I guess we know how he managed to get the funding.

> It was wiped away with a phone call. In March 2025, Trump called Milton to tell him he had signed an unconditional pardon. Milton had styled himself as a political victim of the Biden administration, and Trump agreed.

Birds of a feather flock together.

devils advocate here...

but isnt it weird how these women filed a complaint together 20 years later, after he became a billionaire?

I just read the article and by his cousins own testimony, they were BOTH minors, and he heinously sexually assaulted her by groping her breasts after she consented to... take off her own shirt down to a bra, during a "massage"... but the shirts off massage turned into a sexual assault when he touched her breasts/removed her bra?

He denies all of it, and it happened 20 years ago, and maybe he is a fraud, and maybe he is a creep, but there is no way to prove any of it.

"Hey this guy fooled a lot of people last time and the people who got in and out early made a killing. This time I'm going to get in early."

"He's got the hustle to do what it takes to succeed and is unencumbered by a moral compass. Gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet."

"Pssh that's nothing compared to the fraud I committed to get here. Fake it till you make it baby!"

"It takes balls to defraud powerful people and then do it again. I respect the machismo."

Take your pick.

The past failure is in the abstract, and in the past. And anyway, they were unfairly maligned. There is an inside version of the story that they will be happy to tell you, which was clearly not their fault.

But that is neither here nor there. What is important is the now, and in the now you are in the presence of someone who is Good At Making Money. And you too, by joining forces, will be Making Lots Of Money with this charismatic person, who can clearly achieve great things and will be clearly avoiding any past missteps that may have caused their downfall right before reaching greatness (but weren’t their fault anyway).

Think of the future, not the past!

The reason for this is the same as why real estate is so expensive and the price of gold is so high. There is far too much capital accumulation among the ultra-wealthy, who don’t know what to do with all that money. The expertise of someone like this founder lies simply in recognizing that this is the case and that it can be monetized.

I remember listening to a podcast (possibly complex systems?) that said the best way to find what kinds of frauds are out there is by looking at what known fraudsters are up to.

[0] It might have been this one, but I can't find it in the transcript https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/episodes/fraud-as-infr...

Charisma and connections are pretty much all it takes. Really only connections are needed but since these people are coming back from being exposed they need charisma to assuage the concerns of their connections.

My assumption is that the people he's working with today also would like to do some fraud, and are hoping he'll be better at it this time.

And/or they're part of the Trump rich people's club. They all tend to stick together and help each other.

It's distribution. Guy's got a brand name now. People and investors recognize his name. It's a lot easier to find an absolute quantity N of investor money for a fraudulent but well-known name than it is for an unknown upstart.

The fraud might have a low close rate but the top of the funnel is huge. The unknown upstart can't even get meetings.

A lot of the investors are also bullshitters so they like bullshitting founders. I see a similar thing in companies. People wonder why people who don’t produce much but are politically savvy are moving up. The answer that most leadership is the same so they recognize each other.

I recently invested a small amount of money in an early stage company where I had to declare I was either a 'high net worth individual' or a 'sophisticated investor'. The mutually exclusive clause seemed important to me.

Well, here we all are clicking the link and engaging in a discussion on the loathsome creep. Attention, attention.

This come up in a subthread last week https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47305450

My guess is that they're good talkers. They make it sounds like they learned their lesson or were framed but regardless if you hire them they'll make you rich!

I can guarantee you that Elizabeth Holmes will get a big bunch of funding for a new startup as soon as she's out of jail.

Even with SBF I'm 50/50 on that.

Does anybody know his investors? I'd like an intro:)

some of the 'investors' use such as investments as tax-write offs

> SyberJet’s own history shows the challenges. Over the past 40 years, an eclectic mix of financiers from Dubai to Taiwan invested hundreds of millions of dollars in developing the plane maker’s lightweight business jets. But in all that time just four planes made it into the hands of customers.

Putting two and two together it seems to me that this business is a front for money laundering or something.

To understand why you must understand the tax code. You can write off any investment losses. You can also recover losses if its from fraud. Though usually not fully. But you give 1 million for investment, boom its a fraud, and you get $800,000 back as opposed to keeping a million and paying $400,000 on it in taxes. It's a win-win situation. There is no penalty in betting on fraudsters. Whether this guy's schemes are deliberately for that is debatable. But on the flip side, putting downsides to investing on possible fraudsters considerably hinders any new genuine start up ideas from gaining investors.

These fraudsters who get second chances have got blackmail. Trust me, all the people we see in the media are sharks. They only help each other if they feel a threat or have something to gain.

Look how many people couldn't care about Epstein and the fact he was a convicted sex offender. Bill Gates didn't care and he was literally the richest person in the world at one point.

