@_Mailman_@Houseofyogi I'm more talking about the bigger picture: let's save a large corporation, but take money out of the hands of the people like Medicare cuts, tax breaks for the top 1%. This administration has proven one thing, they don't give a crap about the mid to lower class
I don’t give a fuck about taking a safety with a high 1st round pick. Wtf are ya’ll going on about.
We’re building a roster from the ground up. The Cowboys can afford going Safety, we can’t.
@KyleCrabbs Remember: Green Bay did a lot with a little at wr. This is going to take time, but I'm starting to see what this new regime is building. Expect small returns this year, but in two years could be special.
Katelyn Dellilo life long Dolphin fan was beaten to death by her boyfriend she left behind 2 very young children. Please help if you can. Even a share will help. RIP Katelyn 🙏 https://t.co/EBQJCBPl4F
@RepThomasMassie When I got my real id, they asked for the exact same thing that registering to vote does. So if i have it, why do i have to verify this information again? That was the point right?
When @grok was asked who spreads the most disinformation on @x - it's response was to name @realDonaldTrump and @elonmusk
X have deleted the response, RT it here before they delete this one!
They find it humiliating! RT!
@avensobrien My only issue is that we still to this date haven't had a true strong option to present to the masses. I voted Gary, but couldn't stand Jo. The thing about politics is you have to have someone with a true voice. We still haven't found that candidate imo. Maybe recruit Massie?
I co-founded Apollo Global Management.
I paid Jeffrey Epstein $158 million.
For tax advice.
He was not a licensed tax attorney.
He was not a certified public accountant.
He was a convicted sex offender who served 18 months for procuring a child for prostitution.
I paid him $31 million a year for five years.
The best estate planners in the country charge two, maybe three million.
I paid ten times that.
To a man with a criminal record and no professional license.
For tax advice.
Nobody asked what kind of tax advice costs $31 million a year from a man who is not qualified to give tax advice.
Nobody asks that question at my level.
At my level, the number is the answer.
At Apollo Global Management. We manage $938 billion. That is not a typo. Nine hundred and thirty-eight billion dollars.
That's a very big number.
Seventy million of my payments to Epstein were made without a written services agreement.
"On an ad hoc basis."
Ad hoc means: I paid what I felt like paying, when I felt like paying it, for services that were never formally described.
Seventy million dollars. No contract. No scope of work. No invoice with a line item.
Just transfers.
The Senate Finance Committee later noted that these payments were "inexplicably large; well in excess of what Black paid any other financial advisors and far higher than the median compensation of Fortune 500 CEOs at the time."
The investigation I commissioned disagreed.
Dechert LLP said Epstein's advice provided me with financial value of "$2 billion or more."
One transaction alone saved me $600 million in gift and estate taxes.
I paid Epstein $20 million for that transaction.
That is a 30-to-1 return.
At my level, that is not overpayment.
That is a bargain.
The transaction involved trusts I had funded with interests in Apollo Management III, IV, V, VI, Apollo Investment Management, Apollo Value Management, Apollo SVF Management, Apollo Asia Management, Apollo Europe Management, Apollo Alternative Assets, and Apollo Advisors VI.
I am listing them because the number of entities is part of the story.
Twelve vehicles in one structure.
All designed to separate my name from my money.
Epstein was good at that.
Separating names from things.
He was also good at other things.
In 2013 and 2015, I made cash gifts totaling $1.7 million to an unnamed Eastern European woman.
The IRS audited those gifts.
Epstein helped thwart the audit.
I do not know how.
I did not ask how.
At my level, you do not ask how.
When my former mistress Guzel Ganieva demanded $100 million from me, Epstein arranged surveillance of the meeting.
I do not know who conducted the surveillance.
I did not need to know.
The service was provided.
The payment was ad hoc.
Epstein was convicted in 2008.
I started paying him in 2012.
I continued paying him until 2017.
Our social relationship began in the mid-1990s and continued ten years after his conviction — until one year before his 2019 arrest on federal sex trafficking charges.
When I say "with the benefit of hindsight, I deeply regretted having had any involvement with Epstein," I mean: I knew him for twenty-three years, paid him for five, and stopped only when a second arrest became likely.
"The benefit of hindsight" is a useful phrase.
It means: I knew at the time.
But it sounds like I didn't.
In 2021, the firm hired Dechert LLP to investigate.
They reviewed 60,000 documents.
They interviewed more than 20 people.
They concluded that my prior claims about Epstein were "not false but could have been more precise."
Not false.
That is the phrase the investigation selected.
Not true. Not accurate. Not honest.
"Not false."
It is the space between lying and not lying.
A $158 million space.
The Dechert report also concluded that no Apollo employee other than me had ever "seriously considered hiring Epstein, much less actually retained him."
This was filed with the SEC.
This was the answer.
Then the files came out.
Millions of documents, released by the Department of Justice.
Hundreds of them reference Marc Rowan.
Marc is my successor. He replaced me as CEO in March 2021. Marc was the clean break. The governance overhaul. The new chapter.
