Kushner Disappoints Mideast Clients Who Spent Millions for Sway

Summary

Bloomberg Businessweek Podcast Summary

Episode Title: Kushner Disappoints Mideast Clients Who Spent Millions for Sway
Date: May 14, 2026
Hosts: Carol Massar & Tim Stenovec
Highlight Guests: David Gillen (Bloomberg News Senior Editor), Lizzie Fournier (Bloomberg News Senior Editor)

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Episode Overview

This episode of Bloomberg Businessweek, hosted by Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec, offers deep reporting on major figures and forces shaping the interconnected world of finance, politics, and power. The core topic is Jared Kushner's complex, controversial post-White House financial relationships with Middle Eastern investors expecting both financial returns and political influence. The episode also features an analysis of the visualization of Jeffrey Epstein's global network and a business update on Wheels Up, a private aviation company.

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Main Segment: Kushner Disappoints Mideast Clients

Theme

Exploring the blurred lines between diplomacy and private investment in the aftermath of Jared Kushner's government service, and examining the dissatisfaction of Gulf state investors who expected both profits and political access.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Jared Kushner’s Unique Role and Investment Fund (Affinity Partners)

• Kushner manages Affinity Partners, a Miami-based private investment fund handling up to $6 billion, including major investments from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE ([03:20]).
• The duality of his role: Private investor and former official U.S. envoy, with responsibilities in geopolitics (notably U.S.-Iran tensions) and large-scale financial deals.
  • David Gillen: “[Kushner has been] engaged in a campaign of official peacemaking as the president's envoy and also private moneymaking in a way that's really unprecedented ... in modern American history.” ([04:00])

2. Expectation Gap: Influence Versus Return

• Gulf investors (mainly sovereign funds) expected both financial returns and increased sway in Washington due to Kushner’s proximity to power.
• Disappointment stems from not having a greater voice on US foreign policy, especially concerning Middle East conflicts ([05:14]).
  • Gillen: "It's more a sense that they were expecting ... more influence with the White House through Jared." ([05:22])
• The $6 billion invested is significant even for wealthy states, indicating expectations for both profit and soft power.

3. Ethical and Legal Questions

• Blurring of lines between Kushner’s public and private roles is described as virtually unprecedented.
• White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly asserts “volunteer diplomacy efforts [conducted] with the highest level of integrity ... nothing to do with his private businesses” ([06:31]).
• Nevertheless, ethics experts question whether being a volunteer (not a paid government employee) is truly a meaningful firewall, given lack of strict financial disclosures ([07:21]).
  • Gillen: "Most government ethics experts ... say that [this] really does flout the spirit, if not the letter, of ... federal disclosure laws."

4. Affinity Partners’ Investment Practices

• Affinity has invested roughly 80% of its funds, potentially generating $60 million in annual management fees ([08:49]).
• Investment portfolio is broad but lacks a coherent public theme—includes fitness tech (Whoop), Israeli rental car companies, Brazilian investments, and more ([09:20]).
  • “They’ve done what they said they were going to do, which is look for good investment opportunities...” — David Gillen ([09:20])
• Some funding came despite internal Saudi concerns about merits of the deal, attributed to Kushner’s close relationship with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ([09:20]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Tim Stenovec:
  “The disappointment among Jared Kushner's influential Mideast investors [is] that their funding has not yielded the influence they'd hoped for.” ([03:20])

• David Gillen:
  “It's difficult thematically ... to come up with a clear picture.” ([09:20])
  “Even Kushner's people ... struggle times to come up with something quite like [this situation].” ([07:21])

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Important Segment Timestamps

• [03:20] – Introduction to the Kushner/Mideast story
• [04:00] – Gillen outlines Kushner’s dual roles
• [05:14] – Why investors are dissatisfied
• [06:31] – Official White House response and ethics discussion
• [08:49] – Details of Affinity Partners’ investments

