How Jeffrey Epstein Made Millions From His Connections

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So when this big batch of Epstein files came out in late January, do you remember where

you were?

I was really sick and bad, trying not to work, actually.

That's our colleague Emily Glazer, who writes about the rich and powerful, including about

people with ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

And I got a call from Kadeja Safdar, who is our, like, lead reporter on all things Epstein.

And she's like, oh, my God, you won't believe it.

And I was like, not really that with it.

I'm like, logging into these files, kind of, like, little, like, out of it.

And then I was just like, oh, my gosh.

And so I became obsessed every night.

I'd log in after my son went to sleep, and I would spend, like, hours searching different

things to see what I could find.

So in your past time, you're just spending hours and hours reading the Epstein files.

Okay.

In fairness, my husband was on a work trip.

And so I literally, like, each night, I would stay up for a couple of hours, just reading

through it and finding new things.

And I started to create a timeline, and my editor was poor guy.

I'm just constantly messaging him with, like, this and that and that.

One of the things Emily found was that Epstein was frequently receiving confidential company

information from powerful people on his network and making millions of dollars in the

process.

What we are writing about here is how Epstein really collected all this information and tips

about stocks and startups, both public companies and private companies, and would oftentimes

then invest and sometimes make money and sometimes not make money.

We have this, like, unprecedented access to all of these emails and all of these little

snippets of conversations that we never had insight into before.

How would you describe how these people were talking to each other?

Good question.

Very casually and often not abiding by typical rules or guidelines that exist when you're

handling confidential information.

Welcome to the journal, our show about money, business, and power.

I'm Ryan Knutzen.

This Thursday, March 26th.

Coming up on the show, how Jeffery Epstein leveraged his elite network to make financial investments.

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We know that Jeffrey Epstein made hundreds of millions of dollars advising a few billionaire

clients, but his other income is still somewhat of a mystery.

Most of Epstein's wealth came from advising billionaires like Leon Black, who ran a private

equity juggernaut Apollo and Les Wexner who oversaw Elbrions with Jones, Victoria Secret

and a number of other retailers, and he made a lot of money advising them over the years.

And his estate, when he, according to court papers filed after Epstein's death, put his

worth at least $577 million, which includes his private island and properties.

That's a lot of money.

It is.

And then it also, I mean, even the work that he was doing at this point, it's still not

extremely clear as to why he was being paid so much for that work.

Because in the market, usually those services often are much cheaper than what it seems

like he was being paid.

Yes, that's been a big question over the years and subject to a lot of, I think, elements

of lawsuits and investigations, and it's hard to fully divorce what Epstein was doing

with trafficking women and trying to, like, understand his whole empire, because he had

a lot of things going on at once.

And oftentimes, not always, his relationships with different people would have this sort

of business component, and then also sometimes this social or, like, sexual component.

But also, now based on your reporting, it's clear that he was also to some degree making

money in the stock market.

He was, yes, and it's really interesting to see how sometimes he would get tips and

then, somewhat soon after, would advise his bankers or his accountant to purchase shares

of these companies that he was getting information about.

One of the people Epstein was getting tips from was Boris Nikolich.

He was a close advisor to Bill Gates.

Boris Nikolich started working for Bill Gates at the Gates Foundation in the mid-2000s.

Nikolich was advising Bill Gates on tens of millions of dollars in investments, and his

specialty was to go and scout for investments and then often work with Bill and help him

decide where he should be investing especially in health care and biotech companies.

In the emails, Emily discovered that Nikolich exchanged hundreds of messages with Epstein

during this time, including about a company called Foundation Medicine in 2012.

What is the time when Nikolich started emailing Jeffery Epstein about this molecular diagnostic

testing company called Foundation Medicine, and it is also around the time that Bill Gates

took a significant stake in that startup.

What information was being shared between Nikolich and Epstein during this time period?

We know that at this time, Bill Gates and Nikolich are receiving access to non-public information

about companies that they invest in.

