business successfully. But they still get funding (like adam neumann of wework fame) and full on "narrative tongue baths" by the business media community (like this wsj article on trevor milton).
Why? I struggle to understand the incentives + motivations here.
"Hey this guy fooled a lot of people last time and the people who got in and out early made a killing. This time I'm going to get in early."
"He's got the hustle to do what it takes to succeed and is unencumbered by a moral compass. Gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet."
"Pssh that's nothing compared to the fraud I committed to get here. Fake it till you make it baby!"
"It takes balls to defraud powerful people and then do it again. I respect the machismo."
Take your pick.
This was the lesson from the Fyre Festival debacle. Most of his inside partners and enablers knew he wasn’t likely to succeed. They just saw an opportunity to benefits themselves and made sure their own risk was limited.
In return, he got to trade on their reputation which allowed him to rope in more respectable partners and appear more legitimateto potential customers. It’s a vicious cycle.
>"Pssh that's nothing compared to the fraud I committed to get here. Fake it till you make it baby!"
See also:
"the powers that be could nail anyone they scrutinized for what they got him for, the conviction means nothing".
"I respect the machismo."
I believe the word he was looking for is "chutzpah", and no, it isn't a virtue, and no, it cannot be respected.
Trash.
“gall” has the more negative connotations.
Unmitigated gall, even.
Whan I go to the Stacioners, I ever aske for mitigated Gal and meteoric Iron fillings. I fynde that it maketh the derkest and most persistente inke. Make sure that thou onlie bye swan quill, not goose, and specifie that they sholde onlie be from the right-handed wing.
The past failure is in the abstract, and in the past. And anyway, they were unfairly maligned. There is an inside version of the story that they will be happy to tell you, which was clearly not their fault.
But that is neither here nor there. What is important is the now, and in the now you are in the presence of someone who is Good At Making Money. And you too, by joining forces, will be Making Lots Of Money with this charismatic person, who can clearly achieve great things and will be clearly avoiding any past missteps that may have caused their downfall right before reaching greatness (but weren’t their fault anyway).
Think of the future, not the past!
Airplane shaped blimp, here we go! =)
This guy is a crook. Every adjective you could use to describe this guy goes against my core values.
I suspect the person you replied to was being subtly sarcastic. edit: but honestly, I'm not sure.
I thought I was laying on the sarcasm pretty thick. But I guess it’s harder and harder to tell these days!
I took as beyond sarcasm, just a simple explanation of how they manage to keep going written in the first person. From my perspective it is incredible anybody could misunderstand.
That's how I took it too, and didn't realize someone might read it otherwise, but I can see how it could be misunderstood if someone isn't paying as much attention.
There is no tone of voice in writing. This is part of the problem with written social media. Some writers will say "only an idiot would believe what I wrote", showing themselves to be adversarial in their communications. I don't think that's you in this case.
Dry humor wouldn't work if tone was necessary. Tone is a bit on the nose.
It was very thick, IMO.
It's hard for me to tell because I've seen this multiple times in my career (in tech). People wasting investors' money getting funding over and over while those actually building stuff get suppressed.
I swear there are some people who control a lot of money who are just having fun ruining people's lives for laughs.
There are people who spend years working for some company, betting their career on it but it turns out the whole thing was some kind of inside joke.
My view is that some companies are basically somebody's toy and the employees are part of the entertainment like a personal reality TV show for some rich person so they can play-act as a hotshot entrepreneur.
Probably it serves as some kind of inflation control mechanism. If you have a lot of money and want to spend it without driving inflation, you have to find things with extreme diminishing returns and you have to invest in people who value such things.
Thanks for the reply.
The only thing I can add (regarding the motivations of people willing to invest with a fraudster) is that many people invest with the belief that they'll make money because they are just part of the scam and they assume there's a greater fool somewhere down the line.
But that's probably obvious.
The reason for this is the same as why real estate is so expensive and the price of gold is so high. There is far too much capital accumulation among the ultra-wealthy, who don’t know what to do with all that money. The expertise of someone like this founder lies simply in recognizing that this is the case and that it can be monetized.