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Other Key Segments

Wheels Up: Private Aviation Transformation

(Guest: George Matson, CEO of Wheels Up) [15:06–24:08]

Main Points

• Wheels Up underwent a transformation after Delta’s investment (Oct 2023), including a complete fleet upgrade ([15:06]).
• The company transitioned to Phenom 300 and Challenger 300 aircraft for increased reliability, efficiency, and better financial margins ([17:58]).
• Corporate membership now comprises nearly half the customer base, with Delta partnership central to future growth ([22:07]).
• Matson notes strong demand, with fuel costs being mitigated by customer surcharges and economic headwinds being the main risk ([23:43]).

Noteworthy Quotes

• “We're the only private aviation company to publish our operational stats every quarter.” – George Matson ([17:58])

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Jeffrey Epstein’s Global Network: Visualization and Analysis

(Guest: Lizzie Fournier, Senior Editor) [27:13–38:31]

Main Points

• The Bloomberg team visualized Epstein’s sprawling network, encompassing politics, finance, academia, and the arts ([28:12]).
• Epstein leveraged connections as a form of currency, often acting as a connector between otherwise unrelated influential people ([29:58], [32:10]).
• Relationships ranged from transactional to intellectual, with philanthropy and donations to universities forming another layer of influence ([34:06]).
• The network remains only partially mapped—millions of emails and documents make it unlikely a full picture will ever emerge ([37:43], [38:21]).

Standout Moments

• Lizzie Fournier: “He was this kind of nexus who did have access to a lot of different worlds, a lot of different groups of people.” ([32:10])
• The team underscores difficulty of drawing firm conclusions, given the complexity and volume of data.

Timestamps

• [28:12] – Intro: What the Epstein network visualization reveals
• [29:58] – Types of connections Epstein made
• [34:06] – Influence through donations and relationships with academia
• [37:43], [38:21] – Challenges of fully understanding the network

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Conclusion

This episode delivers rich, investigative business journalism illuminating the intersection of money, power, and ethics in two headline-generating stories—Jared Kushner’s disappointing Gulf fundraising and Jeffrey Epstein’s extensive, mysterious influence network. Insights from Bloomberg’s senior editors and newsmakers offer listeners much-needed clarity on complex, still-evolving stories at the crossroads of finance, politics, and global influence.

Transcript

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Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio News this is Bloomberg Businessweek daily reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay ahead with insight on the people, companies and trends shaping today's complex economy. Plus global business, finance and tech news as it happens. The Bloomberg Business Week Daily podcast with Carol Massar and Tim Stenbeck on Bloomberg Radio.

[Tim Stenbeck]

It is Bloomberg businessweek Daily. That's Carol Massar. I'm Tim Stanvak. Worth checking in once again on that IPO Cerebra system shares today. Wow, what a day. Up 68% by the end of the day.

[Carol Massar]

Yeah, but a lot, you know, think about it was up 108%. So not saying is there no pleasing. You know, I do have high standards. Totally, totally. No, but I'm just saying that, you know, there was a lot of enthusiasm and you definitely saw it right out of the gate still almost 70% higher. That's what you want to see. You don't want to see it down at all because. Yeah, that's never, never good when you

[Tim Stenbeck]

win two for the banks, including Morgan Stanley.

[Carol Massar]

Yeah, right, exactly. Hey, we want to get to a Bloomberg exclusive.

[Tim Stenbeck]

Yeah. It's also one of the most read stories on the Bloomberg terminal today. It's about the disappointment among Jared Kushner's influential Mideast investors that their funding has not yielded the influence they'd hoped for. David Gillen is Bloomberg News senior editor. He's one of the editors on this story. He joins us for from New York. David, welcome. Jared Kushner is, of course, the president's son in law. He's also a special envoy for the President. He's also a private investor handling billions of dollars. His Affinity Partners manages some $6 billion. It includes money for Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE. What is this position? What is this, what position does that put him in?

[David Gillen]

A complicated one.

