Author: openjargon

• Jeff Bezos owns three private jets, worth around $140 million in total.
• They include two Gulfstream G650ERs and a Pilatus PC-24.
• Records seen by BI show he also bought a hangar at Seattle's Boeing Field in 2015.

Like most billionaires, Jeff Bezos often flies around the world, and having his own planes lets him save time and improve his security.

The world's second-richest person owns three private jets, according to public records seen by Business Insider and data from JetSpy.

Two of them are Gulfstream G650ERs, which cost around $65 million each. The G650ER is a popular choice for the world's richest people — Elon Musk and Bill Gates also own one — thanks to its long range and high speed.

From Bezos' home in Miami, the G650ER can fly as far as Cape Town, Dubai, and Beijing, according to Gulfstream's website. Only Australia and southeast Asia would necessitate a fuelling stop.

The range is slightly reduced if it's traveling at its top speed of Mach 0.90, equivalent to 690 miles per hour. But the 22-seater can still fly for an impressive 7,365 miles. There aren't many other private jets on the market that allow for a more than 10-hour flight.

Bezos also owns a Piltaus PC-24 with the tail-number N194PJ, according to data from JetSpy. The light business jet with 10 seats was manufactured in 2020 and usually costs about $9 million. But with a maximum range of 2,200 miles, it would need a fuel stop to travel between Bezos' Miami home and Amazon's Seattle HQ.

How Bezos' jets are kept private

Proving Bezos' ownership of the jets isn't simple. JetSpy's data lists Bezos as the operator of the PC-24, although it's registered with the Federal Aviation Administration under a company called TVPX Aircraft Solutions.

TVPX's website says it provides trust services for US business aviation, either due to rules on citizenship or for "privacy enhancement."

The two Gulfstreams are registered to a holding company called Poplar Glen LLC, per the FAA registry.

BI found Washington state records from the firm's creation in 2004 which say it is owned by Bezos. The manager was listed as Zeffram LLC, another of Bezos' holding companies. In the most recent records, Poplar Glen's governor is listed as Paul Dauber, one of Bezos' attorneys.

Bezos bought a Dassault Falcon 900EX the same year as Poplar Glen's creation. According to the manufacturer's website, a pre-owned one costs around $10 million.

Taylor Swift also used to own a Falcon 900 until she sold it in January. According to FlightAware, Bezos sold his in 2015.

The same year, Poplar Glen paid $5.5 million for a hangar at Boeing Field in Seattle, according to property deeds seen by BI. The Puget Sound Business Journal first reported the sale.

Those documents show it was owned by Costco, and measures nearly 18,600 square feet. A sales brochure for the space, Hangar H-1, is still visible online.

Bezos then bought his first Gulfstream G650ER in 2016. It's registered as N271DV — the number previously used by his Falcon 900EX.

The Amazon founder's second Gulfstream jet was purchased in 2019, and registered as N758PB. It has newer Rolls Royce engines than his other jet, providing a couple hundred extra pounds of thrust, per FlightAware.

If you try to look up these jets on Flightradar24, you'll see that they can't be tracked. That's because the site uses some data from the FAA, which lets jet owners protect their privacy by signing up for the "Limiting Aircraft Data Displayed" program.

However, these planes can still be tracked via sites like ADS-B Exchange, built on a network of plane enthusiasts and institutions with receivers that detect aircraft signals. ADS-B Exchange's data is used by Jack Sweeney, the college student who was named on Forbes 30 Under 30 after tracking Musk's jet.

Bezos has also taken the extra step of reserving 36 other N-Numbers which aren't in use, per the FAA registry. Some of these, like 271EV and 271DX, resemble his Gulfstreams' N-Number, so they could help maintain his security.

• Palmer Luckey's startup Anduril is producing futuristic weapons of war. 
• But the billionaire founder has his own James Bond-esque collection of military vehicles.
• Luckey gave Bloomberg an inside peek at his 1980s-designed home and private collection of "boys toys."

The defense tech startup Anduril is making some of the most futuristic autonomous weapons on the market as it tries to reinvent the military's wheelhouse.

But the company's forward-thinking vision hasn't stopped founder Palmer Luckey from amassing his own collection of older military-grade vehicles and boy's toys.

The billionaire's collection includes a boat bought from the US Navy, six helicopters, and a 1985 ex-Marine Corps Humveefighter, he revealed in the latest episode of Bloomberg's "The Circuit."

That's land, sea, and air covered.

Luckey's Mark V special operations craft, which he purchased from the Navy, is the fastest boat ever built by the force with a little over 5,000 horsepower, he told reporter Emily Chang as he took her for a ride on the vessel around Newport Beach.

"It was designed specifically for Navy seal insertion and extraction missions. It runs really fast, and it's a lot of fun."

He still has the real M2 heavy-barreled 50 BMG machine gun that came with the boat but keeps fake ones fitted "most of the time."

"Most of my neighbors like it, and a handful hate it."

Luckey first made his name when he founded virtual reality company Oculus in 2012. Two years later, he sold the company to Facebook, now known as Meta, for $2 billion in cash and stock. 

In 2017, one year after he was fired from Facebook, Luckey founded Anduril. It's since risen to the top of Silicon Valley's defense tech boom.

But his passion for the military started when he was young, Luckey told The Circuit.

"I grew up watching the Marine Corps practice right offshore in their helicopters. Watching Navy ships do exercises gets in your brain, and it doesn't leave."

He's now the proud owner of six helicopters, including a UH-60 Blackhawk.

In addition to military-grade vehicles, Luckey owns a 1967 Disneyland Autopia, a toy car used in Disney theme parks, designed by legendary park designer Bob Gurr and Walt Disney himself.

"As far as I know, mine is the only complete Autopia that is outside of the parks. Mine has the original mechanicals, original gear boxes, original wheels, the whole deal," Luckey told Chang.

The small vehicle, typically seen tearing up Disneyland race tracks, suffered a minor breakdown mid-interview and had to be fixed with a flathead screwdriver.

The founder also took cameras into his 1980s-designed home in LA. Fitted with a two-inch thick teal shag carpet and a 6,500-gallon aquarium, Luckey's home has "some good Miami Vice vibes," he told Chang.

