Speaker 1: In December twenty fifteen, there was a high profile shooting
Speaker 1: in San Bernardino, California, that killed fourteen people and injured
Speaker 1: twenty two others. Tonight, the nation grappling with what officials
Speaker 1: now say may be the deadliest terror attack on our
Speaker 1: homeland since nine eleven. The FBI was brought in to
Speaker 1: investigate the shooting as a terrorist attack, and they asked
Speaker 1: Apple to open up the shooter's iPhone. Apple is refusing
Speaker 1: to follow a government order to hat the San Bernardino
Speaker 1: shooters phone. The FBI believes important clues about accomplices and
Speaker 1: more plots could be hidden on that phone, but Apple
Speaker 1: says that complying with the government order could endanger everyone
Speaker 1: with an iPhone. This conflict ignited a heated debate over
Speaker 1: whether it was okay to sacrifice civil liberties for authorities
Speaker 1: purporting to fight violent extremism. John McAfee saw an opportunity
Speaker 1: and jumped into the fray. Here he is on Russia today.
Speaker 1: The FBI needs to get us to act together and
Speaker 1: tell the two saying, yeah, we need it because we
Speaker 1: want to spy on Americans. Cool, let's talk about that,
Speaker 1: but please don't try to deceive US by pretending we're idiots.
Speaker 1: We aren't. At the time, McAfee had been back in
Speaker 1: the US for more than two years after being deported
Speaker 1: from Central America. He was active on Twitter and appearing
Speaker 1: on television talk shows trying to reassert himself as a
Speaker 1: cybersecurity authority. My colleague William Turton was covering the aftermath
Speaker 1: of the San Bernardino shooting for a new site called
Speaker 1: The Daily Dot. He says McAfee was inserting himself into
Speaker 1: the story in a desperate attempt to get attention. He
Speaker 1: lied about the fact that he had a method that
Speaker 1: would allow the FBI access to the phone. So you know,
Speaker 1: he was presenting himself as a savior for this scenario,
Speaker 1: saying that, you know, Apple didn't have to comply with
Speaker 1: the FBI and create this new standard, that actually he
Speaker 1: had found a solution to this issue. William was confident
Speaker 1: that McAfee was lying, but McAfee was adamant. He wrote
Speaker 1: an op ed declaring he would eat his shoe on
Speaker 1: the television show if he and a team of hackers
Speaker 1: couldn't do it. William decides to call him out on
Speaker 1: this claim, and he gets McAfee on the phone. But
Speaker 1: I'm just curious as to why you did this, because
Speaker 1: because by doing so, I knew that I would get
Speaker 1: a shitload of public attention, which I did. That video
Speaker 1: on my YouTube account you can check it has seven
Speaker 1: hundred thousand views. McAfee's reaction surprised even William. It was.
Speaker 1: It was actually kind of refreshing in a way for
Speaker 1: someone to admit to their craven narcissism and not try
Speaker 1: and spin it as something else. So my point to
Speaker 1: bring to and listen to me, I'm answering a question.
Speaker 1: My point is to bring to the American public the
Speaker 1: problem that the FBI is trying to write the American public.
Speaker 1: How am I going to do that by this raft
Speaker 1: and saying it? Now, one's gonna listen to that crap,
Speaker 1: So I confis something sensational. Now. What I did not
Speaker 1: lie about was my ability to crack the iPhone. I
Speaker 1: can do it. It's a piece of freaking cake. William
Speaker 1: and McAfee go back and forth on the call. Eventually
Speaker 1: he agrees to share with William how he would crack
Speaker 1: the iPhone. McAfee tells William that he should try it
Speaker 1: himself and if it works, that William should write about
Speaker 1: it and give McAfee credit. Check it out if it doesn't.
Speaker 1: If it doesn't play, say McAfee gave me a line
Speaker 1: of gartmage. If it doesn't play, say McAfee told me
Speaker 1: how to do it. Sure, but I'm confused as though
Speaker 1: why you told me the whole method now and earlier
Speaker 1: you wouldn't tell me the method. I must say kept
Speaker 1: it off the recollect because I'm assuming that since you
Speaker 1: kept on asking, you are not going to publish it.
Speaker 1: If you know so, probably aren't that you aren't a liar,
Speaker 1: not me. Nope, I never said that I wouldn't publish it.
Speaker 1: I explicitly said that, well, our conversation. Our conversation is over,
Speaker 1: and you need to look at yourself. You need to
Speaker 1: look at yourself, all right, Thanks for time, miss McAfee.
Speaker 1: William publishes his story. In the headline, he accuses McAfee
Speaker 1: of lying quote to get a shitload of public attention.