[Tim Stenbeck]

Yeah, sure.

[David Gillen]

Since, I mean, since President Trump, you know, took the US into war with Iran, Jared has been engaged in a campaign of official peacemaking as, as the president's envoy and also private moneymaking in a way that's really unprecedented in, you know, in modern, in modern American history. And it's sort of between these attempts to broker peace, you know, he's been participating in investment meetings with his firm, which is called Affinity, it's based in Miami, and that managed, as you said, you know, billions of dollars for Qatar, the Saudis, the Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. And so, you know, our reporters, Ben Bartenstein in London, Annie Mahsa here in New York, and Ted Mann in Washington, they were talking to people in the Gulf and here as well about this. And I guess the real question is, where are the lines? Are there lines? How have these lines been blurred between public policy and private profit seeking? Which is, you know, something that we've obviously seen, you know, with the Trump family in other ways. But this is sort of at a different level. You know, this is, this is now, it's US Diplomacy. It's about what America's, the perceptions of America, you know, elsewhere in the world at a very, very difficult time.

[Carol Massar]

Well, is this about, though the investments, about making money are having proximity to the White House or both?

[David Gillen]

Yes, both. I mean, that is, that's, that's the answer. I mean, for sure, for sure, these Gulf states want both a financial return. But, you know, our sense is that this, this was more, it is more than that, that they were hoping for. And that's really where, if they're, you know, the disappointment. And it really should be careful here. It's not as if this is some big rupture between these very important allies of the United States. It's not that. It's more a sense that they were expecting. These are. We're talking about three Gulf states that also opposed, you know, initially out of the gate, were opposing this. This war and had hoped that they might have more influence with the White House through. Through Jared. And so they are there. It sounds like a lot of money, obviously, $6 billion, but, you know, for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, 6 billion is real money, but it's not, you know, huge money. So what they really were hoping for is a bit of both, as you're saying, it's, yes, I want a financial return on this, but I'd also like to be heard, and I think that that is really where our reporting is telling us the disappointment really is.

[Tim Stenbeck]

Yeah. I want to point out that the White House spokeswoman, Anna Kelly, said, quote, jared Kushner's volunteer diplomacy efforts are conducted with the highest level of integrity and have nothing to do with his private businesses. Spokespeople for the governments of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE did not respond to requests for comment.

[Carol Massar]

How do you separate this stuff? And to be fair, you know, sometimes money in politics mingles, no matter who's in the White House. Right. So I'm not. I guess I want to, you know, I want to be fair here. But I do wonder, is it a little bit too close for comfort of having an investment fund? You've got a war going on. You've got certainly an area of the world that wants to have influence with the United States, and the US Wants to have influence with it. I mean, is it a little bit different? Is it unusual? Can I go that far? Or is it.

[David Gillen]

I think it is safe to say that it is unusual. I mean, again, people, historians who look at this really grasp for parallels. They really can't come up with something that would be a parallel to this. And while, yes, you're right, obviously, that people with business interests and financial interests also intersect at the highest levels of American politics. Even Kushner's people, when speaking to us, we were asking them, and again, we're speaking in private conversations because they don't want to speak publicly always about this kind of. These are delicate things. And you're asking them for sort of, well, could you give us something, a parallel here? And even they struggle times to come up with something quite like that. And so I think that that's, that's where this is sort of moved to a different level. And I, I think it's also that, you know, both the White House and, and Jared Kushner himself would say that he's, he is indeed a volunteer and that they're saying that that means that he doesn't have to comply with more strict disclosure laws about his financial relationships or you might even call them entanglements. And so that's, that's the White House know position. Most government ethics experts that we, we, we've spoken to say that that really does flout the spirit, if not the letter of, of you know, federal disclosure laws. And it just, you know, there's a certain like eyebrow raising quality to it as well.