The coffee table is fitted with a map of his Dungeons and Dragons campaign, where he plays as a "chaotic neutral wizard named Nilrim V."

As the billionaire founder himself admits, "I am a little bit of a caricature."

But where to keep the world's largest collection of video games?

"I put that in one of my missile bases. 200 feet underground," Luckey told Chang.

• Conservatives are fighting guaranteed basic income programs across the country.
• Lawyers and lawmakers want to block basic income programs in Texas, California, and elsewhere.
• Many of them argue the programs are discriminatory because they are not universal.

Legal challenges by conservative lawmakers and activists against guaranteed basic income programs are heating up nationwide. And one of their arguments is surprising: Some say the programs are discriminatory because they are not universal.

Numerous cities and counties are experimenting with guaranteed basic incomes to support their most vulnerable populations. They typically offer no-strings-attached monthly payments between $500 and $1,000 to specific groups, like new moms, Black women, or trans people, all of them low-income residents.

Guaranteed basic income programs differ from their idealistic cousin — a universal basic income. UBI, made famous by Andrew Yang during the 2016 presidential election, would provide a monthly payment to all citizens. The theory is simple: A rising tide lifts all boats.

The idea has gained new traction after the success of federal pandemic-era financial support, which experts say prevented about 12 million people from falling into poverty. Some have also embraced the potential of a basic income as a remedy for the rise of AI, which could threaten job security for many Americans. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said his own study on basic income would be released soon.

While localized guaranteed basic income programs are tiny compared to a nationwide universal basic income, they are the subject of no less conservative opposition. Much of the opposition from lawmakers is due to fears of creeping "socialism." Local politicians in places like South Dakota and Arizona have moved to block basic income programs for this reason alone.

The South Dakota bill's sponsor, Republican Sen. John Wiik, said basic income programs redistribute hard-earned money and are a "socialist idea."

Legal challenges to the programs, meanwhile, led by some conservative officials and legal activist groups, are making a more specific argument that, perhaps unintentionally, makes a case for a universal basic income.

In San Francisco, the conservative legal activist organization Judicial Watch sued city officials in January to block a basic income program that gives a small group of trans people $1,000 a month. The lawsuit argues that the program, known as GIFT, violates the state constitution's equal protection clause because it gives "preferential treatment" to trans people when choosing candidates.

"Suffering doesn't know a race or a creed or a gender," Kathryn Blankenberg, an attorney at Judicial Watch, told Business Insider. "It's something universal. And saying one group suffers more than another based on how they identify, that's painting people with a very broad brush."

In November, the American Civil Rights Project, a conservative public-interest law firm, sued the city over several of its guaranteed basic income plans.

That lawsuit mainly targets The Abundant Birth Project, which gives pregnant Black women $1,000 monthly payments for a year. After showing positive results, the program received a $5 million grant from the state in December 2022.

The group's lawsuit similarly argues that several of the city's basic income programs are discriminatory because they "unlawfully" choose candidates based on "race, ethnicity, gender/gender identity, and sexual orientation."

"Most prominently, these government-sponsored and publicly funded programs are designed to select beneficiaries on a racially exclusionary basis. This is unconstitutional," the lawsuit says.

Meanwhile, in Texas, the state supreme court ordered an administrative stay against a Houston-area basic income project hours before it was set to begin — a reaction to a challenge by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who says it's "unconstitutional."

In court documents, Paxton argued that the Uplift Harris program — which gives low-income residents in the Harris County area up to $500 a month — is unconstitutional because the program chooses recipients based on a random lottery.

"Here, the selection of individuals to receive payments under (Uplift Harris) is plainly arbitrary," Paxton writes.

While these arguments appear to support giving basic income payments to a broader group of people, it's unlikely many conservatives would actually support a universal basic income.

Blankenberg from Judicial Watch said her main focus was the "suspect classification" of the guaranteed basic income projects but doesn't believe a universal basic income would work either, echoing some of the arguments made by state lawmakers in South Dakota and elsewhere.

"I don't think it'll ever work," she said. "At the end of the day, the taxpayer hurts. It's not the government's money. It's our money."

• Lincoln County, Kansas is offering $4,500 with perks to attract remote workers.
• The program aims to recruit five new residents in two years, along with 70 households in the region.
• Mover incentive programs have become popular in low-population areas to boost economic growth.

Lincoln County, Kansas is recruiting new residents.

The rural area is about 130 miles north of Wichita and has a population of just under 3,000 people. But local community leaders are hoping to attract remote workers and grow the local economy by offering new residents $4,500 cash, a $500 credit toward high-speed internet, a gym membership, and a monthly basket of farm-fresh eggs. Participants can also receive a free plot of land to build their home.

Lincoln County's mover incentive program comes after a slew of other cities tried —and found success — with similar economic growth strategies for low-population areas. These programs were launched in West Lafayette, Indiana; Ellsworth County, Kansas; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and more.

To qualify, remote workers must be employed full-time, make at least $50,000 annually, and reside outside Kansas before moving. Participants must also be able to relocate within six months of enrolling in the program and agree to live in the area for at least a year.

If a participant's spouse or partner is hired for a local job, they can also qualify for an additional $5,000 cash.

The original mover incentive program for Lincoln was launched in January 2023, with the goal of attracting five remote workers to the county within the first year. The program was recently expanded to lure a fresh batch of newcomers.

The Innovation Center, an economic and entrepreneurial assistance organization, is supporting Lincoln's program. Since the program launched, it has received over 330 applications, with more than 35 applicants meeting the criteria. The program is marketed and monitored by Make My Move, an Indianapolis-based company that helps communities connect with remote workers through cash and perks.

And, Lincoln's mover recruitment strategy has already been so successful that it is being expanded by the Innovation Center, with the goal of attracting more workers to Northwest Kansas.

The larger program's goal is to add 70 households to the region, and 23 counties have already expressed interest in participating, per Make My Move.

Lincoln's program is part of plans to grow the labor force in Northwest Kansas

Business Insider has previously reported that participants in mover incentive programs enjoy a lower a low cost of living, more affordable housing, tax breaks, and opportunities to pay down debt.