There was a great Money Stuff blurb about that w/r/t Adam Neumann. I can't find it to quote it directly, but the gist was that if you disabuse yourself of the notion that Neumann was playing a game of entrepreneurship and good-faith empire building, and instead conclude that the game he was playing was shameless capital extraction, every step and action he took suddenly makes sense.
The truly amazing thing, especially the second time around, are the supposedly sophisticated investors who fall for it. "Oh, he's learned his lesson -- he won't do it again!".
Some of those sophisticated investors are also engaged in shameless capital extraction. Their investment thesis is based on the "Greater Fool Theory": they're gambling that they can dump the inflated assets on another bag holder before it blows up.
To be fair that theory works handsomely.
But they might end being the bag holder themselves. And is the reputational risk worth it? I would say - no.
> And is the reputational risk worth it?
Yes! The only metric that matters is assets under management, since that’s where funds take their cut. Nothing else matters.
A16Z used to be a respected investor, then they went crazy deep into crypto scams and their AUM exploded, so they made more money than ever before.
Reputational risk is dead. All publicity is good publicity, the alternative is obscurity aka being a loser
> ...if you disabuse yourself of the notion that Neumann was playing a game of entrepreneurship and good-faith empire building, and instead conclude that the game he was playing was shameless capital extraction, every step and action he took suddenly makes sense.
Sort of. I get the capital extraction part, but you also need to be a good steward of capital and make a profitable business out of it. He failed badly at the later part, and his reputation is an obstacle for the former.
Not saying you are wrong, but if I am a "capital allocator" at a16z, he would be no-go.
Ironically Neumann's latest startup is funded by a16z.
IMO you're being unfair; he talked his way into getting paid half a billion dollars for wework, and he's now a billionaire. That's a massive success at capital extraction.
This is too cynical for even a turbo cynic like me.
Basically, you’re saying he mislead investors and got a bunch of money, so those investors see themselves being ripped off as a valuable skill, so they invest in him again. Wut?
I say again — why would investors trust him if his only track record is losing investor money?
I misinterpreted you; I was arguing that he's already succeeded completely, so it doesn't matter if anyone gives him more money.
But, IMO the reason they're still giving him more money is that they're stupid and greedy. They know WeWork was a disaster, but it was a huge disaster. That shows them he's good at running a con, and they want to get in on the next one.
Class solidarity doesn't hurt either. Being a billionaire makes him an actual person in the eyes of other rich people.
EDIT: Also, it's funny you used a16z as an example:
> Not saying you are wrong, but if I am a "capital allocator" at a16z, he would be no-go.
because Andreesen Horowitz are the ones investing in his new WeWork 2.0 startup Flow.
If you know he is good at duping investors then you know he is good at gaining investors, and if you think you will be able to well time your exit you will make a shit ton of money off the other investor's investment. Many investors are just straight up gamblers and risk is just part of the game.
Its like people who invest into a ponzi scheme knowing full well it is a ponzi scheme, just thinking they are smart enough to leave before it all comes crashing down. And once you get enough critical mass, other people will invest based entirely on the fact that there is a lot of other investors and a rising price.
> I say again — why would investors trust him if his only track record is losing investor money?
Because they look at a serial fraudster and see themselves in him.
The type of person who funders fall for is a personality type. That they have failed in the past doesn't matter, they fall in love anyway. This time is different.
Venture guys aren't as smart or analytical as their propaganda would lead one to believe. A lot of them are just people who got lucky once.
It's distribution. Guy's got a brand name now. People and investors recognize his name. It's a lot easier to find an absolute quantity N of investor money for a fraudulent but well-known name than it is for an unknown upstart.
The fraud might have a low close rate but the top of the funnel is huge. The unknown upstart can't even get meetings.
His “brand” is “torching investor money.”
Still don’t get it.
He might credibly have access to federal bailout, too. That's worth something.
I remember listening to a podcast (possibly complex systems?) that said the best way to find what kinds of frauds are out there is by looking at what known fraudsters are up to.
[0] It might have been this one, but I can't find it in the transcript https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/episodes/fraud-as-infr...
