The ex-bank MD with a $10m+ settlement who's funding Tucker Carlson
If you're not in the US, you might not have encountered Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News conservative pundit. But you may still know his name. After being fired by Fox News in April, Carlson has resurfaced on X ('Tucker on Twitter'), where he posts free videos about world events. He's also just raised $6m for a new media company, the money for which came from a company co-founded by a former Bank of America MD once burned by false accusations of sexual harassment.
Carlson's $6m came from 1789 Capital, a company founded by Omeed Malik, a banker who - for a brief moment in 2018, around the height of the MeToo movement, was well known for all the wrong reasons.
Malik spent six years at BofA and became head of the prime broking division there. However, he was fired by the bank days before he was due to receive his 2018 bonus amidst unproven accusations that as a 38-year-old managing director, he had sexually harassed junior female colleagues. Those accusations were subsequently proven false and Malik - who filed a defamation claim against Bank of America for $100m, received over $10m in compensation for his wrongful termination.
Malik declined to comment for this article. But given that 1789 is being referred to as an 'anti-woke' investment firm by the likes of the Wall Street Journal, it might be supposed that that his experience of being hounded out of BofA has shaped his decision to invest in ventures negating the ESG agenda.
Apparently not. Malik, who was initially a Democrat, reportedly had his politics turned by the US government's response to COVID 19. He's not only sponsoring Carlson but has funded Robert F. Kennedy Jr. too.
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