"We really work hard to ensure our movers know what we offer and what we don't, so there's no movers' remorse," Kelly Gourley, executive director of the Lincoln County Economic Development Foundation, said in a public statement. "And we work to match them up with people who'll not just introduce them to our community, but welcome them in."

Make My Move reported that early movers to Lincoln relocated from major population centers like Atlanta, Dallas, and Memphis, Tennessee.

Additionally, Lincoln is one of 95 Kansas counties enrolled in the state's Rural Opportunity Zone program, which seeks to draw new movers and grow the labor force. In some counties, participants can also qualify for state income tax waivers and funded student loan repayments.

"The money is just the hook," Gourley said. "It won't make someone like where they live; it's what comes after that makes someone feel good about the move."

Did you get paid to move somewhere? Are you open to sharing your experience? Reach out to this reporter at allisonkelly@insider.com.

• Ann, 67, moved with her husband to Portugal for their retirement.
• She said expenses were much higher when they were living in Arizona.
• While Portugal has its challenges, Ann said her quality of life is much better there than in the US.

Moving around is nothing new for Ann.

Ann, who requested to use a pseudonym to protect her privacy, told Business Insider that throughout her life, she's traveled to and lived in Belize, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Hawaii, and lived in Arizona during her last four years in the US.

But Ann, 67, said she and her husband were not living the life they had hoped to live in Scottsdale. Although they were each earning sufficient incomes, they found themselves "working nonstop" to afford their basic monthly expenses, and they couldn't enjoy their lives given the financial strains they faced.

"We've always tried to not have debt, and it just felt like as fast as we were earning money, out the door it went on increasing costs over there," Ann said. "And we talked about it over time and said, 'We're never going to be able to retire.'"

That's when they knew it was time to make a change. After researching affordable places to live in retirement, Ann and her husband settled on Portugal. They had traveled there before and were already familiar with the area, so they decided to give it a shot — they sold their condo in Arizona, used the equity in the condo to buy an apartment in Portugal, and they've lived there happily for just over two years.

"Our quality of life is so much nicer because we're not worried about money like we were in the States," Ann said. "We were just watching every single penny."

According to documents reviewed by BI, Ann and her husband spend about $82 each month on a bundle for TV, cellphones, and internet, about $21 each month on water, sewer, and trash, and around $55 each month on electricity. Ann said the Social Security they receive is just over $3,000 a month, which allows them to cover all of their basic expenses with money left over.

Since they do not have to worry about rent or mortgage payments, other major expenses they consistently deal with include health insurance, which Ann said costs about $275 a month.

While Ann was able to live comfortably in retirement abroad, many older adults in the US are struggling. The Census Bureau's Current Population Survey found that just over half of Americans over 65 make $30,000 or less annually. The Social Security program will no longer be able to pay out full benefits in 2035, per the latest trustees report, meaning that unless Congress intervenes, Americans might not be able to rely on the benefits they were hoping for.

Ann said she knows that moving abroad isn't the perfect solution. There are lots of bureaucratic hurdles in Portugal, she said, not only with obtaining a residency visa — ex-pats have to get a new driver's license and car insurance, and they'll have to register with the tax authorities and health agencies.

It's not easy at the outset, but once Ann and her husband got through the initial moving challenges, they found that spending their retirement in Portugal was one of the best decisions they could've made.

"It's just nice to relax and have things to do and places to explore, and even our Social Security is enough to live on and travel a bit," Ann said. "Our life here is just way better than it could have ever been would we had stayed in the US."

'The United States is a very difficult country to retire in'

With high inflation and interest rates, it's not easy for many people to live in the US right now, and it's forcing some older adults to push back their retirements to continue earning paychecks.

BI previously spoke to Diane Senffner, a 63-year-old who lost her job during the pandemic and depleted her savings. Now, she's not sure she'll ever be able to retire. "I was somebody who did really well, and it's very disheartening because I have no idea what's going to happen with retirement," she said.

While certain cities offer cheaper retirement options than others, the US is still an expensive country, which is why moving abroad was so appealing for Ann and other ex-pats.

"We understand how hard it is to try to accumulate enough money to retire and stay in the United States," Ann said. "And for us, it was basically impossible."

"The United States is a very difficult country to retire in," she said.

While their life isn't perfect in Portugal, Ann said that she and her husband have truly enjoyed the warm weather, outdoor activities, and the ability to easily travel to nearby cities. With their expenses being so low, they have the freedom to spend money on things they enjoy doing in retirement, and they don't have plans to leave Portugal anytime soon.

"Every morning when we're off on our walk, we have a beach that we walk to, and there's a castle there and beautiful cliffs, and we have a whole beach to ourselves," Ann said. "And every single morning, we say, 'Oh my gosh, it's so beautiful. Aren't you glad we live here? '"

Did you move abroad or do something unconventional in retirement? Share your story with this reporter at asheffey@businessinsider.com.

Alex Moeller was having a great month, and he wanted to share it with his 2 million followers on Instagram.

In one photo from October 2022, the millennial entrepreneur/influencer posed on his private jet, the fawn leather seats embroidered with the logo for his red-hot business, WiFi Money. In another photo, at a luxury resort in southern Mexico, he floated in a dazzling aquamarine infinity pool overlooking the Caribbean. In a third post, he showed off a selection from his fleet of supercars — a Lamborghini Huracán and a McLaren 650.

"To God all the Glory!" the caption read. "Years and years of hard work is paying off big time. In the next 24 months we will be helping 100,000+ Businesses."

For Jasmine Sadry and Joey Martin, that October was decidedly less enjoyable.

The Texas couple were staring down more than $100,000 in debt, much of which they had poured into WiFi Money. Overwhelmed by stress and guilt, Martin went into a deep spiral and was hospitalized several times after binge drinking and using drugs. As Moeller partied it up, Sadry and Martin were preparing to move out of the Dallas-area home they could no longer afford.