In February 2016, Marc traded emails with Epstein about a potential corporate inversion — a tax maneuver designed to lower a company's tax rate by reincorporating in a lower-tax country.
They discussed using Rothschild for the structure.
Epstein wrote: "i can join the call if you think appropriate. using rothschild for the inversion allows interesting structures."
Marc replied: "Agreed."
One word.
In March 2016, Marc shared internal Apollo email correspondence with Epstein about the valuation of a tax asset.
Internal correspondence. Shared with a convicted sex offender. For his input.
In September 2016, Brad Wechsler, an executive at an Apollo affiliate, emailed Apollo staff asking them to keep Epstein copied on certain tax matters.
For his "substantive expertise."
The expertise of a man whose substantive conviction was for procuring a child.
The Dechert report reviewed 60,000 documents and concluded Marc did not consult Epstein on his personal matters.
The emails say "Agreed."
Both statements can be true.
That is what "not false" means.
Our president, James Zelter, wrote a letter to clients this week.
It said: "From an Apollo perspective, there's nothing new in these documents."
Nothing new.
The emails are new. "Agreed" is new. Internal correspondence shared with a convicted sex offender for his substantive expertise is new.
But from an Apollo perspective, nothing is new.
An Apollo perspective is a useful thing to have.
It turns new information into old information.
It turns emails into context.
It turns "Agreed" into "not a business or personal relationship."
I stepped down as CEO in March 2021.
I stayed as chairman.
Then I left the board entirely.
I still own 67.7 million shares.
I am a 10-percent-plus owner of the firm.
I stepped down from everything.
I own everything.
One is governance. The other is wealth.
Governance changed. Wealth did not.
In 2023, I settled with the U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General for $62.5 million.
The settlement gave me criminal immunity from prosecution in the USVI.
It also acknowledged — in its own text — that "Jeffrey Epstein used the money Black paid him to partially fund his operations in the Virgin Islands."
My money.
His operations.
The operations for which he was convicted.
The settlement acknowledged this.
And then it gave me immunity.
$62.5 million for immunity from the consequences of what my money funded.
That is also a bargain. At my level.
The American Federation of Teachers and the American Association of University Professors have $27.5 billion invested with us.
Teachers' pension money.
Managed by a firm whose co-founder paid $158 million to Jeffrey Epstein. Whose current CEO emailed "Agreed" to Jeffrey Epstein. Whose investigation concluded "not false." Whose settlement acknowledged funding Epstein's operations.
The teachers wrote to the SEC.
They used the phrase "apparent lack of candor."
They said our investor communications give "an inaccurate and incomplete picture."
We described their concerns as a "flurry of coverage and certain constituents pushing their own agendas."
Constituents.
Teachers managing their retirement money are "constituents pushing agendas."
The agenda is: where is our $27.5 billion and who is managing it.
Our stock has lost a fifth of its value this year.
We dropped 1 percent on February 2nd, when the Financial Times reported that our executives consulted Epstein on tax affairs in the 2010s. We had previously said we "never did any business" with Epstein.
4.76 percent on February 3rd, when the scope became clear.
Another 6 percent on February 20th, when the class action investigation was announced.
Rosen Law Firm is now investigating whether our statements were "materially false or misleading."
Not false.
Materially false.
There is a difference.
"Not false" costs nothing. "Materially false" costs everything.
The difference is one word and several billion dollars.
The Epstein files also contain allegations against me.
Claims from women who say Epstein introduced them to me at his Manhattan townhouse under the pretense of job opportunities.
Federal prosecutors investigated in 2019.
They brought no charges.
My attorney says the claims are false.
Not "not false."
False.
When it's my reputation, the distinction matters.
When it's investor communications, we prefer "not false."
Across town, the same week, Prince Andrew was arrested.
February 19th. His sixty-sixth birthday. The same Epstein files. The most significant arrest of a senior British royal since 1642.
The difference is that Andrew lost his title, his residences, his security detail.
I lost my title.
I kept my shares.
67.7 million of them.
He was questioned for twelve hours about passing government documents to Epstein.
I settled for $62.5 million and received immunity.
There are levels to this.
The hindsight cost $158 million.
The immunity cost $62.5 million.
The regret cost nothing.
The shares cost neither.
Zelter's letter said: "Transparency and accessibility are hallmarks of who we are."
The same letter said: "There's nothing new."
Transparency means telling you there's nothing to see.
Accessibility means you can read the letter that says nothing happened.
Those are hallmarks.
Of who we are.
The firm is hosting a private investor conference next quarter.
The session I'm speaking at is called "Trust in Alternative Asset Management."
The room will seat four hundred limited partners.
Teachers' pension funds among them.
I will not be taking questions about "Agreed."
I will not be taking questions about the surveillance.
I will not be taking questions about $158 million in tax advice from an unlicensed convicted sex offender whose operations my money partially funded.
I will be taking new commitments.
The commitments will be large.
At my level, the number is the answer.