Charisma and connections are pretty much all it takes. Really only connections are needed but since these people are coming back from being exposed they need charisma to assuage the concerns of their connections.
I recently invested a small amount of money in an early stage company where I had to declare I was either a 'high net worth individual' or a 'sophisticated investor'. The mutually exclusive clause seemed important to me.
In the US, we have this class called “accredited investor”
Maybe you become both by not investing in such a company.
And the beauty is that one also becomes not both by investing in such a company!
A lot of the investors are also bullshitters so they like bullshitting founders. I see a similar thing in companies. People wonder why people who don’t produce much but are politically savvy are moving up. The answer that most leadership is the same so they recognize each other.
This come up in a subthread last week https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47305450
My guess is that they're good talkers. They make it sounds like they learned their lesson or were framed but regardless if you hire them they'll make you rich!
Well, here we all are clicking the link and engaging in a discussion on the loathsome creep. Attention, attention.
I can guarantee you that Elizabeth Holmes will get a big bunch of funding for a new startup as soon as she's out of jail.
Even with SBF I'm 50/50 on that.
A lot of companies are currently doing what (if you squint) Holmes was claiming Theranos would be able to do a decade ago. I agree with you that this is enough for her to claim, plausibly to some, that she was basically on the right track.
SBF, similarly, happened to have FTX invest in Anthropic early, and while we don't know how that's gonna play out now that they're at odds with the DoW, the value of Anthropic has already increased enough that it would have made whole all the money he was wasting/embezzling, so there's going to be a path for people to claim that he's directionally worth investing more money in, if he's out anytime soon.
Does anybody know his investors? I'd like an intro:)
Like it or not these people know how to contact people who hand out money. That is really the skill in the VC world, not competence in some domain. It is a fundraising job. It takes charisma. Just got to keep the music going until you cash out. How many founders are actually trying to make a company last 100+ years, vs securing retirable wealth early in life?
Greater fool theory.
some of the 'investors' use such as investments as tax-write offs
> SyberJet’s own history shows the challenges. Over the past 40 years, an eclectic mix of financiers from Dubai to Taiwan invested hundreds of millions of dollars in developing the plane maker’s lightweight business jets. But in all that time just four planes made it into the hands of customers.
Putting two and two together it seems to me that this business is a front for money laundering or something.
My assumption is that the people he's working with today also would like to do some fraud, and are hoping he'll be better at it this time.
And/or they're part of the Trump rich people's club. They all tend to stick together and help each other.
Look how many people couldn't care about Epstein and the fact he was a convicted sex offender. Bill Gates didn't care and he was literally the richest person in the world at one point.
The rich VCs and billionaires and aspirational billionaires only care about doing what they want to do and don't care what the peons like us think or care about.
These fraudsters who get second chances have got blackmail. Trust me, all the people we see in the media are sharks. They only help each other if they feel a threat or have something to gain.
They are charismatic. They know how to work people.
If you've ever worked with narcissists and sociopaths, you'll soon enough discover that they will do anything to get what they want. And they are professionals at playing people.
They know what to say, how to present themselves, how to make their story, and what strings to pull on the people they try to convince.
Some investors are also willing to suspend their disbelief - thinking that if they are the first to ditch to bag, there's money to be made...as long as they're not the ones holding the bag.
Having a great exit is the golden dream for VCs.
But having founders that raise lots of money also have a value in itself even if the business fails in the long run.
But you also have to build a business with the money you raise, or else you kill your reputation along the way.
As the founder, yes. For the VCs there's not a lot of consequences by having hyped things like Theranos or WeWork.
I guess I would make a terrible VC, bc my money and reputation would matter to me.
Because those investors have exactly same moral and ethical framework. The fraud is just another legitimate way to make money to them. It is the same thing with Epstein or meetoo ... they were actually fine with all that and whoever complains is just pesky idiot.