They were far from WiFi Money's only dissatisfied customers. Since its founding in 2020, the company has left a trail of lawsuits alleging fraud, bankruptcies, mental breakdowns, and financial devastation. Marketing a faddish assortment of get-rich-quick schemes — cryptocurrencies, ecommerce stores, pandemic-era tax rebates, and more — WiFi Money promises its followers "the ability to make money anywhere in the world, by doing one simple action…. connecting to WiFi." Combining the age-old influence of envy and greed with the instant gratification of influencer culture, the company sells desperate Americans the paradoxical idea that a bit of hustle will allow them to coast to the easy life.

In the process, Moeller and his business partner, Chris Frederick, have amassed millions for themselves, promoting their glitzy lifestyle everywhere from Instagram to Fox News. Many of their customers and investors, meanwhile, have ended up in financial ruin. As trust in the institutional ways of moving up in the world has deteriorated, WiFi Money offered an express lane to financial freedom. It ended up sending many of its most devoted followers straight into a ditch.

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A native of Quito, Ecuador, Moeller (@amoeller, 2 million followers) moved to Florida with his family when he was 11. One of his earliest gigs was working at his family's cosmetics business, Casa Moeller Martinez. There, he learned the value of a good sales job — even if what you're selling is based on an illusion. Casa Moeller Martinez wound up embroiled in scandal: News reports in Ecuador said the company owed more than $7 million to investors, including a retirement fund for the national police force, and ultimately sought bankruptcy.

Twentysomething and boisterous, Moeller began to frequent Miami's club scene, often with a woman on his arm. At age 25, he launched MentorCI, a marketing firm that promised to make its clients rich by boosting their follower counts on social media. The company's Facebook page included such cutting-edge insights as "Snapchat can be very beneficial for those companies trying to reach Millenials!" and "Websites are a must!" Social media, MentorCI promised, would set you free: "Get financial freedom and explore the world!! Did you know that you can monetize your Instagram account and make thousands of dollars each month?!?" The company's own Instagram account, meanwhile, featured photos of enticing landscapes and attractive young women.

In Moeller's telling, his business was an instant hit. Within a year he had some 1,000 clients, whose accounts he grew using automated software to follow and unfollow other accounts on Instagram.

Today there are two primary types of business-minded influencers on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. The first is aspirational posters peddling lifestyle content — the Kim Kardashians of the world, showcasing a never-ending stream of exotic locales and innate glamour, 'grammed in the service of relentlessly selling products. The second is #hustlegrindset thoughtfluencers like Gary Vee, who preach a gospel of business acumen to followers looking for a shortcut in the rat race.

Moeller crafted a potent blend of both: a steady drumbeat of ultraluxe vacation photos paired with "hustle culture" koans. "Those who endure will conquer #wifimoney #paidtolive," he captioned a photo of himself in a swimming pool, a snowy mountain range behind him. "Let them hate, just make sure they spell your name right," he wrote in another post. The message conveys a promise implicit in Moeller's brand: Invest in my schemes, pay for my workshops, subscribe to my business philosophies, and you, too, can achieve a life of luxury resorts, fast cars, and ripped pecs.

Moeller's vision of monetizing social media tapped a vein of desperation in the American Dream.

Moeller's vision of monetizing social media tapped a vein of desperation in the American Dream. Four decades of widening income inequality and sluggish wage growth have pushed more and more Americans into frothy investment vehicles like meme stocks and crypto that offer the allure of "passive income" — a steady flow of cash, no work required, in return for a bit of up-front capital. A poll conducted in 2020, as internet firms like Uber and Etsy promoted a vision of home-brewed entrepreneurship, found that about one in three Americans had a side hustle.

"People are less satisfied with their current work — traditional work — and that has made the side hustles more appealing," says Farnaz Ghaedipour, who studies social media and work at Stanford University. "Social media makes it look like this is more achievable and makes it look like it's easy to turn your side hustle into a successful business."

Financial freedom became a cornerstone of Moeller's philosophy after one of his Instagram clients introduced him to Chris Frederick (@christhunder, 3.5 million followers). A burly dude from small-town Maryland, Frederick had his first brush with celebrity at 12, when he appeared on the PBS show "Aqua Kids." Years later, Frederick dropped out of college to play soccer for a succession of minor-league German teams. After returning from Europe, he found his true calling as a self-promoter. In 2018, a press release announced his "successful transition from professional soccer player to serial entrepreneur" and listed some of his new hustles: luxury-car rentals, watch flipping, investment banking, business coaching, and "monetizing Instagram."

Frederick and Moeller shared a relentless self-promotional drive and a fixation on social media as a business engine. By 2019 they were working together on Money Mastery Blueprint, an online boot camp that, for $1,997, promised to teach would-be influencers how to grow their followings. From there, Frederick and Moeller refined their brand, eventually landing on a catchy name they could use to assemble their diverse and often unrelated endeavors under one umbrella: WiFi Money.

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WiFi Money is hard to pin down: It's a philosophy, an advertising business, a social media collective, and a multilevel-marketing firm, all rolled into one. It provides an endless stream of technologically enabled, passive-income opportunities that just so happen to support the lavish lifestyles of the WiFi Money team, who then package their own success into social-media snippets and resell them as marketing advice.

In practice, WiFi Money is a tangled web of limited-liability corporations, including some set up to manage a single investment opportunity; one LLC is dedicated exclusively to Moeller and Frederick's private jet. At the center of it all is Gatsby, a private company controlled by two other LLCs created by Frederick and Moeller. The name conjures up images of Jay Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald's legendary hard-partying, entrepreneurial, and ultimately ill-fated social climber with a habit of bending the truth.

Along with Frederick and Moeller, the WiFi Money universe includes a constellation of affiliated influencers who use WiFi Money branding on social media and hawk the group's investment opportunities. There's Moeller's brother, Billy (@wmoeller85, 1.6 million followers) and Chris Casey (@chris.casey, 624,000 followers), a multilevel-marketing guru who serves as chief operating officer of WiFi Money. There's Todd Cahill (@toddmcahill, 383,000 followers), a "WiFi Money Mentor" from Illinois who was slapped with a $250,000 tax lien by the IRS in 2021 over five years of unpaid taxes. And there's Liz Friesen (@liz.friesen, 465,000 followers), a "Social Media Mentor" and women's-empowerment advocate who boasts of having been featured in Yahoo Finance and Business Insider. (In reality, both sites auto-published her press release.)

