For the right price, a billionaire can buy almost anything in the private intelligence industry. Investigators will covertly dig through bins, pose as friendly faces to deceptively extract information, and even coordinate offensive hacking attacks to access private data. Although this by no means represents the whole industry, there is nothing off-menu to the world's wealthiest if you know the right people. And Elon Musk — the proprietor of the world’s deepest pockets — apparently uses private spies liberally, often to acquire information relevant to his personal life and reputation. Apparently, he's just desperate to control everything. This week on Whale Hunting, Bradley is joined by fellow aficionado of the private intelligence industry Alexi Mostrous, Investigations Editor at Tortoise Media. They discuss why Elon Musk uses private spies for personal matters, the relationship between journalists and the intelligence industry, and how Bradley once pranked an overly eager investigator to protect his source.
Mentioned in this week’s episode:
- Elon’s Spies, Alexi Mostrous’ latest podcast for Tortoise
- Walter’s War, a podcast about Oliver Lewis presented by Tortoise’s Basia Cummings
- Neil Gerrard, a lawyer who represented ENRC and is known for representing wealthy clients in high profile legal spats
- The controversial Christopher Steele dossier, which was published by BuzzFeed News
- Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter by Kate Cogan and Ryan Mac
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