We know that happened with Foundation Medicine.

Nikolich, in turn, sent some documents discussing the investment to Jeffery Epstein, and over

time, there's kind of this drum beat of emails that Nikolich is sending to Epstein discussing

Gates' investment in Foundation Medicine and attaching some documents and financial terms

about Bill Gates' investment.

And what did Epstein do with that information?

So Foundation Medicine goes public in September of 2013, and in January 2014, Epstein tells

his finance people to buy 25,000 shares of Foundation Medicine.

Epstein paid just over $27 per share.

About two days later, Nikolich emailed Epstein.

Did you see Foundation Medicine question mark?

You probably made around 30% in last two days exclamation point.

The company is coming with a number of new products.

I do think it might hit post IPO 42 again soon.

In other words, it's going to keep going up.

That's what it indicates in those emails.

It was clear that Nikolich knew that Epstein had invested in this company and then was

kind of like goading him on.

I mean, him saying like you probably made around 30% in the last two days with an exclamation

point is to me very telling, and we could see him sending information, some of it public

and some of it not.

By 2015, Epstein had doubled his holdings to 50,000 shares, and his average purchase price

was at just over $25 a share.

That year, the Swiss drug maker Roche bought just over half a Foundation Medicine shares

for $50 each.

In a couple years after that, Roche bought out the company's remaining stock for $137 a share.

It's not clear how much money Epstein made, or if he made any money at all off the Foundation

Medicine investment, because we don't know how long Epstein held onto his stock.

It's possibly sold at before the final Roche buyout.

According to Emily's reporting, Nikolich shared information with Epstein or his staff

about at least three other private companies, including documents marked confidential,

like board meeting minutes, resolutions, and company balance sheet information.

Nikolich set in a statement to the journal that, quote, he did not share material non-public

information, and that what he passed along to Epstein was either public information or

private information that he was authorized to share.

He added, quote, if Epstein invested, he did so on the public markets when anybody could

invest.

It's not clear why Nikolich shared this information with Epstein, but it is clear that the two

men were tied up in more matters than just sharing investment ideas.

In fact, during that same time, Nikolich was in the process of leaving Bill Gates' private

office, and Epstein inserted himself into the negotiations.

What we found in these Epstein files is that that's when Nikolich essentially needs to

separate himself from Bill Gates' private office.

There's this whole dust up, and Epstein gets involved in kind of brokering Nikolich's

exit, which is a multi-million dollar exit, and Epstein's dangling allegations about

Gates' extramarital affairs while he's putting this deal together, and ultimately Gates

agreed to invest tens of millions of dollars into a venture with Nikolich.

There's all this kind of term sheets and deals and wrangling happening where Epstein is

serving as Nikolich's representative to get all this to happen.

In a recent town hall at the Gates Foundation, Bill Gates acknowledged that he had two affairs

with Russian women that Epstein later discovered, but he said they didn't involve Epstein's

victims.

Nikolich said he was authorized to provide some confidential information to Epstein while

his exit from Gates' private office was being negotiated.

When we asked Nikolich why Jeffrey Epstein was negotiating on his behalf as he was exiting

Bill Gates' private office, he said, quote, Epstein was a master manipulator, and I deeply

regret associating with him.

I now know his crimes were despicable, and my heart goes out to the victims.

He said Epstein inserted himself as a mediator, and then he was lies to pursue his own agenda.

So I will just say, and it's important to note this, the capstone, I guess, of their

rapport, Nikolich and Epstein, is that in 2019, just days before Epstein's death while

serving time in prison, Nikolich was named as a backup executor in Epstein's will.

Nikolich said he didn't know he'd been named a backup executor in Epstein's will.

A spokesperson for Gates didn't respond a request for comment about the information

sharing. The Gates spokesperson has said that when it comes to the negotiations over

Nikolich's separation, quote, Epstein's emails grossly exaggerated his importance and involvement.

Gates has said he regrets his association with Epstein and wasn't aware of his crimes.

