Martin Shkreli Is Back and Primed to Fight

Listen, this is so fascinating. Remind everybody because we were marveling that like, ten years ago, it was nonstop and and talking about this guy, figuring out how to pronounce his name and then talking about him nonstop. But remind the world in case they missed who this dude is. Yeah. So Martin Shkreli, for those who aren't familiar, really kind of rose to prominence in 2015, and that's after he decided to raise the price of an anti parasitic drug that is life saving. To be clear by 5,000%. Uh, and after that, that kind of created a host of various problems and probes also from authorities. And that kind of allowed him to rise to prominence, to say the least. Uh, we got to see him throughout the trial, uh, spitballing, tweeting, despite pleading the fifth. Uh, there's just a lot of different things that happened. And now he's definitely back in the spotlight. We're speaking with Avalon Purnell, Bloomberg News equities reporter. She writes this great story about Martin Shkreli being back in prime to fight to the bitter end. So how is your conversation with him for this story? Well, I can't say that we necessarily had a conversation. Why not? We did have an email exchange. That being said, well, part of the reason why we did not get to have a conversation is that he did ask to be paid. And as you both know, that is against our company's policy. So we were not able to have a conversation, but definitely included that side. I should note this is you know what? Nobody pays. No. No news organization sort of like worth its salt or whatever, right? Would actually pay a source to have a conversation. So it's not just like, you know, it's just standard. Let's let me rephrase. This is standard policy. So yeah, it should not come as a surprise to him. Somebody who has been in the spotlight for many years. No, exactly. I mean, you know, we were also kind of just share it. Like his story is just an interesting one, like every twist and turn. And here we are in another chapter that's also interesting. But right now we're reminding us on the call about like, all the stuff of his background. Yeah. Everyone, you get into it. Um, born in Brooklyn, the son of immigrants did really well in high school. Um, how did he find himself in on, you know, uh, on the wrong side of the law a decade ago. Well, I mean, even walking before that, I mean, he interned under, uh, the hedge fund that Jim Cramer previously was over. And at that point, he also really found his first love, which is shorting stocks. He had a very well timed bearish bet on Regeneron that did end up getting him probed. Obviously everything ended up coming out to be fine for that one. But then he decided to open up his own hedge fund. Those kind of blew up and we got to see a lot of legal troubles come and ensue after that situation, but definitely was very early on interested in finance and also in pharmaceuticals. Yeah, he's quite a character, right. And I really do feel like he's got, uh, a certain style. Right. Um, when it comes to, um, how are you dresses things and how he kind of justifies what he has done. So. So he's back. How is he back? Well, he has a lot of various things in his toolkit, to say the least. Part of it is the live streams, which can go from as long as, like nine hours to as short as, like two hours, which was today. It really just kind of depends. But he speaks on everything. Everything from like today, he spoke about relationship advice. Previously he will also talk about like finance also everything from like oh you should be long this stock maybe potentially these companies could be a short. It really just kind of depends on his mood. And all throughout it all he's has to be advertising his goodwill uh platform as well. Yeah. So you mentioned it. So talk about what that is. It's a competitor to the it is what he says. This is Bloomberg Terminal. One thing that he likes to say that it's kind of a sense of self differently from the Bloomberg terminal, is that it does focus more and more on private companies as opposed to only like equities, which I mean, we also obviously cover that as well, but it's just a slightly different target audience. We should know that Bloomberg LP is the which offers the terminal as part of its suite of financial products, is the parent company of Bloomberg News, including Bloomberg Radio and Bloomberg Media. Uh, Avalon, you, you and Carol. You said this like he's back. But I would argue after reading this story, he wouldn't be completely back until he Unless he gets a pardon from the president. That is very true. So part of what happened after the case, he was banned from the pharmaceutical industry outright lifetime ban. And he's also barred from certain roles within the securities industry as well. And so he's definitely looking out for a pardon because that would allow him to rejoin the C-suite. He's actually currently consulting an advising, uh, photonics company that was previously a pharmaceutical company. And so if he does receive a pardon, then potentially he could actually re-enter the C-suite and pursue various things, which he has tweeted about in the past as well. Remind us his track record is good. It's like kind of random, right? It's a bit mixed, but at least when it comes to pharmaceuticals, he tends to be pretty good. I mean, we have one that he was fairly wrong on, like Capricorn, but a lot of his fans also tweeted at me as well about how cassava was one where he did seem to be right. That was previously sell Life sciences. And so it just kind of depends on the company. But at least for some of these tech names that he's been diving into lately, I mean, some of them have actually gone down like SpaceX or an Intel. It just kind of depends on the day. Um, what kind of response have you gotten? I'm just curious from people weighing in because I do feel like he he either has mega supporters or people who are pretty critical. Yes, it's definitely been, as you would expect, definitely a mixed bag as well. Some people who are just like, oh my gosh, I can't believe. What do you mean? He's back? He's always been there for me. And when I spoke to some of his fans, they've also said that they've been looking out for him even throughout his prison stint the past decade. They've been very, very interested in everything that the former bro has been doing and others are more so, like, why are we focusing on him? What's going on? Have you had a chance? He's been known to to to have, uh, back and forth with reporters online. Uh, I'm just wondering if you've heard from him after this story came out. Well, he did have one tweet out about his discord. Outside of that, generally nothing. I will also say like one of his live streams, he did mention us as well. And so we'll see. What's a great piece? And it it was just fascinating to sort of blast from the past, but also to sort of understand what he's doing right now and how he has continued to have this following even after, uh, being out of the spotlight for a few years in prison. Is the white House even considering a pardon? I mean, he had submitted an application. So in theory, he is going through the process. I can't speak on that specifically as to what that will look like politically. Is he doing right now? What has he done with Republicans, um, during the 2024 election? You get into that a little bit. Yeah, we definitely get into that slightly in terms of how he has been very publicly within the Twitter sphere, likes tweeting out against certain Democratic senators and other representatives. But aside from that, he's just been asking his followers to, you know, please put my name up, trying to say, generally speaking, like, okay, you can't pay for a pardon, but if you have any sort of ends or if you're in the know, then please help me out. So 500,000 plus X followers and then I guess his other stream, was it like 90,000 or something? Yes, but he has a web of YouTubes. There's Martin, Kelly, Mr. Kelly, Kelly pill, Kelly Planet. So he also has a lot of followers across the YouTube sphere as well.