WiFi Money's modus operandi is to partner with an array of external firms to pitch a wide range of money-making schemes to prospective customers and investors. For one investment opportunity, which claimed to provide annual returns of 10% to 25%, the company partnered with a pair of luxury real-estate agents in Florida. A program that promised to boost people's social-media followings touted partnerships with influencers like Tana Mongeau and a member of the Kardashian clan. And for WiFi Money's most devoted disciples, there was the "WiFi Money Experience": exclusive business boot camps in boutique locations like Mexico's Punta Mita peninsula.

Customers and investors, meanwhile, are recruited from anywhere and everywhere — not just social media but friends, neighbors, and other would-be entrepreneurs. Those who give their money to WiFi Money are often encouraged to sign up other people in return for a cut of their profits — and perhaps, one day, a chance to become part of the WiFi Money crew.

The company insists its business model is a win for everyone. "WiFi Money has made a multitude of its customers prosperous, particularly during the pandemic, as well as afterwards, despite ever-shifting economic winds," the company's attorney, James Ragano, told me. But investors have often found themselves burned by WiFi Money's moves. During the cryptocurrency mania of 2021, for instance, Moeller and Frederick joined the leadership team of a crypto project called Nobility, which set out to revolutionize esports, sell a line of knight-branded NFTs, and expand into the metaverse. Frederick was listed as the chief marketing officer, while Moeller worked on business development.

The project promised to promote its most dedicated NFT investors on "the world's top billboard locations, including Times Square, Piccadilly Circus, and the Burj Khalifa." Some investors poured tens of thousands of dollars into the initiative, buying up Nobility's cryptocurrency in hopes of seeing the price soar. After the token's launch that summer, its price jumped fourfold in less than a month, to about $0.0014 a token. But it quickly plunged to $0.000039, a 97% drop from its high. The billboards never materialized.

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In 2020, Joey Martin (@jmarteen, 12,000 followers) was a 40-year-old product manager living in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area with his partner, Jasmine Sadry (@jasminesadry, 59,500 followers), a radio host and media strategist. He dreamed of flipping real estate to escape the 9-to-5 grind — but he needed extra cash to get started. He joined a mastermind group, a decades-old peer-to-peer mentor program for aspiring entrepreneurs. That led to an introduction to Moeller.

In his Instagram DMs and early calls with Martin, Moeller presented himself as a smooth-talking problem-solver. He pitched Martin on what he described as an incredible passive-income opportunity: Amazon automation. For an up-front fee, Martin would get a custom-built storefront on Amazon Marketplace, the tech giant's platform for third-party sellers. The listings, though, would consist of products available for less at other stores. When an Amazon customer bought something in the store, a "virtual assistant" would use a credit card taken out in Martin's name to buy the item from the secondary store and mail it directly to the customer — and Martin would pocket the difference. All he had to do was pony up $35,000, and the automated riches would start rolling in.

"I don't know if I would call it laziness or greed necessarily," Martin told me. "But I was salivating a little bit at the idea of being able to say, OK, I can move a little quicker and don't have to focus as much on generating month-to-month income."

Moeller had essentially sold Martin on dropshipping, a common business model. And while WiFi Money would pocket a hefty chunk of Martin's up-front payment, the company wouldn't actually set up his storefront or help him run the business. That would all be done by a third-party LLC called Kyncey Investments. The firm was run by Kyle McDougal (@kyle.mcdougal, 986 followers), who also served as CEO of Nobility.

Almost as soon as Martin and Sadry handed their money over, things started to go wrong. Their store, which sold everything from Scotchgard to diaper-rash ointment, was suspended repeatedly by Amazon, in part because of low customer reviews. It was shut down for good in mid-2021. Other investors faced similar suspensions; some never even had their stores set up.

Though WiFi Money had pitched many of the initial investments, the company largely managed to stay out of the legal hot seat, likely because the contracts were ultimately signed by Kyncey. In nine lawsuits, Kyncey and McDougal were variously accused of fraudulent inducement, unfair and deceptive trade practices, and unjust enrichment. In many cases, McDougal simply didn't respond to the suits. One plaintiff got a judgment to raid Kyncey's bank account, but they were able to recoup only $13,000 of their $35,000 investment.

McDougal maintains his innocence and suggested he had only missed the cases because the legal documents had been delivered to his old addresses. "Contrary to popular belief," he told me, "we had a lot of clients that were making significant returns, and the vast majority were very happy once their stores started picking up." But as the issues mounted, WiFi Money parted ways with Kyncey. Irate investors were offered an alternative: They could turn their Amazon stores over to DBC, a Canadian firm that WiFi Money was partnering with. It was a classic hustle-culture move: If the first venture doesn't work, simply pivot to another one. But the same issues that plagued Kyncey soon resurfaced with DBC. Investors found their accounts abruptly suspended by Amazon, with little recourse to recover their money. The side hustlers had once again been hustled.

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As the money poured in, WiFi Money gained a patina of mainstream credibility. In the spring of 2021, just as their Amazon-automation pitch was kicking into high gear, Moeller and Frederick landed a prime self-promotional opportunity. Sitting down with CNN, the duo lamented the economic chaos caused by the pandemic and hyped the potential of WiFi Money as an answer for people who had lost their jobs.

"We really wanted to come up with a solution where we could help the average individual, just about anybody, translate their income to the online space," Moeller said.

The following year, Moeller and Frederick were interviewed by Fox Business. Tailoring their message for the network's right-wing audience, Frederick described WiFi Money as a righteous crusader helping conservatives fight back against social-media censorship. "We consider ourselves a conservative company," he told Fox Business. "I don't agree with Big Tech censorship and I think they have lost their markets."