[Tim Stenbeck]

One of the things I liked about the piece, David, was in addition to talking about the, the, the challenging, complicated situation that he finds himself in, it also talked about how the money is invested and how much money of Affinity Partners has been invested. So Affinity has invested about 80% of the money it's raised, according to a person familiar with the matter. The team writes the sum that it manages could generate about $60 million in management fees each year. Tell us a little bit about how the money has been invested.

[David Gillen]

It's really, it is interesting because I mean when Affinity did launch this, and I should say that, you know, Jared secured 2 billion of investments from Saudi Crown Prince about six months after he left the White House for, you know, officially the first time out. And you know, that, that's interesting. And that was, that actually came over. Other people have reported that that actually came over some objections from the fund's own advisors about the merits of that deal and so forth. But he's very close with the Crown Prince. But in terms of where the, they've tried, they, they've done what they sort of had said they were going to do, which is look for good investment opportunities in principally in technology related things, principally in the United States and also in Israel. But when you look at the breakdown of the investments, they really are kind of all over the place in different ways. You know, whoop. The fitness tracker, you know, that's like really okay, that's an interesting thing to, you know, for your golf clients to be a part of some things down in, some things down in Brazil, obviously some I think a rental car company in Israel. So it's kind of a mixed bag and it's also a mixed bag in, in terms of the size of those investments. I mean, some are really relatively small and some are, some are more sizable. And so there's it is, you know, it's difficult thematically though to come up with a clear picture.

[Carol Massar]

Or they could have bought the sox and gained 70% already this year. I'm just saying, I'm just saying it's a no. I just. Whatever. David Gillen, thank you so much. This is really interesting. Bloomberg News Senior Editor, one of the editors on this story. Check it out. It is among the most read on the Bloomberg.

[Tim Stenbeck]

Stay with us. More from Bloomberg businessweek Daily coming up after this.

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[Carol Massar]

Hey listen, Wheels app. That's what we're talking about. They reported their latest quarterly update that came out Tuesday after the that it had also $100 million in committed financing to fund growth. I just want to point out the stock kind of traded all over the place. The following day it was up nearly 6%, down nearly 9%, ending the day off two and a half percent. The stock, TIM, has since rallied about 18% in the past two trading days alone.

[Tim Stenbeck]

Well, we should note yesterday the company did announce that $68 million debt facility. It plans to use it to help buy aircraft in the next 18 months. The stock down more than 99% though. So since that high back in July of 2021, that was when folks were doing a lot of private flying out of COVID The stock down about 55% year to date. 13% of the float is short.

[Carol Massar]

Just a little perspective, but this is a company we've been talking to for a long time. Do want to point out Delta is an investor in Wheels up and they've got a partnership with the airline as well. For more on the business, we're getting to you. George Matson, nice to have you back. He's the CEO of the $213 million market cap private aviation company it is wheels up. He's also a former board member of Delta. George, good to have you back here on Bloomberg. How are you? And tell us a little bit about the business. And you guys seem to be doing partnerships and doing some different things. How do you describe the company and all that you can offer a customer?

[David Gillen]

Sure.

[George Matson]

Well first, thanks for having me back and it's great to be with you. So we've been on this transformation journey for about two and a half years now since the Delta led investment in October of 2023, at which time I stepped off the board of Delta. You mentioned I was on the board to run the company. And the idea behind that investment and our go to market strategy from then forward through today and beyond really lies in a unique proposition that we think we are exclusively trying to deliver to our customers in private aviation. This idea of a solutions platform or a solutions toolkit spanning across premium commercial through our partnership with Delta and private aviation on a flight by flight basis. So whether you're a member of Wheels up and we're proud to have 3,000 members of our programmatic offering here in the United States, or you're a customer who accesses private aviation through our leading global charter business, the idea is to provide the right plane for the next flight, not for every flight, as some of the other models in the industry do. And so we're two and a half years into this transformation. The first quarter was a very consequential quarter for us because we hit a couple of very important milestones. We announced about a year and a half ago that we were going to be replacing our entire jet fleet by the end of 2027. We, in fact, finished that a year and a half early and are now completely out of our legacy aircraft types and into the two fleets of the future for us, the Phenom 300 and the Challenger 300, which have been performing as expected. And so we're very pleased with that. We also have sunsetted our legacy memberships that were supported by those fleets and are now exclusively offering to our customers memberships underpinned by those, those Phenom and Challenger aircraft.