Speaker 1: He writes that McAfee's method isn't much of a secret
Speaker 1: at all, and that there's a good chance it would
Speaker 1: end up destroying the data they're trying to get. William
Speaker 1: also uploads the recording of their entire phone call. McAfee
Speaker 1: is even more furious. After I published this story, John
Speaker 1: went on a week's long campaign to harass me and
Speaker 1: my editors that included hacking my voicemail. I woke up
Speaker 1: one morning and I had twenty missed calls from my
Speaker 1: own cell phone number, and I had one new voicemail
Speaker 1: and it was from John, and the voicemail was meant
Speaker 1: to be extremely intimidating. His actually kind of made sense
Speaker 1: because the story that I wrote was damaging to him.
Speaker 1: It's extremely rare that I include the audio of an
Speaker 1: interview in a story, but I did that because I
Speaker 1: anticipated that, if not for that, he would lie about
Speaker 1: the contents of the interview. I mean, the story of
Speaker 1: I remember correctly went viral and was actually really damaging
Speaker 1: to his credibility. He was not a fan of mine.
Speaker 1: William felt that McAfee was a charlatan forcing his way
Speaker 1: into the national conversation about a mass shooting. But McAfee
Speaker 1: was right about one thing. At least, this move got
Speaker 1: him a lot of attention. You're listening to Foundering, I'm
Speaker 1: your host, Jamie Tara Bay. In twenty twelve, John McAfee
Speaker 1: left Belize, where he was wanted for questioning in the
Speaker 1: murder of his neighbor, Gregory Fall. He returned to the
Speaker 1: US with a cloud of suspicion hanging over his head,
Speaker 1: but he was free. He was also broke, alone, and
Speaker 1: worst of all, potentially irrelevant. McAfee anti virus software had
Speaker 1: been a widely used product for over twenty years, and
Speaker 1: even though he didn't have anything to do with the
Speaker 1: company anymore, McAfee cashes in any way he can. He
Speaker 1: begins selling his most important asset, his name. Over the
Speaker 1: next few years, McAfee finds the limelight yet again. He
Speaker 1: exhibits his true talent beguiling women, drawing attention to himself,
Speaker 1: and blatantly breaking the law. He also launches a bid
Speaker 1: for the presidency of the United States. The semi serious
Speaker 1: campaign brings him shockingly close to landing on the US ballot,
Speaker 1: and it also introduces him to cryptocurrency, a new fascination
Speaker 1: for McAfee that would ultimately spark his downfall. For a
Speaker 1: time there in jail in Guatemala, John McAfee looked like
Speaker 1: he was in real trouble. He'd entered the country illegally.
Speaker 1: His biggest fear was getting extradited back to Belize, where
Speaker 1: police wanted to talk to him about the murder of
Speaker 1: his neighbor Greg Fall, but ultimately McAfee wasn't charged with
Speaker 1: anything by authorities in Belize or Guatemala. He was deported
Speaker 1: to the US. McAfee landed in Florida on December twelve,
Speaker 1: twenty twelve. He said he had no money and no phone.
Speaker 1: He checks himself into the Beacon Hotel in Miami. Canadian
Speaker 1: filmmaker Francois Garcia arranged to lend McAfee some cash to
Speaker 1: tide him over. Within the hour, John is on the
Speaker 1: street and there's journalists waiting for him, and he's flashing
Speaker 1: and seeing pictures where he's flashing out of his jacket.
Speaker 1: The words of money and I don't know which publication,
Speaker 1: where'd you get that money? Is like, you know, this
Speaker 1: mysterious Canadian friend. He made it sound like, you know
Speaker 1: it's a drug deal or drug gartel or drug kingpin
Speaker 1: who just dropped him a bag of money. Why McAfee
Speaker 1: needed to borrow cash is a bit of a mystery.
Speaker 1: At the time. He said his assets were frozen when
Speaker 1: he was fleeing Belize, and he went further to allege
Speaker 1: that the Belizian government had seized his remaining properties and accounts,
Speaker 1: but Francois Garcia says this isn't true. He sent us
Speaker 1: documents showing McAfee transferring three hundred thousand dollars out of
Speaker 1: his bank in Belize. The first of these chancefers is
Speaker 1: dated to November seventeen, twenty twelve, less than a week
Speaker 1: after Greg Fall was killed. As for his larger fortune,
Speaker 1: we know he spent recklessly and also gave much of
Speaker 1: it to his ex wife, Judy during their divorce. Whatever
Speaker 1: his access to money was at the time, several people
Speaker 1: told us that McAfee started this new chapter of his
Speaker 1: life completely broke. McAfee was casting about for what he
Speaker 1: was going to do next. The day after he arrived
Speaker 1: in Miami, he was sitting at an outdoor table at
Speaker 1: a cafe on Ocean Drive by himself when a woman
Speaker 1: named Janice Dyson walked past. He looked rough, you know,
Speaker 1: suit was kind of wrinkled and dirty, and oh yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I kind of just kept walking And it
Speaker 1: was actually the security that worked at his hotel who
Speaker 1: actually pointed him out and said, you know, that's John McAfee.