This article is not praising trevor milton tho.
not speaking for upwards failures in general, but for the extraordinary cases of convicted frauds being pardoned, the incentives are:
1. his $1.8M donation to Trump shows other felons and fraudsters that paying Trump will pay back in dividends (Trump profits)
2. By pardoning thousands of frauds, con artists and outright violent nazis (Jan 6), Trump builds himself an army of loyalists who owe him their lives
3. By putting pardoned frauds, con artists and violent nazis in charge of government functions, Trump replaces the entire US government with one that will do his personal bidding
textbook autocrat stuff
I just can't comprehend the mental process or discussion that happened which led to this guy getting a pardon.
It's just hard to imagine that anybody would give a f about this fraudster. Only explanation is he must know some dirt on someone.
It's clear now. Modern society runs on blackmail. There's a blackmail hierarchy all the way to the top.
I bet there are many people out there just making a living from just knowing dirt about people.
It's not that complicated. From the article:
> Milton and his wife had also donated at least $3.2 million to Trump’s 2024 election and to political groups and people in Trump’s orbit, including Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
> I just can't comprehend the mental process or discussion that happened which led to this guy getting a pardon.
Trump when pardoning Trevor Milton said that he didn't know the guy, but heard that he said nice things about him.
And Milton made a $1m donation.
Trump seems to have a weak spot for fraudsters. Milken, Conrad Black, Keith, Blagojevich and many more. Not sure why though.
The problem with Trump is that his only values are centered around business and deal making. It's all about loyalty, not about truth. Clearly he doesn't have much tolerance for disagreement.
To understand why you must understand the tax code. You can write off any investment losses. You can also recover losses if its from fraud. Though usually not fully. But you give 1 million for investment, boom its a fraud, and you get $800,000 back as opposed to keeping a million and paying $400,000 on it in taxes. It's a win-win situation. There is no penalty in betting on fraudsters. Whether this guy's schemes are deliberately for that is debatable. But on the flip side, putting downsides to investing on possible fraudsters considerably hinders any new genuine start up ideas from gaining investors.
How do you get $800k back? Where does that come from?
What?
Why would you get $800k back? Also why would owe $400k in taxes for "keeping a million"? Nothing you've said makes any sense.
We're mid tax season but I really hope you hired a CPA.
The President has plenary authority to grant pardons and I imagine a time, in the near future, when questioning any authority of this administration would he deemed an act of treason.
Therefore, I wish only the best of luck to never-committed-a-crime Trevor Milton and to the infallibility of our dear leader in his wise and judicious use of the power he has been given by God and the Constitution.
> The President has plenary authority to grant pardons
This really needs to be taken away. Or at least severely limited. Maybe you could pardon at most 10 people. And that too has to be approved by congress or the senate.
Coming soon to an email signature near you
Just for once I want "CEO convicted of fraud making their comeback" to come back with some really boring business. Like, I want Elizabeth Holmes to serve out her sentence then come out swinging to raise funds to vertically integrate pallet construction.
I feel like part of the secret to being that type of CEO is that whatever your business is, you can spin it into something "oh my god, much wow".
Like it won't be just "vertically integrating pallet construction", it'll be "a heartwarming revolution in the construction of pallets, now with AI and blockchain".
Kind of like how TFA mentions that Milton's new SyberJet will "pioneer AI flight".
This could make a funny bit as well now that I think of it, advertise your new enterprise as an AI NFT Blockchain Distributed Pallet Revolution but under the hood it's just a sensible Harvard Business School rollup.
Exhibit A: Adam Neuman, who somehow convinced people that office rental + shitty app that didn't work was "The first physical social network" and therefore deserved a tech company valuation.
And to be clear he's not been convicted of fraud, he walked away from the cash bonfire with over a billion dollars.
Sell me this pen
How about Holmes comes back and works at Starbucks? Why should we want known criminals and con artists back in positions of power and trust? Investing in someone like that is a breach of fiduciary duty. Give the opportunity to some worthy unknown, not known liars and criminals.
> How about Holmes comes back and works at Starbucks?
I wouldn't trust her to make my coffee.
If there were any justice, after jail these fraudsters would be working low paying jobs like fast food and retail, and the CEO jobs would go to people who haven't been convicted of fraud.
But of course they'll leverage their connections and get high paying jobs like in this case.
Whenever I see any news about this guy, I always think of this:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38686150
Lovely. Utterly untrustworthy except for the important case of identifying others like him.