Through WiFi Money, Moeller and Frederick had created a virtuous cycle of money and influence. They 'grammed themselves hanging out with increasingly high-profile celebs: the "Shark Tank" star Kevin O'Leary, the notorious "Wolf of Wall Street" Jordan Belfort, the legendary Brazilian soccer player Ronaldinho, the conservative commentator Glenn Beck. Frederick took up soccer again, playing as a backup goalie for the Florida Tropics Soccer Club, an indoor-league team sponsored by WiFi Money. Moeller, meanwhile, leaned hard into YouTube creatordom. In one video he cruised around New York City, ensconced in the back of a white Rolls-Royce, on a mission to spend $1 million in 24 hours. In social-media posts and in interviews, he and Frederick boasted that they were banking tens of millions of dollars a year.

While Moeller and Frederick lived the high life, Martin and Sadry were struggling to salvage their investment with WiFi Money. As they grappled with Amazon's customer-service team and their mounting debt, Martin felt crippled by shame. He turned to cocaine and binge drinking to cope. His trips to the hospital for issues related to substance use and stress exacerbated the couple's debts. "It honestly was basically mental exhaustion," Martin said. "Basically a full collapse."

In an attempt to make ends meet, the couple refinanced and rented out their home, moving from an upscale Dallas townhouse to a mold-ridden apartment near the airport. In November 2021, Martin filed for bankruptcy protection, and Sadry prepared to follow suit.

I wake up every other morning and I've got an angry family member texting me about it

McDougal, the Kyncey founder, said he warned investors that "there were risks involved, that it wasn't all sunshine, and nothing was a guaranteed success." But other investors were also struggling to stay afloat, with bills from credit-card companies and state tax authorities adding to their costs. One Florida resident faced with $138,000 in debt sold her house to pay it down. A real-estate agent from Minnesota sold her home and moved in with her partner's parents, sharing a bedroom with her teenage children for more than a year. One investor says he was assailed by relatives he'd signed up for a referral bonus of $5,000 a pop: "I wake up every other morning and I've got an angry family member texting me about it." Another investor who convinced people he knew to invest said it ruined his reputation, prompting him to consider suicide. Some DBC investors found their homes barraged with packages returned by dissatisfied Amazon customers; one had to grapple with dozens of garden loungers, bikes, and rugs that were mailed to her house.

Daemon Budkowski, a former actor and model in Los Angeles with multiple sclerosis, said his investment in WiFi Money put his mortgage at risk. "Legally, I'm disabled," he said. "I'm not able to work. I'm tired of being a debt to society. That's why I wanted to invest — to make a living. Now, honestly, they ruined my life." He filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission but never heard back.

As the losses mounted, disgruntled investors banded together in an informal grapevine. They found each other through Reddit threads, comparing horror stories and detailing the amount of money they'd lost. They circulated email chains comparing notes on lawyers who might take up their case and urging victims to contact the FTC. Nearly 100 complaints have been lodged with the FTC about WiFi Money, Kyncey, or DBC. It's not clear whether the agency is investigating; a spokesperson said they couldn't comment on specific companies "outside the context of a law enforcement action."

Some who spoke out against WifiMoney have found themselves targeted by the company. Chris Costello (@chriscostellosrq, 40,000 followers), a real-estate agent in Florida, and his wife, Francis, were invited to invest by their close friends Chris Casey, the COO of WiFi Money, and his wife Ashley. Costello went in on Amazon stores and Nobility in a big way — at one point, according to court documents, his stake in the crypto project reached $325,000, and he bragged on Instagram about "joining #wifimoney." After Nobility went south, he was angry. "These people are 21st-century snake oil salesman!" he wrote on Reddit. "Do not trust them or any company they partner with."

WiFi Money fought back. Moeller, Frederick, Gatsby, and Casey filed a suite of defamation lawsuits against the Costellos, accusing them of tortious interference, cyberstalking, and harassment. Costello, in turn, called the ongoing lawsuits "an attack by these individuals to smear our name, stop us from telling our personal experiences, and cause financial hardship to our family." His war with WiFi Money has cost him more than his investment. "Not only did we lose money," he says, "we also lost our best friends."

---

As the anger from investors built, the WiFi Money team did what it does best: It pivoted again.

The company dove into helping small businesses get access to a special tax credit created by the federal government to give money back to companies crushed by the pandemic. Partnering with a third-party firm, Bottom Line Concepts, WiFi Money helped firms jump through hoops to access the employee-retention credit — and made serious cash in the process. On a podcast in 2023, Moeller said WiFi Money was making $10 million a month in pure profit off the program. But last September, the government placed a moratorium on the program, citing "a flood of improper Employee Retention Credit claims." It had wound up being a gold mine for scammers.

It's not a small amount of money these people are entrusting to another person. And it certainly had a financially devastating effect.

By then, the legal issues had started to mount. Last July, the IRS hit Moeller with a $1.3 million lien over unpaid taxes, which his attorney says has since been resolved. In November, Avery Williamson, a former NFL linebacker, filed suit against Moeller and McDougal, claiming he had been defrauded out of more than $400,000 he gave to Nobility in return for crypto tokens that never materialized. And in December, more than 30 investors in the Amazon-automation business took WiFi Money, Moeller, and Frederick to court, alleging fraudulent inducement, negligent misrepresentation, and civil conspiracy over the sale of DBC stores. The plaintiffs, most of whom lost tens of thousands of dollars, said WiFi Money team members had encouraged them to take out loans to pay for the storefronts and to lie to Amazon.

"It's had a real effect on people's lives," said Victor Bermudez, the attorney representing investors in the suit. "It's not a small amount of money these people are entrusting to another person. And it certainly had a financially devastating effect."

Even some of WiFi Money's partners appear burned by the company. DBC, the Canadian firm that handled the Amazon stores for WiFi Money after Kyncey, said the influencer group took a 50%-plus commission on each sale — and refused to return the cash when stores were shut down by Amazon. The same month investors took WiFi Money to court over the stores, DBC announced it was closing down.

"WiFi Money looks forward to its day in court, and will not make any further comment at this time," said Ragano, the company's attorney. At the moment, dozens of other investors — including Martin and Sadry, the Dallas couple — are thinking about joining the lawsuit. Martin believes that WiFi Money's leaders "deserve to have their asses kicked." But he doesn't think paying a settlement will force Moeller and Frederick to change their ways. "They're not scared of the law. They're not scared of writing a check," he said. "I think it's just part of their business."