[Tim Stenbeck]

So no more King Airs, for example.

[George Matson]

We're still flying King Air, a much smaller part of our mix going forward. But again, we can offer any customer, any aircraft, whether it's a King Air, a helicopter, a seaplane, or a Global 7500 to take them around the world. Our business consists of two parts. And obviously the part we're best known for, the original business, is our membership business. And that's half our half our company. But the other half is this global charter business, which enables us to provide customers the right aircraft for the right mission for their next trip. And by the way, if that's a Delta, if that's a commercial need, you know, if you're flying from New York to Atlanta and there's a bunch of Delta flights, we, of course, are happy to see our joint customers flying on Delta. And when they need us for a particular trip, whether it's on fleet or through our global charter business, we want to be there to provide the right solution for that, for that mission.

[Tim Stenbeck]

Why did you transition from Those older Citation 10 and Hawker aircraft to the Phenoms and Challengers? Wouldn't have been cheaper to just keep the older aircraft, or was the maintenance getting to so high that it was more expensive to carry those?

[George Matson]

Yeah, many of those aircraft were no longer in production and the reliability of those aircraft were not at a scale and a level that were appropriate for the kind of operation we want to run. One of the very first things we said when we started this journey, day one, was we want to be the best run private aviation company in the industry. That we were going to follow the Delta playbook. To do that, we moved the headquarters of the company day one from the sales office, if you will, in New York to the operations center in Atlanta, which is where we're all based. Leadership is based, where we run the company out of. And we've been on an operational turnaround journey as well. You know, we publish our operational stats every quarter. We're the only private aviation company to do that. And we're, we're hitting the COVID off the ball operationally. You know, we're running at over 99% completion. Half our days have no cancellations. We're running at over 92% on time. We had 14 days in a row to start this year without a single cancellation across over 1,000 flights. That wouldn't have been possible two years ago and it wouldn't have been possible on our legacy fleet either. These new aircraft that we're flying are much more reliable. Maintenance availability is higher. Utilities higher, efficiency is higher. The unit economics of the fleet are very different.

[Carol Massar]

I'm curious too, how much cash wheels up has and when do you expect to become sustainably cash flow positive, George?

[George Matson]

Yeah, so we, we have ample cash and liquidity now and we of course raised $165 million as we announced with our quarter quarterly results this this week we had our first positive ebitda quarter in Q4. And we were expecting, by the way, Q1, which is a seasonally weak quarter, to be negative again. But we're on the path to sustained profitability and we, we see the performance of the, of the business model and the, and the fleet we now have delivering that in not too distant.

[Carol Massar]

Well, that's simplified fleet materially improved margins as well.

[George Matson]

Absolutely. The unit economics of these new aircraft are very different than the legacy aircraft that we've retired.

[Carol Massar]

What about Delta though, and that relationship, do they, will they need to continue to be pumping cash into you guys?

[George Matson]

The cash we raised in this quarter funds our growth plan well into the future. You know, it's a little bit of a function of how fast we grow. We are returning to growth again. You know, underneath our relatively flat revenue performance for the quarter is another story. You know, we doubled our phenom and challenger revenue while offsetting that with the kind of expected orderly wind down of our, of our legacy flight activities. And so, you know, when we look at the profitability of these aircraft unit economic profitability, we see the business model becoming self sustaining. So we don't expect to need to, as you said, pump a whole bunch of additional cash into the business going forward.