Speaker 1: The guard explained that McAfee was the same McAfee who
Speaker 1: invented the anti virus software. Janice was a sex worker
Speaker 1: at the time. She walked back to talk to him
Speaker 1: and he was smoking a cigarette, so I asked him
Speaker 1: for a cigarette, you know, I just asked him. I said, well,
Speaker 1: what's your story? Who are you? Who are you? You know,
Speaker 1: what brings you to Miami? And it's like, like, seriously,
Speaker 1: you don't know who I am. He assumed the whole
Speaker 1: world had been watching his flight from Belize after Greg
Speaker 1: Fall's murder. He says he's been on television for months.
Speaker 1: She says she doesn't watch the news. I just remember thinking,
Speaker 1: who is this guy and how was he able to,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of maneuver himself through this very dangerous situation.
Speaker 1: You know. So we spent hours of four hours just
Speaker 1: talking and okay, and I spent the night with him,
Speaker 1: and we were together every day after that. Janice was
Speaker 1: thirty years old. She said she felt a certain camaraderie
Speaker 1: with John. She's been living in her own hell in Miami.
Speaker 1: She'd given up custody of her three children to her parents.
Speaker 1: She'd been unable to disentangle herself from an abusive and
Speaker 1: exploitative relationship, so McAfee represented a kind of escape. We
Speaker 1: spent a week together in Miami. Then he asked me
Speaker 1: to come and meet him in Tennessee and we were
Speaker 1: going to drive from there to Portland. So we're on
Speaker 1: this road trip, which was like three weeks. You know,
Speaker 1: we took our time and really does so we got
Speaker 1: to know each other on that road trip. What did
Speaker 1: you like about him? Oh? Everything, everything. He's just you know,
Speaker 1: he's very smart. Obviously it's intelligence, but also at the
Speaker 1: same time, it's still very down to earth. I feel
Speaker 1: like I could relate to him. The relationship between Janis
Speaker 1: and John McAfee began as a commercial transaction, but over
Speaker 1: time it became deeper. She says that by the summer
Speaker 1: of the next year, he asked her to marry him.
Speaker 1: McAfee spent much of twenty thirteen living quietly with Janis
Speaker 1: in Portland, Oregon. She would beat his partner up until
Speaker 1: his death in twenty twenty one. During that first year.
Speaker 1: In June twenty thirteen, he released a YouTube video that
Speaker 1: put him back in the spotlight. Fuck send oh, Hello there.
Speaker 1: My name is Sean McAfee. I'm the founder of the
Speaker 1: McAfee anti virus software company. Although I've had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with this company for over fifteen years, I still
Speaker 1: get volumes of mail asking how do I uninstall this software?
Speaker 1: I had no idea. He's in the robe. He snorts
Speaker 1: white powder through a straw. There's a box labeled bath
Speaker 1: salt on the table in front of him. There are
Speaker 1: women massaging him and undressing him, including Janie. At the
Speaker 1: end of the video, she picks up an automatic rifle
Speaker 1: and walks away with McAfee. He told Business Insider that
Speaker 1: he made the video to parody the allegations about him
Speaker 1: in the media. The greatest thing about that was that
Speaker 1: after that video that the headlines about me were vastly reduced.
Speaker 1: Because once you've, once you've accepted the fact that guard
Speaker 1: you's have been living with seven women. Okay, fine, let's
Speaker 1: get seven women in this video and put him in
Speaker 1: the scantily clad clothes, and I would be as decadent
Speaker 1: as possible. Then what mud can you sling? I mean,
Speaker 1: I've already slung in it myself. Now. This video came
Speaker 1: out three years after Intel bought McAfee, the company for
Speaker 1: over seven billion dollars, but it had been more than
Speaker 1: a day since John McAfee had anything to do with
Speaker 1: the company except in name. There was money to be
Speaker 1: made off of his famous product, just not by him.
Speaker 1: He wanted to reclaim his name, and he was about
Speaker 1: to do so in a very splashy way. We'll be
Speaker 1: right back. By twenty fifteen, McAfee and Janice had left
Speaker 1: Portland and were living in Lexington, Tennessee. He had some
Speaker 1: new viral fame from the video he made. The next
Speaker 1: step was rebuilding his fortune. It all comes down to
Speaker 1: the idea of milking his name for its value. That's
Speaker 1: my colleague Brody Ford, who reported on McAfee and his
Speaker 1: business dealings during this period. Everybody knows McAfee the innovator.