There are other examples in the Epstein files that people share in confidential information.

One involved his longtime client, Leon Black.

In 2015, Black was Apollo Global Management CEO, and Epstein was advising Black on tax

and estate planning.

Emails released in the Epstein files show a conversation between Epstein and the CFO of

Leon Black's family office about Apollo's finances.

Epstein held 250,000 shares in the publicly traded company.

In March of 2015, Epstein got an email that was marked, confidential, material non-public

info.

This was from the CFO of Leon Black's family office, and the email projected, among other

things, that Apollo's cash distribution, which is equivalent to a dividend, for the first

quarter of 2015 would be about $0.34 per share, and then when Apollo announced its quarterly

earnings, two months later, the cash distribution was $0.33 per share.

So he's getting information about a public company.

The amount of a future dividend payout can impact whether someone buys or sells that

company's stock, and knowing at a head of time could give an investor an advantage.

A spokesman for Black said Epstein provided tax and estate planning services for Black's

family office, and was given information about his holdings in Apollo for these purposes.

I've got another example for you.

This one involves Israel's former prime minister, Ehud Barak.

His emails show that in 2016, Barak sent confidential information about a company he'd

invested in.

It was a tech startup called Reportee, where Barak was chair of the board.

Ehud Barak sent an email to Epstein in January 2016.

He shared minutes from a reportee board meeting, and it showed the board had authorized the

CEO to contact venture capitalists, raised $10 million, and Barak wrote, moving forward

very well.

What's wrong with sharing meeting minutes from a board meeting?

When you're a board member, those are sacred.

Those are not shared outside the boardroom.

There's a very small number of individuals who are usually board members, and this is

where they discuss all of the most confidential, sensitive information about a company, financials,

personnel, strategy, and it's just known like you don't forward those around.

It's just not the kind of information you share.

A spokesperson for Ehud Barak said that Reportee was a private company, and because Epstein

was one of its biggest early investors through a partnership led by Barak, Epstein was

entitled to receive the information approved by the board.

His spokesperson said that all of Barak's business activities, including Reportee, were

conducted under careful legal advice and according to the law.

After the break, Epstein's Inside Man at JP Morgan.

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One of Jeffrey Epstein's valuable sources, according to Emily's reporting, appears to

be Jess Staley, who was a senior JP Morgan executive until 2013.

It seems like he was one of the most valuable insider sources for Jeffrey Epstein.

Staley had a close relationship with Epstein, and they exchanged hundreds of emails over the years.

In December 2009, Jess Staley shared with Jeffrey Epstein internal JP Morgan compensation

deliberations, including that 34 people were expected to earn more than $10 million

that year, and that Jamie Dyman, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase,

shared information about his perspective on pay issues.

What could have Epstein have done with that information?

Well, Ryan soon after Epstein actually bought JP Morgan

preferred stock, and his financial statement showed that he held on to it for years.

He owned millions of dollars of JP Morgan stock.

So does his buddy give him access to buying preferred shares?

Not access to preferred shares, but we know his buddy was giving him confidential information

about a very large public bank.

Information that suggested that the bank was going to do better in the future.

You could, I guess, take from that what you will.

He's getting bits and pieces and nuggets.

One time, Staley sent Epstein his comments on how an offsite executive retreat went.

He also, and this one is a lot more direct, Staley sent Epstein inside information about other

matters, including out clients.

In 2010, Staley forwarded an email to Epstein that details about an upcoming deal that JP Morgan

was secretly working on. It involved the billionaire Pritzker family.

Less than three weeks later, the deal went through.

Do you know if Epstein did anything with this information?