[Tim Stenbeck]

Hey George, on the Delta partnership, I'm just curious what that pipeline looks like from, from flying on Delta known for, for a premium product to then, you know, spending a lot more money to, to fly private. What does that pipeline look like?

[George Matson]

Yeah, so look, we will. What captivated Delta's interest in this and what we've really been driving toward is this idea that private aviation, when delivered in the appropriate way, is an integrated extension of a premium commercial strategy that, you know, as Delta has gone on its premium journey, Wheels up is a core part of that journey for its corporate and, and high value customers who access both modes of aviation. This idea of creating access to private aviation when you need it, integrated into a broader relationship that spans across commercial and private. And so whether we're talking to Delta's 45,000 corporate customers or that subset of their 20 million strong SkyMiles member base. So half a percent of 20 million people is obviously a lot of people. It's 100,000 people. You know, these are the folks that we're going to together. Joint marketing, ultimately joint digital integration, merchandising and so forth. So that's, that's the plan that we're executing.

[Tim Stenbeck]

So what portion of signature members come over from Delta? What percentage?

[George Matson]

Yeah, so when we started this journey, the vast majority of our membership was, was a leisure membership base. We're now close to 50, 50 in terms of leisure and, and corporate members. And that is kind of an optimal mix, right? You want your aircraft flying with your corporate members during the week and with your leisure members during the week ends and during holiday periods. And so this idea of smoothing demand through the week and through the year is an important part of our, of our strategy as well. But corporate has been our fastest growing segment. We've run corporate at 25% a year since we started this journey largely, well, to a very significant extent through our collaboration with Delta. And Charter has also been growing at double digits throughout all of this. And this idea of delivering global solutions is resonating and very different than I think, the narrative we hear from some of the other folks.

[Carol Massar]

So, you know, you know, Bloomberg loves numbers, so I have to just ask you, so can you give us a percentage of what portion of signature members are coming over from Delta? Can you give us any kind of number.

[George Matson]

Sure. So we are today we have over 800. We launched the signature membership in September. We crossed over 800 members at the end of the quarter. So about a third of our total members are now signature members, with the legacy members converting over every day. And right around just over a third of those members are corporate members today.

[Tim Stenbeck]

Go ahead, Carol. We have, you know, so many questions.

[Carol Massar]

We love talking about this space. External risks, what worries you the most? Fuel cost, regulation, economic slowdown at this point, I mean, and you can throw in what demand looks like. We only got about 35 seconds.

[David Gillen]

Sure.

[George Matson]

Look, demand remains very strong. Obviously fuel is a significant input cost. We're somewhat immunized from that through the ability to charge surcharges to our customers. We haven't seen a significant change or any real change in demand since fuel spiked on the back of geopolitical activities. The ultimate, I'd say headwind to our business is always the macroeconomic environment and where markets sit and obviously the markets at all time highs. People are flying a lot.

[Carol Massar]

All right, listen. So much fun. Come back soon. Really appreciate it. George Matson, he's the CEO, of course, of Wheels up, joining us right here on Bloomberg businessweek.

[Tim Stenbeck]

Stay with us. More from Bloomberg businessweek Daily coming up after this.

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[Tim Stenbeck]

It is today's big take. It's Bloomberg Exclusive. It's a post read on the terminal. It's about how Jeffrey Epstein built a sprawling international network of rich and powerful. If you haven't read it yet, you got to check it out on the terminal or online because this is about the visualization. It's created by a team of Bloomberg reporters. They compiled Epstein's known network to date into this navigable visualization to demonstrate how sprawling his web of influence was. And it was sprawling. We've got Lizzie Fournier with us, Bloomberg News senior editor. She joins us from New York. Lizzie, before we get going, I do want to note that a connection to Epstein or appearance in the files is not evidence of a crime or a suggestion of wrongdoing. Bloomberg News contacted people included in the article, some of whom we will talk about for comment. Their responses or decision not to respond are included throughout the text of the article and we can get to some of those. It does pull together many months of reporting from across the newsroom. Big picture. What did you and the team find?