Speaker 1: Everybody knows the name McAfee, So he's making money off
Speaker 1: speaking fees, hacker conferences, that kind of thing. It was
Speaker 1: around this time when McAfee met an entrepreneur named Kyle
Speaker 1: Sandler who was running a business incubator in a small
Speaker 1: town called Opelika in Alabama. John was dirt broke when
Speaker 1: I met him, and I was paying for his hotels
Speaker 1: when he would come to visit. Kyle Sandler and McAfee
Speaker 1: became close. They worked as business partners. Brodie says it
Speaker 1: was a beneficial relationship for McAfee. He needed new customers
Speaker 1: and he needed a place to look more legitimate. And
Speaker 1: Kyle had this massive kind of like what we would
Speaker 1: think of as a co working space, kind of a
Speaker 1: wee work type thing there. And John was living in
Speaker 1: rural Tennessee at this time, so there's all these accounts
Speaker 1: of him driving down there in the middle of the
Speaker 1: night in an old beat up pickup truck to a
Speaker 1: beat up with clients at Kyle's incubator. So hanging around
Speaker 1: Kyle it lended both of them legitimacy in different ways.
Speaker 1: It would turn out that at the time Kyle was
Speaker 1: actually taking people's money and misleading them about what he
Speaker 1: was using it. For a few years after Kyle worked
Speaker 1: with McAfee, he actually went to prison for fraud. We'll
Speaker 1: get into that more later, but for now, let's just
Speaker 1: say that that willingness to deceive people was something that
Speaker 1: Kyle and McAfee had in common. To me, Kyle understood
Speaker 1: McAfee in a way that a lot of other people didn't, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, they both were kind of running operations that
Speaker 1: relied on the confidence of others. Right, I mean Kyle
Speaker 1: was a kind man at the time. Right. McAfee and
Speaker 1: Kyle seemed to work well together, and their partnership made
Speaker 1: the papers. USA Today wrote a splashy feature on them
Speaker 1: in February, and shortly after that a group of investors
Speaker 1: from a company called MGT Capital Investments reached out. Brodie says,
Speaker 1: MGT had a pretty broad portfolio. So they had started
Speaker 1: god like twenty years ago as a medical imaging company,
Speaker 1: and then they went into sports betting, They went into
Speaker 1: various kinds of tech. They really never made a whole
Speaker 1: lot of money. They were in trouble because their stock
Speaker 1: price was so low that they might get kicked off
Speaker 1: of the New York Stock Exchange. So MGT said, let's pivot,
Speaker 1: Let's do cybersecurity. What better way to drum up hype
Speaker 1: for cybersecurity than getting the famed innovator John McAfee. So
Speaker 1: they called up Kyle. I'm thinking, you know, this is
Speaker 1: all bullshit, just like everything with John. But the next
Speaker 1: day they flew into Auburn. We picked them up from
Speaker 1: the Auburn Regional Airport and had lunch with them, and
Speaker 1: they're all talking, you know, forty million, this forty million,
Speaker 1: that the deal from MGT was significantly bigger than anything
Speaker 1: on McAfee's immediate horizon. I think it's safe to say
Speaker 1: it was the biggest deal McAfee I had seen since
Speaker 1: coming back to America. But he walked away because he
Speaker 1: felt like they were asking too much of him. He
Speaker 1: felt like the startups he had in his consulting fees
Speaker 1: would pay off. But he came to kind of regret that,
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking, dude, you're stupid. You should have just
Speaker 1: taken the money. And so about six or seven months
Speaker 1: goes by and John is still broke and the startups
Speaker 1: that he has him just shit. So we had decided
Speaker 1: we needed to do something to make some noise. And
Speaker 1: I really just jokingly said, what about if you run
Speaker 1: for president? And he gets back to Tennessee the next
Speaker 1: day and I'm totally not even thinking about this conversation.
Speaker 1: He's like, Kyle, I think I want to do it.
Speaker 1: Do what? John? Run for president? Are you fucking crazy?
Speaker 1: To Kyle, running for president is an insane way to
Speaker 1: resuscitate your career, especially if you're broke and the major
Speaker 1: business deal falls through, but that's what mcavig planned to do.
Speaker 1: This was in the summer of twenty fifteen. Already quite
Speaker 1: a few people had announced their intention to make a
Speaker 1: play for the White House in twenty sixteen, but it
Speaker 1: was months ahead of the first primary vote and no
Speaker 1: party had a clear front runner. And in addition that June,
Speaker 1: another controversial businessman without any political experience, had also just
Speaker 1: announced his run and was doing shockingly well in the polls.
Speaker 1: I am offacially running for president of the United States,
Speaker 1: and we are going to make our country grade again.
Speaker 1: In the twenty sixteen primaries, there was a sense in
Speaker 1: the air that people were more willing for non traditional candidates.
Speaker 1: Right you had Bernie Sanders out performing anybody's expectation. You
Speaker 1: had Donald Trump appearing and not fizzling out and actually
Speaker 1: leading the whole thing. And then among Libertarians you had
Speaker 1: John McAfee emerge, and a lot of people thought, well,
Speaker 1: no dust, somebody like John mc if he jumped in.