We searched far and wide. We couldn't, we couldn't directly see it, but that's not saying it didn't

happen. Right. Because he was also invested in hedge funds, venture capital firms,

like there's so many different avenues where he had investments and he had other people making

investments. So we can't say what we don't know. I will tell you that a JP Morgan Chase

spokeswoman said it wasn't aware of Staley sharing confidential information with Epstein until after

Staley left the bank. Thomas Pritzker declined a comment. Just Staley and his lawyer didn't respond

to requests for comment. In the United Kingdom, two people who communicated frequently with Epstein

were arrested for sharing confidential government information. What we have seen in the UK is that

now former Prince Andrew was arrested and so was the former UK ambassador to the US Peter

Mandelson, both because they shared confidential UK government information with Jeffrey Epstein.

That was that's what it's hanging on for each of them.

Former Prince Andrew was stripped of his royal title and is now known as Andrew Mount

Baton Windsor. He has denied wrongdoing in relation to his dealings with Epstein and said he

regretted his associations with them. Both Mandelson and the former Prince Andrew have been released

by the police, neither has responded to requests for comment. The recent issues in the former

Prince Andrew's case relate to when he was serving as special representative for international

trade and investment for the UK government. In that position, the Epstein files appeared to show

that he shared confidential information with Epstein. For example, in July 2010,

then Prince Andrew forwarded Epstein in email exchange that he'd had with an investment banker

based in the United Arab Emirates. The emails had details regarding the restructuring of the royal

bank of Scotland following its 2008 bailout. In Peter Mandelson's case, the former UK politician,

the Epstein files show that he forwarded Epstein confidential government correspondence relating to

Britain's financial crisis. For example, when Mandelson was the UK business secretary,

he forwarded Epstein a confidential government email from an aid to the then Prime Minister.

It was advising the government to draw down debt by selling some 20 billion pounds of assets.

The heads up of a possible UK sale of assets could have allowed Epstein to possibly trade on the

information. Mandelson has previously said in statements that he deeply regrets his past

association with Epstein. Beyond the UK, have there been consequences for any of the people we've

been talking about for their ties to Epstein? Now, with some of these, so just daily left,

he became CEO of the huge global bank, Barclays, and left years ago over the ties to Epstein.

And Ehud Barak, the former Israeli Prime Minister, ultimately stepped down from the board of

that tech startup. It was in 2020 that the company said he was stepping down from the board.

So, yes, people in some cases have lost their positions, their clout, their reputation.

As for Boris Nikolech, after his ties with Epstein became public in 2019,

he largely unwound the fund he'd started with the money that included tens of millions of dollars

from Gates. I understand obviously what's in it for Epstein. This is great, having information

is valuable, but I still can't wrap my head around why anybody would be willing to share it with him.

Isn't that part of the great mystery? Why are these people so loose with him?

Why are they sharing these confidential business matters with him? It doesn't really make sense.

And I think this goes much further than ultra-wealthy people, casually sharing tips about something

at a cocktail party or at the golf course, because both with the volume of the information he was

getting and the way that he acted on it. Now, don't get me wrong, he also had access to

opportunities via hedge funds or venture capital firms and would make money from those.

We saw that in the files. That's a little bit more normal among the ultra-wealthy. This takes

it much further. From what Emily has seen in the files, most of the information flows one way,

from insiders to Epstein. So what would you say a big picture have you learned

after reporting this story? I think that we have a deeper understanding of how many ways he

entangled himself into other people's lives and not just with this sexual exploits, but also

on the business side, even if he wasn't officially advising them. It shows that he also was doing

things to personally benefit himself and his own wealth, and that he was constantly trading

information. People shared an unbelievable amount of information with Jeffery Epstein,

and it doesn't totally make sense how he was such a repository for so much confidential information.

To the point that his email signature Ryan literally said,

the contents of this message may constitute inside information. How many times you've ever seen

that on somebody's email signature? It's usually when it's a lawyer. And Jeffery Epstein was not a lawyer.

What are you looking for next in these millions of pages of Epstein files?

If I told you then all of my competitors would know too. I will just say that I am not done searching

through these files.

That's all for today, Thursday, March 26th. The journal is a co-production of Spotify and the

Wall Street Journal, additional reporting in this episode by Mark Merrimont.

Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.

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