There’s a reason he should be sitting in prison still. It’s not because he’s an honest human or a good businessman.
A few months ago he popped up in my Instagram feed. It looks like Trevor has been seeing a lot of success on that platform rebranding himself as a jilted genius who's on the comeback. Seeing his posts about how he'd been wronged by the system and comment sections full of people who are taking it at face value really highlights the shortcomings of social media to me.
In my experience, people who are compulsive liars or those who are willing to make large or repeated deceptions for personal gain never change. It is as natural to them as breathing. Some of them I am quite convinced believe their lies, but the net result is the same.
I don't know Trevor Milton. I have never met him. Maybe he isn't a compulsive liar but just got in over his head and was trying to make it work. But I know I would never invest in something he is doing.
Isn't this also in line with recent proclamations by at least two venture capitalists that they do not reflect / introspect / dwell on consequences in any way?
No because you don't understand what Andreessen means by reflection / introspection.
He obviously thinks you should learn from your mistakes and that you must be an avid and quick learner.
But learning skills is not what introspection / dwelling is.
It's spending times on thoughts like "what should I be doing with my life". "I can't believe how much of a victim of the system I am".
And he specifically contrasted it against doing stuff.
Writing code >>> walks in the woods.
Obviously reflection is necessary to recognize mistakes of the past. What Andreessen was talking about that you should spent majority of your time acting not reflecting. Not that you should spent 0 time reflecting.
> It's spending times on thoughts like "what should I be doing with my life".
How else do you decide what to do?
There are those who would argue doing anything is better than doing nothing while you try to figure out what to do. I'm in a position where I know what my passions are and am sufficiently constrained by resources that I can't afford major mistakes; but if I were sufficiently wealthy and indifferent, throwing darts at a board with a couple of ideas on it and just doing whatever has a certain romance to it.
Don't do nothing while figuring out what to do. But you should still spend time thinking about what to do.
If you're wealthy time and personal energy are the most valuable, irreplaceable resources you now possess. Why squander them on fruitless, random pursuits if you could think strategically and do something that really matters?
> introspection / dwelling
It's surprising to me that you consider these equivalent.
Introspection is a process of discovery, to uncover a deeper cause why you did something.
Dwelling is when you can't let go.
Introspection is important. Dwelling is problematic.
Did we not understand when he said introspection was something made up in the past few hundred years? I was aghast when he said it right in front of my copy of Meditations given how much these guys also obsess over the Roman Empire
Not trying to defend these assholes, but the author of Meditations was not exactly a good guy.
I was commenting more on the fact that it’s a work that is all about introspection and is from like 2000 years ago
They believe other people are doing it and by not doing it they are selling themselves short.
Theyre not exactly wrong
> Maybe he isn't a compulsive liar
I have followed Trevor for many years. And I think anybody who has done the same will tell you, lying is very very central to his inner core. He lies even when he has zero need to. He just cannot help himself. It satisfies some inner need.
I grew up with someone like this. And otherwise he was a nice likable person. And his lies were benign, but he lied almost any time you talked to him. Most people didn’t even notice, but once you did you couldn’t unsee it. A couple of times we both witnessed the same event and he would have a completely different recollection of events that favored him and I think he believed those lies himself. I think for some people it is some kind of defense mechanism.
People like to invest in people like them. Simple as that.
An HTML5 super jet?
Gravity powered!
For anyone that hasn't seen it, or just wants to reminisce, here's Hindenburg's report on Nikola, Milton's previous scheme. It is a truly hilarious read.
https://hindenburgresearch.com/nikola/
Text-only, HTTPS optional:
https://assets.msn.com/content/view/v2/Detail/en-in/AA1YRlL9...
I cannot fathom the thinking of any party investing in the new company of a convicted fraudster.
> In August [2022], it was announced that Andreessen Horowitz had invested in Neumann's new residential real-estate company, Flow.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Neumann
Not only did they invest, but if I'm not mistaken, at the time that was the biggest single check that Andreessen Horowitz had ever written. It's completely baffling to me.