Speaker 1: I mean, that was just the energy in the air
Speaker 1: at the time. There was a lot of populist, non
Speaker 1: traditional candidates popping up. McAfee had a core fan base
Speaker 1: of hackers, and his name could draw a crowd. Kyle
Speaker 1: said they threw one of their first fundraisers at a
Speaker 1: strip club, which seems very on brands from McAfee. Larry
Speaker 1: Flint's Hustler Club is like the one of the biggest
Speaker 1: strip clubs in America. It's like four levels, elevators, girls everywhere.
Speaker 1: We rented the whole freaking thing, and you know, there
Speaker 1: was all kinds of campaign finance laws being broken. That day.
Speaker 1: Took probably about two million dollars in bitcoins and paypals.
Speaker 1: This was twenty fifteen and is twenty twenty two. No, literally,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to make sure that if there's anything that
Speaker 1: I'm about to admit that's crime, that statute of limitations
Speaker 1: is up for real. Okay. So Kyle is alleging that
Speaker 1: from the start the campaign was raking in money and
Speaker 1: breaking the law. We haven't been able to confirm that,
Speaker 1: and there weren't any legal repercautions that we could find.
Speaker 1: The next month, on September ninth, McAfee formally announced he
Speaker 1: was running for president. It was an immediate news story.
Speaker 1: John McAfee has entered the White House race as a libertarian.
Speaker 1: He originally planned to run from the highest office under
Speaker 1: his own cyber party, but he ended up choosing to
Speaker 1: go with the Libertarian Party for a number of reasons.
Speaker 1: After Democrats and Republicans. They are the largest party in
Speaker 1: the US. There's a big difference. They do not come close,
Speaker 1: but they are the next largest. They already have ballot
Speaker 1: access in all fifty states. They have an established media infrastructure.
Speaker 1: McAfee wouldn't have to build his own from the ground up,
Speaker 1: so joining the Libertarians gave him a platform that he
Speaker 1: didn't have to build himself. So anti tax, pro gun,
Speaker 1: pro drug, anti regulation of any kind in so many ways,
Speaker 1: McAfee was the perfect fit for the Libertarians. He's a
Speaker 1: tech entrepreneur who brags about doing drugs not paying taxes.
Speaker 1: He was well suited for a party that valorizes the
Speaker 1: image of frontier masculinity. I mean, that's just his aura.
Speaker 1: He doesn't give a fuck, and most of the Libertarians
Speaker 1: don't give a fuck, so he resonated with them. In
Speaker 1: a matter of months, McAfee learned how to tailor his
Speaker 1: talking points for his new party. Even Darryl Perry, a
Speaker 1: long time Libertarian who ran against McAfee in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: was impressed and I was like, oh, okay, it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, just some celebrity guy that jumping into the
Speaker 1: LP race because he realized ballot access as hard. But
Speaker 1: then over like the next six months, he started sounding
Speaker 1: a lot more libertarian. By the way, Darryl Perry is
Speaker 1: best known for this viral clip of a response he
Speaker 1: gave during a presidential debate in twenty sixteen while he
Speaker 1: was on stage with McAfee. Should someone have to have
Speaker 1: a government issued license to drive a car? Hell no,
Speaker 1: what's next requiring a license to make toast in your
Speaker 1: own damn toaster. I hadn't known before we made this
Speaker 1: episode that driver's licenses were controversial among libertarians. Here's McAfee.
Speaker 1: I don't think licenses are required. However, if you are
Speaker 1: under sixteen and your parents so you can drive, and
Speaker 1: you haven't done it before, you should put a flashing
Speaker 1: pink light on your roof, at least so we can
Speaker 1: get out of your way. There was another question John
Speaker 1: had to answer repeatedly. Candidate McAfee. Everyone knows that something
Speaker 1: happened in Belize, but no one seems to have the story.
Speaker 1: What are you accused of? Did you do it? And
Speaker 1: how would this affect your campaign if you are the nominee.
Speaker 1: Let me make this perfectly clear. At number one, I
Speaker 1: had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the murder of
Speaker 1: Gregory Fall. The moderator you hear is magician Pendalet from
Speaker 1: Penn and Teller and one of the best known celebrity libertarians.
Speaker 1: Although McAfee was questioned about the murder of Gregfall, the
Speaker 1: topic was treated casually, incredibly, it didn't seem to hurt
Speaker 1: him in the debates. This is a clip from Fox.
Speaker 1: You went to Belize. Police there accused you of unlicensed
Speaker 1: drug manufacturing. You were a person of interest in the
Speaker 1: murder of a neighbor. You left, police went to Guatemala,
Speaker 1: which suported you to America. You're still technically a fugitive,
Speaker 1: though they don't seem that interested in grabbing you. People
Speaker 1: go wild, they're cheering, they're celebrating, laughing. Gary Johnson, the
Speaker 1: front runner who would later get millions of votes, walks
Speaker 1: over and kisses McAfee on the cheek. You know, libertarians
Speaker 1: were not other by the Greg Fall murder accusations. McAfee's
Speaker 1: past was treated lightly when it wasn't a bizarre point
Speaker 1: of pride. It was the punchline to endless Jokes. Here's
Speaker 1: a clip from Full Frontal with Samantha b Eighteen libertarian
Speaker 1: presidential hopefuls gathered to take on the tyranny of big government.