The rich VCs and billionaires and aspirational billionaires only care about doing what they want to do and don't care what the peons like us think or care about.

not speaking for upwards failures in general, but for the extraordinary cases of convicted frauds being pardoned, the incentives are:

1. his $1.8M donation to Trump shows other felons and fraudsters that paying Trump will pay back in dividends (Trump profits)

2. By pardoning thousands of frauds, con artists and outright violent nazis (Jan 6), Trump builds himself an army of loyalists who owe him their lives

3. By putting pardoned frauds, con artists and violent nazis in charge of government functions, Trump replaces the entire US government with one that will do his personal bidding

textbook autocrat stuff

Having a great exit is the golden dream for VCs.

But having founders that raise lots of money also have a value in itself even if the business fails in the long run.

They are charismatic. They know how to work people.

If you've ever worked with narcissists and sociopaths, you'll soon enough discover that they will do anything to get what they want. And they are professionals at playing people.

They know what to say, how to present themselves, how to make their story, and what strings to pull on the people they try to convince.

Some investors are also willing to suspend their disbelief - thinking that if they are the first to ditch to bag, there's money to be made...as long as they're not the ones holding the bag.

Because those investors have exactly same moral and ethical framework. The fraud is just another legitimate way to make money to them. It is the same thing with Epstein or meetoo ... they were actually fine with all that and whoever complains is just pesky idiot.

This article is not praising trevor milton tho.

I just can't comprehend the mental process or discussion that happened which led to this guy getting a pardon.

It's just hard to imagine that anybody would give a f about this fraudster. Only explanation is he must know some dirt on someone.

It's clear now. Modern society runs on blackmail. There's a blackmail hierarchy all the way to the top.

I bet there are many people out there just making a living from just knowing dirt about people.

> The President has plenary authority to grant pardons

This really needs to be taken away. Or at least severely limited. Maybe you could pardon at most 10 people. And that too has to be approved by congress or the senate.

Coming soon to an email signature near you

Lovely. Utterly untrustworthy except for the important case of identifying others like him.

I feel like part of the secret to being that type of CEO is that whatever your business is, you can spin it into something "oh my god, much wow".

Like it won't be just "vertically integrating pallet construction", it'll be "a heartwarming revolution in the construction of pallets, now with AI and blockchain".

Kind of like how TFA mentions that Milton's new SyberJet will "pioneer AI flight".

How about Holmes comes back and works at Starbucks? Why should we want known criminals and con artists back in positions of power and trust? Investing in someone like that is a breach of fiduciary duty. Give the opportunity to some worthy unknown, not known liars and criminals.

If there were any justice, after jail these fraudsters would be working low paying jobs like fast food and retail, and the CEO jobs would go to people who haven't been convicted of fraud.

But of course they'll leverage their connections and get high paying jobs like in this case.

Isn't this also in line with recent proclamations by at least two venture capitalists that they do not reflect / introspect / dwell on consequences in any way?

They believe other people are doing it and by not doing it they are selling themselves short.

Theyre not exactly wrong

> Maybe he isn't a compulsive liar

I have followed Trevor for many years. And I think anybody who has done the same will tell you, lying is very very central to his inner core. He lies even when he has zero need to. He just cannot help himself. It satisfies some inner need.

Gravity powered!

> In August [2022], it was announced that Andreessen Horowitz had invested in Neumann's new residential real-estate company, Flow.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Neumann

Exactly! Any knowledgeable observer would have expected him to run for elected office instead.

The old Buzz Lightyear: falling, with style

One insight might be that airlines and aircraft manufacturers get bailed out often.

they're going to pioneer "AI flight" :D

The brake release is two popsicle sticks glued together and decorated with glitter.

The beauty of aviation is that there is so much red tape required to fly that you can have the plane sit in a hangar for ages before the music stops.

Not like a truck where people quickly wonder why they haven't seen it in motion.

What is it even supposed to mean?

Airplanes have had autopilot (the genuine kind, not Musk's snake oil) for ages now. Commercial airlines have been using autoland on well-equipped airports for decades. Garmin's fully autonomous emergency autoland has already saved a few Cessna owners' lives. With the ongoing adoption of CPDLC the ATC-to-pilot link is also actively being automated and standardized.

There are no big technical hurdles left to solve! The main thing preventing fully-automated flight from taking off is the industry and regulators (rightfully) being incredibly conservative, and preferring paying pilots over the horrible PR fallout of an incident aboard an automated flight killing hundreds of people. Artificial intelligence isn't going to be of any help here!

Sounds like he's on the verge of developing a valuable product then.

You are missing the advantage of having an AI to blame everything on.

That's was the article said. I think you understood it incorrectly.

"Convicted fraudster pardons convicted fraudster therefore you can trust convicted fraudster."

Wild!

Why would you say that? The article was basically a hit piece on the guy. "We can trust you" was a quote from an associate, as you surely remember from when you read the whole article.

'We Can Trust You Now' is a quote in the story from the subject. The subject himself claims:

“I walk into meetings now, and I’ll get high-fives from the most wealthy people in the world,” he said. “They’re like, ‘Welcome to the club. You can withstand the fire. We can trust you now.’”

The WSJ interviewed him and is reporting information about his past. I think the article portrays him as extremely shady and untrustworthy. Not sure what you could be seeing here to demean the WSJ.