Leon Black's Apollo Global And The Pursuit Of Twitter

In June 2022, Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison after being found guilty of five sex-trafficking counts linked to the operation of Jeffrey Epstein, including transporting minors and conspiring to entice minors for illegal sexual acts. A judge described her conduct as “heinous and predatory,” emphasizing that although Epstein was central to the scheme, Maxwell was being punished for her own active role in recruiting, grooming, and facilitating abuse of girls as young as 14.Since the sentencing, Maxwell has appealed her conviction and sought to challenge the prosecution on several grounds—including whether a 2008 non-prosecution agreement with Epstein shielded her—but the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear her appeal in October 2025, meaning her conviction and 20-year sentence remain intact unless altered through clemency.to contact me:[email protected] a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-epstein-chronicles--5003294/support.

In April 2022, when Elon Musk made his $43–44 billion bid to buy Twitter, Apollo Global Management quickly surfaced as one of the major Wall Street firms exploring involvement. Reports from the Wall Street Journal and Sports Business Journal indicated that Apollo, which owned Yahoo and AOL through its portfolio, was considering helping finance Musk’s bid through preferred equity or debt financing. The firm was also exploring options to roll its existing digital assets—like Yahoo’s advertising infrastructure—into a broader partnership with Twitter after acquisition. The discussions positioned Apollo as one of the most significant institutional players potentially backing Musk, underscoring its appetite for high-profile tech and media investments.By October 2022, however, Reuters and PYMNTS confirmed that Apollo, along with Sixth Street Partners, had dropped out of negotiations. Sources familiar with the talks said the firms were “no longer in discussions” to participate in the financing package, citing uncertainties over Musk’s shifting deal terms and the platform’s long-term revenue trajectory. The withdrawal highlighted Apollo’s risk-management approach—balancing bold investment ambition with caution toward volatile technology assets. In the end, Musk closed the acquisition without Apollo’s participation, and the firm publicly moved on to other digital-media ventures.to contact me:[email protected] a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-epstein-chronicles--5003294/support.

From 2019–2021, coverage consistently depicted Prince Andrew and his team pushing hard to undermine Virginia Giuffre’s credibility rather than engage with her claims on the merits. In late-2019, after Giuffre’s BBC Panorama interview, palace messaging and friendly coverage stressed doubts about the photo and Andrew’s “no recollection” line; by 2021, reporting showed aides and lawyers probing angles to attack her reliability—including a planned “false memories” argument and efforts to question her psychologist and husband as the civil case geared up.Subsequent document leaks (reported in 2025 but describing actions around the 2011 photo publication) sharpened what those 2019–2021 stories were circling: emails suggesting Andrew claimed Giuffre had a U.S. criminal record and that he’d provided her date of birth and Social Security number to a Met protection officer—moves now being “actively looked into” by London police. These reports, alongside the 2011 “we are in this together” email to Epstein surfaced by UK outlets, retroactively frame the 2019–2021 period as part of a longer-running scramble to dig up dirt and discredit Giuffre.to contact me:[email protected] a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-epstein-chronicles--5003294/support.

The estate’s executors have repeatedly told courts and the administrators of the victims’ compensation fund that the estate lacks sufficient liquid cash to promptly pay all claims and legal obligations. For example, in early 2021 the administrators of the victims’ fund paused new payments after being notified the estate “did not have sufficient liquidity to fully satisfy” further compensation requests.The root of the claimed challenge is that while the estate holds substantial illiquid or hard-to-value assets (real estate, trusts, offshore holdings), large sums have already been paid out in settlements and fees, leaving limited readily accessible funds. At the same time, the valuations of major assets (such as his Manhattan townhouse and the Caribbean islands) have either dropped or remain under court-supervision, meaning converting assets to cash quickly is complicated and constrained by legal, tax and trust structures.to contact me:[email protected] a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-epstein-chronicles--5003294/support.

According to multiple investigative reports and the biography Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York by historian Andrew Lownie, Prince Andrew’s long friendship with Jeffrey Epstein was far from incidental—it was transactional. Epstein, a convicted sex offender and financial manipulator, sought out powerful associations to legitimize himself socially, and Andrew, by virtue of his royal title, gave him exactly that. Lownie writes that Epstein viewed Andrew as “a useful idiot,” someone who conferred prestige and access without understanding the depth of manipulation surrounding him. In return, Andrew enjoyed the lavish hospitality, private jet flights, and introductions that came with Epstein’s global social circle, often rationalizing it as elite networking.This dynamic, according to Lownie and others, made Andrew a kind of walking advertisement for Epstein’s credibility. When Epstein needed doors opened—to billionaires, politicians, or foreign dignitaries—Andrew’s name did the work. The biography also alleges that Epstein collected compromising material on Andrew, which he allegedly used to enhance his own leverage with foreign business and intelligence contacts. Ultimately, while Andrew gained temporary glamour and convenience, Epstein gained social armor and influence at the highest levels, using the prince’s royal aura to cloak a criminal enterprise.to contact me:[email protected] a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-epstein-chronicles--5003294/support.

Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s unpublished memoir The Billionaire’s Playboy Club recounts her recruitment into Jeffrey Epstein’s world as a 16-year-old working at Mar-a-Lago, where she says Ghislaine Maxwell lured her in with promises of opportunity and travel. The manuscript describes how she became trapped in Epstein’s orbit, allegedly forced into sexual encounters with powerful men, including Prince Andrew, and ferried across his properties in New York, Florida, and the Virgin Islands. Giuffre paints a detailed picture of coercion, psychological manipulation, and the disturbing normalization of exploitation within Epstein’s high-society circle.In this episode, we begin our journey through that memoir.   to contact me:[email protected]:Virgina Giuffre Billionaire's Playboy Club | DocumentCloudBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-epstein-chronicles--5003294/support.

Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s unpublished memoir The Billionaire’s Playboy Club recounts her recruitment into Jeffrey Epstein’s world as a 16-year-old working at Mar-a-Lago, where she says Ghislaine Maxwell lured her in with promises of opportunity and travel. The manuscript describes how she became trapped in Epstein’s orbit, allegedly forced into sexual encounters with powerful men, including Prince Andrew, and ferried across his properties in New York, Florida, and the Virgin Islands. Giuffre paints a detailed picture of coercion, psychological manipulation, and the disturbing normalization of exploitation within Epstein’s high-society circle.In this episode, we begin our journey through that memoir.   to contact me:[email protected]:Virgina Giuffre Billionaire's Playboy Club | DocumentCloudBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-epstein-chronicles--5003294/support.

In her posthumously published memoir, Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice, Giuffre alleges that while she was trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein and his associates she was sent to a “well-known Prime Minister” who raped her “more savagely than anyone had before”. She describes being choked until unconscious, bleeding from multiple wounds, and begging Epstein not to return her to that person — only to be told coldly “You’ll get that sometimes.”The identity of the prime minister remains undisclosed in the memoir, but the revelation has stirred renewed scrutiny of the power networks and political complicity surrounding Epstein’s trafficking operations. According to media coverage, Giuffre’s ghostwriter claims to know all the “names in Epstein’s files” and the book has reignited debates about immunity, accountability and how high the cover-up goes.to contact  me:[email protected]:Epstein accuser's memoir alleges rape by prime minister, recalls Epstein-Clinton ties | Fox NewsBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-epstein-chronicles--5003294/support.

In November 2019 a video surfaced in which Robach can be heard complaining—off-camera and apparently unaware she was being recorded—that ABC News had shelved a 2015 interview she conducted with Virginia Roberts Giuffre (formerly “Virginia Roberts”)—one of the women accusing Jeffrey Epstein and members of his circle of sexual-trafficking of minors. The tape (ultimately leaked by the activist group Project Veritas) includes Robach claiming that higher-ups at the network told her “Who’s Jeffrey Epstein? No one knows who that is. This is a stupid story.” She also suggests the reason the story was killed was pressure from the British royal family via the palace, because the allegations involved Prince Andrew. In the tape Robach says: “I tried for three years to get it on… What we had was unreal… Bill Clinton — we had everything.”In response, both Robach and ABC News issued statements. Robach said she was “caught in a private moment of frustration,” clarifying that the 2015 interview “didn’t meet our standards” for airing because the network could not secure sufficient corroborating evidence, and that she was referencing what Giuffre alleged, not what ABC had verified.    ABC News stated that while “not all of our reporting met our standards to air,” they have never ceased investigating Epstein’s story and continue to dedicate resources, including a documentary and podcast series. They also stated that the story was not quashed for access reasons.to contact me:[email protected] a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-epstein-chronicles--5003294/support.

The nickname “nonce” became associated with Prince Andrew following the exposure of his deep ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and the allegations made by Virginia Giuffre that he had sexual contact with her when she was underage. In British slang, “nonce” is a highly derogatory term for someone accused of child sexual abuse, and the label stuck after Andrew’s disastrous 2019 BBC Newsnight interview, where his denials — including the infamous “I don’t sweat” line — made him a public laughingstock. The term spread rapidly through social media, satire, and even pop culture, culminating in the release of the punk song Prince Andrew Is a Sweaty Nonce, which mocked both his scandal and his implausible defenses. The nickname became shorthand for his fall from grace and a reflection of the public’s disgust toward his alleged conduct and lack of accountability.When Prince Philip died in April 2021, Andrew maneuvered his way into the funeral despite being stripped of royal duties and public standing. Attendance was strictly limited to thirty people due to COVID restrictions, but Andrew, as Philip’s son, was included as a matter of protocol — a decision that sparked backlash among both the public and palace insiders. Reports suggested Andrew was eager to use the event as a soft return to royal life, positioning himself visibly in the procession and trying to rehabilitate his image through sympathy optics. While the palace maintained his inclusion was a family matter, critics viewed it as a calculated move by Andrew to reinsert himself into royal proceedings after the Epstein scandal had effectively exiled him from public life.to contact me:[email protected] a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-epstein-chronicles--5003294/support.