Speaker 1: They were educators, pro lifers, anarchists, veterans, and a millionaire
Speaker 1: wanted for questioning by authorities in the murder of his
Speaker 1: neighbor and Belize after he fled the country in a
Speaker 1: disguise to Guatemala, faked to heart attack, and was deported
Speaker 1: to the US. Well all you see. Brodie says that
Speaker 1: McAfee's suggestion that these murder allegations were pinned on him
Speaker 1: by a crooked Belizean government gelled with the libertarian ethos.
Speaker 1: Their entire belief system is based on the idea that
Speaker 1: governments are corrupt, they're wrong. The idea that the Belize
Speaker 1: government was corrupt and wrong in accusing him doesn't seem
Speaker 1: far fetched at all, So it really wasn't a problem
Speaker 1: for him. In a few months, McAfee learned to breathe
Speaker 1: through libertarian talking points. He criticized the FDA, he supported
Speaker 1: withdrawing US troops from overseas wars, and he promised to
Speaker 1: deliver real change in America. I am a walking revolution,
Speaker 1: I promise you, with all of its drawbacks and all
Speaker 1: of its risks, the Libertarian Party is also a revolution.
Speaker 1: Watching these videos, it's remarkable how comfortable McAfee is on
Speaker 1: the stage. He's charismatic, he's easy in front of a crowd.
Speaker 1: He was even sympathetic, like this moment when he casually
Speaker 1: mentions his new wife, Janice during one debate. When I
Speaker 1: came back to the States. My first day back, I
Speaker 1: was penniless. I all I had was my jacket and
Speaker 1: my shoes. And I met this woman who was thirty
Speaker 1: years old, beaten and battered. He was forced into prostitution
Speaker 1: at the age of twenty. I rescued her personally, I
Speaker 1: married her, and I hope she's watching the stream tonight.
Speaker 1: I love you, baby. McAfee was in good spirits during
Speaker 1: the debates. Behind the scenes, he was making business deals.
Speaker 1: His presidential campaign and renewed TV presents were about to
Speaker 1: pay off financially. MGT Capital, the company that flew the
Speaker 1: private jets to Alabama, they're coming back to the table.
Speaker 1: They want to hire him. They're they're dangling millions and
Speaker 1: stock options, a CEO title, They even want to invest
Speaker 1: in Kyle's startup incubator. So McAfee begins really talking with
Speaker 1: them about transitioning all the attention he got in the
Speaker 1: presidential campaign and to doing another public company gig and
Speaker 1: you know, making millions in the process. Kyle Soundler remembers
Speaker 1: leading up to the deal, the MGT folks told everyone
Speaker 1: in the know to buy the share because they would
Speaker 1: explode once the McAfee news became public. The MGT guys
Speaker 1: basically told us to tell our friends and whoever we
Speaker 1: trust to invest in this penny stock. It was trading
Speaker 1: out a quarter and by the end of the week
Speaker 1: it was five dollars and twenty five cents. In case
Speaker 1: you're wondering, yes that could be considered insider trading. According
Speaker 1: to the SEC. Yes it could be illegal, and yes
Speaker 1: there were charges coming, but McAfee wasn't worried. The deal
Speaker 1: went through in May, and here he is bragging about
Speaker 1: it during another libertarian debate a week later. A month ago,
Speaker 1: I was approached by a company listed on the New
Speaker 1: York Stock Exchange, and they wanted to know, is it
Speaker 1: possible to get our stock price up fifty percent within
Speaker 1: six months? Because if not we're going to get delisted,
Speaker 1: meaning you're gone. I said, well, I don't know, I'll
Speaker 1: try it on Monday. I took over as the CEO.
Speaker 1: On Friday, the stock closed up seven h MGT's share
Speaker 1: price explosion caught the eyes of investors and the mainstream
Speaker 1: business press. Here's Bloomberg TV's Emily Chang. MGT Capital is
Speaker 1: an online gaming company that was once a penny stock,
Speaker 1: but served tenfold earlier this year on the announcement that
Speaker 1: it had signed none other than the anti virus Gurup.
Speaker 1: It didn't take long for this to catch the attention
Speaker 1: of the SEC. The share price explodes, everybody involved in
Speaker 1: the deal gets rich, right, Kyle makes money, McAfee makes money.