And they invested more in 2025.
https://a16z.com/announcement/flow/
Exactly! Any knowledgeable observer would have expected him to run for elected office instead.
> Trevor Milton’s conviction for defrauding investors in truck company Nikola was wiped away
Best justice money can buy.
> He’s now raising funds for a new jet he claims will transform flying
With his history building the "truck that can roll unpowered down a hill" I shudder to think just how his jet would transform flying.
The old Buzz Lightyear: falling, with style
One insight might be that airlines and aircraft manufacturers get bailed out often.
they're going to pioneer "AI flight" :D
The favor trading corruption is blatant without shame. More of the media should be highlighting these cases.
is he going to roll it down a hill to make it take off?
The brake release is two popsicle sticks glued together and decorated with glitter.
I love how the article talked about the big claims for improved flight capabilities without a single word describing what that supposed secret sauce may be.
"Investor documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal said the goal is for the plane to be the first light jet to focus on artificial-intelligence flight."
Oh cool, can't wait for the vibe-coded autopilot to CFIT into the Rockies or dump itself into the ocean that it thought was totally a runway while a completely untrained, inexperienced hot shot with $10 million to blow flies this generation's V-tailed doctor killer[1] to their final destination.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_Bonanza
What is it even supposed to mean?
Airplanes have had autopilot (the genuine kind, not Musk's snake oil) for ages now. Commercial airlines have been using autoland on well-equipped airports for decades. Garmin's fully autonomous emergency autoland has already saved a few Cessna owners' lives. With the ongoing adoption of CPDLC the ATC-to-pilot link is also actively being automated and standardized.
There are no big technical hurdles left to solve! The main thing preventing fully-automated flight from taking off is the industry and regulators (rightfully) being incredibly conservative, and preferring paying pilots over the horrible PR fallout of an incident aboard an automated flight killing hundreds of people. Artificial intelligence isn't going to be of any help here!
You seem to be confused about the reasons. Fully automated flight is technically feasible (with the right equipment) under normal conditions. However, it will never be a replacement for a pair of human pilots for Part 121 commercial passenger flights — at least not without some fundamental advancement in AGI. The problem is not with routine flight operations but with emergency procedures. By their very nature, emergencies can't be anticipated and it's impossible to write code in advance to handle them. Whereas humans can improvise solutions on the fly based on first principles. A prime example is US Airways Flight 1549 "Miracle on the Hudson" where the pilots intentionally disregarded parts of the emergency checklist to safely ditch in the water.
The Garmin Autonomí autoland system is an amazing technical achievement but it's intended as a last-ditch way to save the passengers when a Part 91 single pilot is incapacitated. It would never be approved for routine non-emergency use and can't even take VHF radio instructions from controllers.
I already covered that part.
Pilots are supposed to rigidly follow their checklists - to the point of having to execute some of them from memory. A computer could easily do the same for the vast majority of emergencies.
The "Miracle on the Hudson" is called a miracle for a reason: the expected outcome is for everyone to die. Same with UA232. Nobody would've blamed the pilots if there had been zero survivors! Even with human pilots it is the exception, not the rule.
The fact that you are willing to blame an autopilot for not improvising a 1-in-1000 Hail Mary attempt is exactly the conservatism I mentioned: we prefer routine human failure and the occasional miracle over predictable automated performance.
The technical hurdle to solve they feel is getting the barrier to 'flying' dumbed down even more. They want this to be something that Joe off the street can get in with minimal flight training and go zip around in a high performance jet once their vesting clears and they can cash out a few mill.
So... basically, an even more digital cockpit with more touchscreens and less verbatim information presentation on the screens. Why give you multiple engine gauges for N1, N2, temps, etc, when we can just give you one dumb "Thrust" gauge? Why make programming the autopilot a fifteen day course on the ground when you can just have a LLM figure out what your flight plan should be and punch it all in automatically?
It's like how Cirrus positions themselves to be the family SUV of the skies with their products and falls back on "just pull the chute / push the Autoland button, bro".
How's that going to solve the FAA-mandated training requirements?
The beauty of aviation is that there is so much red tape required to fly that you can have the plane sit in a hangar for ages before the music stops.