If Moeller is perturbed by the lawsuit, he hasn't let it show. About a month after the suit was filed, Moeller posted videos of himself on Instagram sipping Champagne on a private jet en route to Munich, a shiny new gold Rolex Submariner strapped to his wrist.

"More motivated than ever," he said. "Cheers to the biggest year of our lives."

---

Rob Price is a senior correspondent for Business Insider and writes features and investigations about the technology industry. His Signal number is +1 650-636-6268, and his email is rprice@businessinsider.com.

• The top 10 women on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index are worth just over $500 billion combined.
• Walmart heiress Alice Walton and Fidelity CEO Abigail Johnson are both on the list.
• Take a closer look at some of the world's richest women.

L'Oréal's biggest shareholder, a Walmart heir, and the CEO of Fidelity are among the 10 richest women in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

They've each amassed fortunes of more than $25 billion — and are worth a staggering $500 billion combined.

Check out this list of the 10 wealthiest women on the planet.

• Kellsie Bain is a makeup artist who moved from Australia to Canada.
• Bain moved for her career and because she wanted to see the world beyond Sydney.
• While she's happy in Canada, she does miss the weather, beaches, and the people in Australia.

Kellsie Bain, 33, said she "always had a travel bug."

Bain, who grew up and lived in Sydney, told Business Insider she visited the US several times in her 20s, including trips to New York City. She dreamed of moving there.

"But as I got older, I just realized how difficult that was, especially as an Australian, to get a US visa," Bain said. "It's quite challenging, especially being self-employed."

While her dream of moving to New York may not have come true — at least not yet — the "travel bug" didn't go away, and she was able to move somewhere else: Canada.

"Canada is exactly what I expected it to be like," Bain said. "There's a few things here that have shocked me. I didn't think the homeless problem would be as bad as what it is here."

Bain said she got her visa "approved in a couple of months, and it was just a lot more simple" than what the process would have been like for a US visa.

Bain, a destination makeup artist, said she "had to pack up the house" she owned and made the "big move" to Canada in the summer of 2022. She said, "I travel a lot with my bridal makeup business, so I've kind of been traveling throughout that time, but primarily I keep coming back to Vancouver, and this has been my base since then."

Bain was excited about the move and ready for a change. "I wanted to meet new people, and I wanted a challenge," she said. "And, that's what I got."

Pros and cons of living in Vancouver

Bain noted to BI several personal advantages to living in Vancouver, including the people who she has found can be welcoming and generous.

"For the most part, I've been here on my own, which has been challenging," she said but added people have supported her and her business.

But there are also pros beyond the people, such as the location.

"It's a beautiful country," Bain said. "The landscape is stunning. I love being close to the water."

Bain, who said she's into health and fitness, also has found "a lot of people live a really healthy lifestyle here" and that people love the outdoors. She said she loved the spin studio she joined.

After living in Australia and given her work as a destination makeup artist, Bain said another pro is the proximity from Vancouver to other places.

"The main reason behind my move was I started to get global attention from my TikTok," Bain, who had over 100,000 followers on her TikTok account at the time of reporting, said. With that attention, she said there were people looking to book her work, and she wanted to be closer to where bookings would need her.

While Bain moved partly for her career, she was also ready to see what life was like outside of Sydney after living there for so long.

"I felt like I really wanted to experience more of the world," she said.

While she finds the summertime can be beautiful, she finds the weather and temperature in general a large con of being in Vancouver. She misses the weather and beaches in Australia, although she noted there are beaches in Vancouver too.

She said she also misses her family dog and "the familiarity of being around my family and friends." Plus, she said, "I miss the Australian people."

"They're down to earth," she said. "They're honest. They're loud, and I really miss that at times."

Another issue is the cost of living. She has found this is quite high.

Bain said she's been subleasing because she prefers "short-term rentals because I really don't know what's around the corner." She looks for fully furnished apartments when subleasing. Her current rent is over 2,000 Canadian dollars.

"A few years ago, I definitely wouldn't have been able to afford that on my own, but I'm grateful that I can now," she said.

Bain had to adjust her work in Canada.

"I had more of a client-facing business two years ago," she said. "In Sydney, I was doing four or five weddings a week, and then on my days off, I'd have clients coming to my house to get makeup done."

She thinks Canadians aren't as obsessed with makeup as Australians and Europeans are.

"So when I moved here, I just wasn't picking up as many client-facing makeup jobs," she added.

She also found that wedding work in Canada is more seasonal than in Australia due to the snowy winters. Given that, she tried working at a hotel spa early on after her move to help make some money, but she did that only briefly as she said she wasn't making a lot at the hotel.

"I had to basically transform my whole business," she said. "I launched an online business selling masterclasses, workshops. I do coaching calls for makeup artists."

In addition to launching the masterclass in the spring of last year and starting those calls in the summer, she also does content creation and picks up makeup jobs in Canada.

She said if she were "relying solely on makeup jobs and client-facing work, it would be very, very hard to live here."

Bain is happy living in Canada and the positives that come with being there. However, her dream of New York isn't completely out of the picture either.

"I think eventually I'll move back to Australia, but there is a part of me that would love to experience living in the States, even if it's just for a year or two," she said. "New York still really interests me, but then I also just think I've just built my reputation in this town and built my business up here."

She said while she's confident she could do it, "it's also a very expensive process to get a visa in the States. So I don't know what's around the corner, but we'll see."

Share your moving story with this reporter at mhoff@businessinsider.com.

• Severe weather degrades the accuracy of navigation systems and hampers military operations.
• Climate change has made weather patterns more erratic and harder to forecast.
• This makes it harder for commanders to plan missions and prepare for weather effects.

More extreme weather is scrambling the high-tech systems that have given the US military its edge.

For example, severe weather can degrade navigation systems such as GPS and sensors on precision-guided munitions. Heavy rain ground aircraft and drones, intense heat exhausts troops, dust storms gum up tank engines, and storms damage ships at sea. Smoke and sandstorms blind aerial drones. Commanders and troops need to have a good idea of what the weather will be like the next day or the next month — forecasts that are getting fouled by the growing unpredictability of weather patterns.