Speaker 1: All the people who are working with an MGT Capital
Speaker 1: makes money. But then the government regulators say, hey, this
Speaker 1: company hasn't made money in sixteen years, And they would
Speaker 1: later allege in a lawsuit against a lot of the
Speaker 1: MGT Capital core people that this was stock price manipulation. Right,
Speaker 1: this was illegal pumping up. The SEC formally sued a
Speaker 1: group of MGT shareholders a little over two years later
Speaker 1: for pumping up the price of MGT and two other
Speaker 1: companies in a similar way. The litigation is ongoing, and
Speaker 1: today MGT trades for about one cent a share, down
Speaker 1: more than ninety nine percent from its value at the time.
Speaker 1: McAfee gloated about boosting the stock. Amazingly, McAfee and Kyle
Speaker 1: Sandler were never accused of any wrongdoing, and McAfee made
Speaker 1: millions in the deal. His salary that year as CEO
Speaker 1: of MGT, which was renamed McAfee Global Technologies, was seven
Speaker 1: million in stock, and he may have made even more
Speaker 1: on the initial deal. The SEC filings show that Janus
Speaker 1: his wife had stock options too. The gamble of a
Speaker 1: presidential run had paid off. Kyle says this was the
Speaker 1: whole reason McAfee ran for president. The whole campaign was
Speaker 1: a first. It obviously brought and everybody back to the table.
Speaker 1: They made the huge investment. Everybody made money. That was
Speaker 1: part of it. In addition to the MGT windfall, McAfee
Speaker 1: was also sitting on those campaign contributions. Kyle left the
Speaker 1: campaign by the end of twenty fifteen to focus on
Speaker 1: his own businesses. Two and a half years later, Kyle
Speaker 1: was arrested for fraud related to his incubator in Opelika Alabama.
Speaker 1: Around the time of kyle sentencing, McAfee was making himself
Speaker 1: out to be the victim. He posted this video to Twitter.
Speaker 1: One of the slickest con artists I've ever met named
Speaker 1: Kyle Sandler. I met him in Opelaka, Alabama, when he
Speaker 1: was originally setting his business up. I had a business
Speaker 1: in the same town and we became friends. I got
Speaker 1: sucked into his scams like everybody else. Kyle was sentenced
Speaker 1: to five years in federal prison, but he was released
Speaker 1: early for good behavior. We spoke to him a few
Speaker 1: months after he got out. He now makes TikTok videos
Speaker 1: about his prison experience. Hi. My name is Kyle Sandler,
Speaker 1: and I was sentenced sixty three months in federal prison
Speaker 1: for stealing one point nine million dollars from the investors
Speaker 1: in my venture capital fund. I knew prison tips and
Speaker 1: more here on TikTok, So please give me a salad
Speaker 1: and hit that plus subscribe button right over there on
Speaker 1: the right hand side of your phone. He disagrees with McAfee,
Speaker 1: calling him the best con artist, but not for the
Speaker 1: reason he might expect. And am I the best comment
Speaker 1: in the world? No, John is by far he could
Speaker 1: outcom me any day and he has. Kyle was done,
Speaker 1: but the McAfee campaign kept rolling, exceeding anyone's expectations. We'll
Speaker 1: be right back, okay where in April twenty sixteen, time
Speaker 1: is ticking down to the Libertarian National Convention in May,
Speaker 1: where delegates would choose their presidential candidate, and McAfee gets
Speaker 1: a new campaign manager, Tiffany Madison. She says she could
Speaker 1: tell that McAfee and Kyle were doing something fishy in
Speaker 1: the early days of the campaign. There's an air that
Speaker 1: people have when they're grifters, and there was a lot
Speaker 1: of grifting energy in that space. He generally attracted pile
Speaker 1: types right that are fun artists. They think that's they
Speaker 1: moved back. John's very attracted to that busy energy. Tiffany
Speaker 1: had been a Libertarian for most of her life when
Speaker 1: she took over the day to day operations of McAfee's campaign.
Speaker 1: She believed his story and she saw huge potential in
Speaker 1: him as a candidate. He was someone with bona fides
Speaker 1: as a businessman and who could appeal to the wilder
Speaker 1: impulses of the libertarian electorate. But she was shocked at
Speaker 1: the state of the campaign. He had no idea what
Speaker 1: was going on under the hood of his own campaign.