Not like a truck where people quickly wonder why they haven't seen it in motion.
Sounds like he's on the verge of developing a valuable product then.
You are missing the advantage of having an AI to blame everything on.
> "There's a sucker born every minute" is a quotation often associated with American showman P. T. Barnum (1810-1891), although there is no evidence that he actually said it. Early instances of its use are found among salesmen, gamblers and confidence tricksters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_a_sucker_born_every_...
Why? How?
Why would anyone give him money? Really. I'm blown away.
Fool me once, shame on you...
Fucking scamer piece of shit. I watched the whole saga and to anybody with a brain it was clear he was a scammer. Anybody that even did minimal research into the industry it was clear what he was doing. He spent most of the money on adds for his stock.
To make him sound credibly he agree to really shitty deals (for him) with credible companies. So he could say 'we are in business with X'. Of course GM was the biggest fish they got in that regard, of course the GM CEO at the time was on crusade to claim they were doing 'EV' so I think even they knew it was mostly scam, but it got them into the media.
He should be in prison.
Pathetic. Everyone in this story is pathetic. Trump, Milton, all of them.
Translation: Convicted fraud pardoned by convicted fraud is likely gonna fraud again
I'm sorry, but anyone Donald Trump has pardoned for fraud should not be trusted at all. It's literally a matter of "game recognizes game". If Donald Trump gets a cut of the fraud, that's all that matters to him.
That's was the article said. I think you understood it incorrectly.
Says a lot about whether you can trust the WSJ.
"Convicted fraudster pardons convicted fraudster therefore you can trust convicted fraudster."
Wild!
Why would you say that? The article was basically a hit piece on the guy. "We can trust you" was a quote from an associate, as you surely remember from when you read the whole article.
Messaging is attention-weighted. It always has been, but the exploitation of this fact has been on the rise and in 2026 everyone should know it and internalize the consequences: if you signal boost statement A and bury nuance B, you are promoting statement A, flat out, completely independent of what B brings to the table.
"We can trust you now" has quotations marks in the title. That means a verbatim quote from a source. Sure, messaging should be clear, but we must expect basic reading comprehension and jornalistic literacy from people that participate in a place like a Computer Science forum, while reading The Wall Street Journal.
'We Can Trust You Now' is a quote in the story from the subject. The subject himself claims:
“I walk into meetings now, and I’ll get high-fives from the most wealthy people in the world,” he said. “They’re like, ‘Welcome to the club. You can withstand the fire. We can trust you now.’”
The WSJ interviewed him and is reporting information about his past. I think the article portrays him as extremely shady and untrustworthy. Not sure what you could be seeing here to demean the WSJ.
Shades of Goodfellas when Henry did his time and was welcomed back with open arms.
There's a school of thought that reporting on a bad person without coming out and saying "this is a bad person" is akin to endorsing that person.
Myself, I think people are mature enough to be able to read past a headline and come away from this with a clear eyed view of this fraudster.
My rule has always been, forgive people, but never forget what they did. After they've made restitution, help them back to their feet, but don't let them ever get to the place where they can fail the same way. And whatever you do, don't let them get into a leadership position. They've already proved they can't help themselves when the pressure in on.
> forgive people, but never forget what they did.
How many times are you willing to forgive? Trevor has seen prison only once. But frauds? Many.
Personally, I almost always forgive, however, I never allow that person to take advantage of me again. Trust has to be the gold standard. To err in human, thus forgive. To be taken advantage again by the same person is foolish.
> I think people are mature enough to be able to read past a headline
What trainwreck of misconceptions could possibly compel an otherwise reasonable person to believe something so ridiculous?
I agree with you on the first part. But, if one needs to read past headline to find the opposite of the headline is truth, headline deserves all the criticism in the world.
Headline is what is presented to the world. Headline is the claim being made to people who dont find the topic interesting. And majority of the people dont find all the fine details of pardoned CEO situation interesting. So, yes, if the headline lies, the news deserve to be criticized.
And pretty much rule number 1 is if someone says "you can trust me" you cant' trust them. Trustworthy people generally don't need to say things like that.