"Reliably forecasting extreme weather's frequency and intensity to inform strategy is perhaps the most important challenge for the US and allied militaries to adapt to or mitigate a changing climate, because it is imperative that operations and campaigns are feasible meteorologically," warned James Regens in a recent essay for the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank.

Unexpected weather has always frustrated the best-laid plans of commanders. Had rain not turned the ground muddy the night before the battle, Napoleon might have been able to move up his artillery and win at Waterloo. Surprise dust storms crippled helicopters in the daring American operation to rescue hostages from Iran in 1980. And rain and rough seas almost caused the D-Day landings in June 1944 to be cancelled. But in military meteorology's finest hour, sharp-eyed Allied weathermen were able to forecast a break in the storms that the Germans didn't foresee, which allowed the invasion to achieve tactical surprise.

However, these mishaps reflect weather, which is a short-term phenomenon. Climate refers to long-term patterns, including the probability of severe weather. While climate change has become a highly politicized issue, there is general agreement among scientists that the Earth's climate is getting warmer.

This doesn't mean the weather will be hotter everywhere all the time, but it does indicate that severe weather events — heat, rain, even snow — will be more intense when they happen. One example is California in 2024, which went from years of drought to "atmospheric rivers" that dumped massive amounts of rain that caused mudslides and damaged homes and roads.

This can be catastrophic for farmers and people living in flood zones. But it's equally bad for militaries, especially those with advanced capabilities such as the US armed forces, which rely on delicate and interconnected systems that can be degraded by weather.

For example, meteorological information is key to the position, navigation and timing (PNT) systems that enable many guided weapons and communications networks to function and coordinate. "Precision fires, aircraft flight operations, surface warship maneuver, ballistic missile trajectories and satellite launch windows to support intelligence collection and communications systems all depend on reliable PNT solutions grounded in meteorological projections," wrote Regens, an intelligence expert and founding partner of Antiphon Solutions, an Oklahoma-based analytics firm.

This puts a premium on developing models and technologies that can offer accurate short- and long-term weather forecasts, and do so even as scientific understanding of the impact of global climate change evolves. The strategic implications are profound. For example, knowing the rate at which Arctic ice is melting — creating new shipping channels and uncovering mineral riches — is of great interest to many nations.

Arctic warming creates a "significant homeland defense and national security challenge for US and allied decision-making for North America and NATO's northern flank in Europe," Regens told Business Insider. "Add to this mix the humanitarian missions the US military does in response to floods, monsoons, and other weather problems, and the Pentagon and NATO need to recognize the risk extreme weather in a changing climate poses to military operations."

However, Regens points to another problem: getting timely weather forecasts to those who need them. "Military forecasting works fine as long as units have secure network access to near-real time numerically predictive weather information for planning and executing missions," Regens told Business Insider.

The problem is that tactical units on the front lines, or in remote areas, often lack the connectivity to receive weather reports. "NOAA [the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration], the private sector and universities are actively working to improve global weather models," Regens said. "The missing link is compressing this capability into a tactical package for warfighters."

"This requires a major effort to meet the requirements of tactically disaggregated, independently operating units for immediate reliable data," said Regens. "Otherwise, they are going to have limited success firing highly lethal and expensive munitions at significant ranges."     

Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds an MA in political science from Rutgers Univ. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

• Michael Burry of "The Big Short" fame revealed an $8 million wager on gold this week.
• The renowned investor bought into a trust that owns physical gold bullion.
• John Paulson, who also called the mid-2000s housing crash, continues to bet big on gold.

It turns out Michael Burry isn't only a metalhead when it comes to music.

The investor of "The Big Short" fame purchased about 441,000 units of the Sprott Physical Gold Trust last quarter. The trust holds virtually all of its assets in physical gold bullion.

Burry's Scion Asset Management revealed its first-quarter holdings in a regulatory filing this week. The gold bet was worth $7.6 million at the end of March, ranking it as Scion's fifth-largest position with a 7.4% weighting in the firm's $103 million US stock portfolio.

If the wager remains intact, it was valued at $8.1 million as of Friday, per Sprott's bullion calculator.

Buying gold is a surprising move from Burry, a value investor known for sniffing out dirt-cheap stocks — including GameStop years before it became a meme stock.

He's also bet against high flyers like Elon Musk's Tesla, Cathie Wood's Ark Innovation ETF , and a microchip ETF that counts Nvidia as its top holding.

Burry shot to fame for predicting and profiting from the collapse of the mid-2000s housing bubble. The saga was chronicled in the book and movie "The Big Short."

John Paulson made his name with a similar wager, immortalized in a book titled "The Greatest Trade Ever." Like Burry, the Paulson & Co. chief appears to be bullish on gold and other precious metals.

Paulson's firm counted AngloGold Ashanti, Agnico Eagle Mines, Equinox Gold, Iamgold, International Tower Hill Mines, Novagold, Perpetua Resources, Seabridge Gold, and Trilogy Metals among its 18 holdings at the end of March, a SEC filing showed this week.

Back in 2021, the veteran investor predicted stubborn inflation would force the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates, spurring investors to dump their cash and other assets for gold. He argued the double whammy of surging demand and limited supply would cause the yellow metal's price to soar.

Paulson's call proved prescient. The Fed has raised its benchmark rate from nearly zero to north of 5% in a bid to bring down inflation, and the price of gold has jumped from about $1,800 per troy ounce when Paulson touted it in 2021 to record levels above $2,400 in recent weeks.

Burry correctly predicted inflation and rising rates as well, and appears to share Paulson's view that gold stands to benefit.

However, it's worth pointing out that portfolio updates are only a snapshot of an investor's holdings on a single day, and may have changed by the time they're made public.

They also exclude shares sold short, private investments, overseas holdings, and non-stock assets like bonds and real estate.

Still, Burry's relatively large and uncharacteristic gold purchase is certainly notable — especially when one of the few other winners from the housing crash is also betting big on bullion.