[Lizzie Fournier]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think you hit on it there a little bit. Over the last months years, even reporters across our newsroom. And that means internationally, across many newsrooms, probably at this point, hundreds of reporters involved have been breaking news and doing Deep dives into lots of different aspects of Jeffrey Epstein's life and the relationships he built. And what becomes apparent when you look at that reporting and you start to sort of absorb what's out there is the size and scope of the network of people that he was in touch with. And that doesn't just mean how many people. These are sort of rich, influential people that spanned not just different geographies, but also different industries. He was in touch with people from finance to business, from academia to politics. And so it just became really interesting to think about how he did that or the ways that these different people were connected to him, to each other, the way that they communicated. And we really wanted a way to visualize that, because it's hard to get your arms around when you're dealing with such a sort of a huge amount of documents, as we know, from the Department of Justice files that have been released, and also a large number of people. So we kind of approached it in this way where we hope to make it, as you said, easy for people to navigate and digest and try and show just how big this network was that he was able to build.

[Carol Massar]

I mean, I think, Lizzie, is it also safe to say, and I highly recommend everybody go to the bloomberg or bloomberg.com because you do make it very visual, and it does feel like there's a core of inner people. But is it safe to say that there are different layers of people that may come up within his sphere?

[Lizzie Fournier]

So I think these relationships were all very, very different. Right. And that was part of the way that he operated. He seemed to go to different people for different things. You know, he wanted to feel intellectually interesting, and he communicated with people across academics. He, you know, wanted to pursue money and wealth, and there were certain relationships that he cultivated that helped him to do that. And then within that, there were also these very transactional ways that he approached things. He liked to connect people that he knew to other people that he knew almost as a sort of form of currency, to show that these. He could sort of lever these relationships to connect people. And so I think it's really, you know, the group of people. It spans from people that he communicated with many, many, many times to people he communicated with fewer times. But they were very sort of influential communication. So really, it's just a broad group of people that he was in touch with. And we, you know, went through all the documents, as everyone has in all of these stories. It's all about looking at those documents and taking what we can from the pieces right in front of us.

[Carol Massar]

And to be fair, like we said, nothing is necessarily an evidence of a crime or a suggestion of a wrongdoing. But let me just, like, go to one where you show Jeffrey Epstein and you show a line to Woody Allen, of course, the filmmaker. Then there's a second separate line to Leon Black, of course, the co founder and former CEO of Apollo Global Management, who has a line to Brad Karp, the former chairman of law firm Paul Weiss. And Karp goes back to Epstein. And then there's a box that comes up that said Brad Karp, the former chairman of Paul Weiss, was a lawyer for Black. He also negotiated a fee dispute between Black and Epstein. Karp attended dinners at Epstein's Manhattan home and asked Epstein if he could arrange work for his son on a Woody Allen film. I think a lot of it shows what a networker, Jeffrey Epstein, was in pulling people together and people knowing that he knew someone, like, in that itself was a very valuable thing.

[Lizzie Fournier]

Absolutely. And like, just in that one example, you're pulling, like, a filmmaker together with a, you know, private equity founder and. And a corporate lawyer and people who maybe some of them might have naturally worked together or met in any circumstances, but in other circumstances, perhaps not. He was this kind of nexus who did have access to a lot of different worlds, a lot of different groups of people. And, yeah, he was able to connect them and in some instances, offer gifts or collections, like you said there, to Woody Allen for work experience or, you know, a dinner. And, you know, what is also included in the files. It's not just emails and communications. He was a busy person who had his agenda organized by staff. Right. So you have these lists of meetings. So you can see him going from breakfast with one person to lunch with another person. And it really helps to sort of see this very diverse group of people that he chose to communicate and surround himself with.