Speaker 1: The website didn't work, there were no payment gateways to
Speaker 1: take donations, there were no donations being solicited. I mean,
Speaker 1: if I could just sabotage a campaign and then hand
Speaker 1: it to you on a platter, that's literally what was
Speaker 1: being done. Tiffany also noticed that the campaign finances weren't
Speaker 1: quite adding up. The discrepancy started when Kyle Sandler was
Speaker 1: managing everything. Here's Brodie. Kyle doesn't dispute that the campaign
Speaker 1: was about money, right. He says that he saw about
Speaker 1: two million come in and donations while he was there,
Speaker 1: and that includes in bitcoin. While the campaign only disclosed
Speaker 1: about fifty thousand and finding and forty thousand and expenses federally,
Speaker 1: that's way less than what other libertarians spent on their campaign,
Speaker 1: about less than a tenth what Gary Johnson spent. The
Speaker 1: campaign took donations in bitcoin. They're supposed to be transparency
Speaker 1: in a campaign as part of the whole process, But
Speaker 1: he kept a bitcoin wellt on his phone, and we
Speaker 1: have no idea how much bitcoin was actually taken except
Speaker 1: for the emails we'd get. We're like, you know, I
Speaker 1: just gave fifty thousand dollars worth a bitcoin. So is
Speaker 1: the guy lying? Or is John Lyne? Who knows. When
Speaker 1: Tiffany took over in April, she made a strong push
Speaker 1: to revitalize the campaign, but she only had a month
Speaker 1: before the primary, and her efforts came too late. Bilibertarian
Speaker 1: Party already has its ticket. Former New Mexico Governor Gary
Speaker 1: Johnson won the presidential nomination for a second time. He
Speaker 1: got about one fin of the vote when he ran
Speaker 1: in twenty twelve. McAfee came in third, but he wasn't bothered.
Speaker 1: The MGT deal had come through just two weeks earlier.
Speaker 1: He was a millionaire ceo again. He spent the day
Speaker 1: before the vote handing out his delegates to another candidate,
Speaker 1: Vermin Supreme, a man who wore a fisherman's boot on
Speaker 1: his head. Tiffany thinks that if McAfee's campaign had been
Speaker 1: run more professionally from the beginning, he had a real
Speaker 1: chance of winning the party nomination. That would have put
Speaker 1: his name on the presidential ballot. They think that he
Speaker 1: could have won. That's why I decided to work with him,
Speaker 1: because you know, give him a mic. That's really all
Speaker 1: he needs. Several people close to McAfee seemed to truly
Speaker 1: believe he could have won the ticket. Here's Judd Weisse,
Speaker 1: McAfee's twenty sixteen running mate. He was a long time
Speaker 1: libertarian who also barely had any campaign experience. We were
Speaker 1: surprisingly close. McAfee and I would have been in the
Speaker 1: middle of that ship with Hillary and Trump. It would
Speaker 1: have been completely insane, that's how close it was. McAfee
Speaker 1: never got that close to Trump and Clinton. But even
Speaker 1: if he had won the nomination, there were questions about
Speaker 1: how seriously he was taking the larger race for the presidency,
Speaker 1: even from the people who believed in him. My belief
Speaker 1: is that it was a publicity start. I don't think
Speaker 1: he was really running to be in the White House,
Speaker 1: although he was saying he was. He was clearly living
Speaker 1: more of a libertarian lifestyle than pretty much any libertarian
Speaker 1: I know. McAfee himself has changed his story a few times.
Speaker 1: Two years after the election, he seems to acknowledge that
Speaker 1: the campaign was just about getting attention. I have no
Speaker 1: intention of ever getting elected, no one in the right mind.
Speaker 1: I mean, I could never get elected president. However, running
Speaker 1: on the libertarian platform, it gave me a forum that
Speaker 1: allowed me to speak and to tell what I think
Speaker 1: the problems in America are. And that's all I asked
Speaker 1: for and that's what I achieved. Later in that interview,
Speaker 1: he starts talking about his new favorite topic, Bitcoin, he'd
Speaker 1: recently learned about it from his libertarian friends. Jadwis says
Speaker 1: he gave McAfee his first bitcoin in early twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: When McAfee came on the campaign. He didn't even use Uber.
Speaker 1: He was still using like taxis and stuff. He never
Speaker 1: used crypto, so it's not really known, but I gave
Speaker 1: McAfee his first crypto. At that time, bitcoin was worth
Speaker 1: less than six hundred dollars. In five years, it would
Speaker 1: surge more than one hundred times and break into the mainstream.
Speaker 1: But cryptocurrency was big early on in the libertarian community,
Speaker 1: which saw it as a way to subvert the power
Speaker 1: of government regulated money. His new found obsession with crypto
Speaker 1: would take over his life once the MGT money dried up,
Speaker 1: and it gets him in trouble with the law again.
Speaker 1: Kyle Sandler speculates that it's even the reason he lost
Speaker 1: his life. That's when he went into the business of
Speaker 1: hucking shipball cryptocurrencies on Twitter, which is where ended up
Speaker 1: getting him an in deep shit That's next time on
Speaker 1: Foundering the John McAfee story. Foundering is hosted by me
Speaker 1: Jamie Tarabay Sean When Is Our executive producer. Brodie Ford
Speaker 1: contributed reporting to this episode. Sure thanks to Young Young
Speaker 1: and Eileena Pain for help with production. Molly Nugent is
Speaker 1: our associate producer. Sharif Yosef is our audio engineer and
Speaker 1: editorial assistant. Mark Million and Vandermay and Molly Shoots are
Speaker 1: our story editors. Be sure to subscribe and if you
Speaker 1: like our show, leave a review. Most importantly, tell your friends,
Speaker 1: see you next time