[Carol Massar]

And to be fully fair, Brad Karp and Paul Weiss didn't respond to requests for comment. Karp has previously said that he regretted his social interactions with Epstein. Paul Weiss has previously said it was retained by Leon Black and that neither the firm nor Karp ever represented Epstein. So just to be fair, because I know you guys did your due diligence and certainly reached out to everybody involved.

[Tim Stenbeck]

Yeah, we should note, too, representatives for Woody Allen also did not respond to requests for comment on this. When you think about this, this group of individuals, in your view, was it as much about business as it was about intellectualism and using knowledge as currency, using connections as currency, using science? And those individuals there in the universities,

[Lizzie Fournier]

for example, I think everything in some way seems to have been a form of currency to Jeffrey Epstein. You know, with the. Some of the connections to the universities, he was donating a lot of money to these people, and that was a very, you know, normal thing for wealthy people to do, to sort of extend philanthropy to places that were, in some cases, I'm sure, very much in need of that money. And he really did take a keen interest in some of the research that the professors were doing. He seems to have been intellectually curious about a number of different subjects and things and sort of. That's how some of those relationships appear to have been to have been formed. There were donations over years and years. Some institutions did cut him off, decided not to take any money from him once some of his criminal history became public. But that's one way that he certainly sort of ingratiated himself and saw influence places in other cases. I mean, he was certainly trying to win business deals, make money, make introductions that were maybe going to be financially beneficial to him and to others. So his motivations and seem to have been very varied. And this group of people reflects that.

[Cincinnati Insurance Narrator]

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[Carol Massar]

I got a feeling, I feel like from covering and all the stuff Bloomberg has done and just reading lots about Epstein, is that especially kind of his interest in academia and some health areas. And it was just kind of interesting. And I think some of this was his own curiosity to some extent or wanting to, you know, be able to have conversations. Again, I'm just speculating, but it's just, again, just speaks to these different groups of people that he reached out to is interesting.

[Lizzie Fournier]

Right? And it's another form of influence, right. To be intellectually knowledgeable about something, to have access to the greatest minds about something. It's really. He really sought out the, you know, maybe the richest or the smartest or the. The most influential people that he could.

[Tim Stenbeck]

Who are some of the names that, you know, there are the names that Carol mentioned and certainly the names that have come up in the files before and there's been a lot of reporting. But who are you surprised to include in. In this network?

[Lizzie Fournier]

I mean, I think someone like Woody Allen is probably a good example. You know, I don't know, they were photographed together and stuff. But I think what's interesting about these emails is you and reporters have found this throughout the process of reporting on this. You are looking for one thing and you maybe search a name, and when you are reading an email from that person or about that person, another name comes up and that's what exactly what I was talking about with these like agendas of meetings and sometimes again like five or six names appear on a list for a dinner invite that you, you don't expect these people to be together in one place. And that does seem to have been one of his, one of his key things is bringing together these, these diverse groups of people that at least to maybe the regular person like us sitting in front of a computer day to day, don't, don't know that these dinners and these meetings are happening.

[Carol Massar]

The more and more we work on this though, and I want to go back to kind of how I started. Just got about 30, 40 seconds to Lizzie left here though. Is it safe to assume or start to make some assumptions about what was his inner core though?

[Lizzie Fournier]

I think any assumptions that can be drawn from these emails are very, very hard. Right? This is, I mean finance 3 million some emails. You, you missed one. You could have missed a huge amount of money changing hands or a completely different person that you haven't seen mentioned before. So, you know, the research never ending. There is definitely more to be done and I'm sure we'll keep doing it.

[Carol Massar]

You mentioned money in just 15 seconds. I mean the money flows. I mean, Tim and I talk about it, follow the money. You guys do too, I'm sure. Will we ever get a fully full grasp on that? And forgive me, just about 10, 15 seconds here.

[Lizzie Fournier]

I don't know. Like I said, you miss one email, you could miss millions of dollars changing hands and not a comprehensive map. This, this is a moment in time that we're getting a glimpse into.

[Carol Massar]

All right, Lizzie, thank you.

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