‘The most hated man in America’ is back and ready to fight everyone

Martin Shkreli wants to make one thing clear to anyone who’s willing to listen: He’s back and he still doesn’t care how many people he ticks off along the way.

It’s been more than a decade since Shkreli vaulted into public consciousness as “the most hated man in America.” Reviled for jacking up prices of a life-saving drug by 5000 per cent, he was, to his critics, the original rage-baiting internet troll who met accusations of price-gouging with indifference and his trademark smirk.

These days, Shkreli, who receded from view after spending more than four years in prison for defrauding investors, is trying to work his way into the public eye by dishing out market-moving stock tips online — with hot takes, name-calling and plenty of NSFW content on the side.

For more than a month, Shkreli has been hosting livestreams on YouTube virtually daily, often hours long. He presents off-the-cuff analysis on scores of companies, one after the next. In between, he promotes his financial software venture, Godel, as a faster and cheaper alternative to the Bloomberg Terminal, and a micro-cap optical computing firm where he’s an adviser. (Bloomberg LP, which offers the terminal as part of its suite of financial products, is the parent company of Bloomberg News.)

At turns, he’s asserted that only “fools” believe stocks go up over time and shorted SpaceX; discussed the intricacies of biotech drug development while likening himself to Picasso; and ridiculed his viewers, telling one to “learn some English motherf—er.”

A recent post on X captured Shkreli’s mindset. “My favourite thing to do is go on the X app and say something which enrages large numbers of people,” Shkreli said, “and then imply that I will fight everyone on this app to the bitter end.”

In many ways, his attempts at a comeback couldn’t come at a better time. Amid the broader rise of retail speculation, financial opportunism and online gambling, consumer protections have largely been removed as the Trump administration takes a laissez-faire approach to regulation.

Shkreli’s increased online presence has coincided with Donald Trump’s return to power, and his short calls, in particular, have moved numerous stocks, sometimes by 40 per cent or more in a day. A pardon, which he talked up to his 500,000-plus X followers leading up to what was expected to be a wave of Fourth of July pardons, could get him back into the game after he was banned for life from the pharmaceuticals industry and barred from working in certain securities roles.

Culturally, Shkreli’s particular style of crude, never-back-down bravado has become the preferred mode of discourse online, from the commander-in-chief on down. But ironically, that’s also made it harder to stand out, even for the man known to admirers and haters alike as the “Pharma Bro.”

Asked to discuss this current chapter of his very public life, Shkreli responded in typical provocateur fashion. He agreed, but asked how much he would be paid. When Bloomberg News declined, citing newsroom policy, Shkreli questioned whether it was fair to expect anyone to create content for free.

“You don’t pay for interviews,” he replied in an email. “Then why would anyone make content for you? That seems unfair.”

Shkreli 2.0

Shkreli’s spectacular rise and fall is a familiar Wall Street story. Raised in Brooklyn to working-class immigrant parents, he developed early interests in biotech and finance. As a teen, Shkreli landed an internship at an investment firm run by Jim Cramer, and made his name with a timely bearish call on Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. After college, he built a career as a hedge-fund manager and biotech entrepreneur.

Shkreli’s notoriety came in 2015 from raising the price of Daraprim, an antiparasitic treatment, from $US13.50 to $US750 per pill. Then, in 2017, he was convicted of misleading clients about his failing hedge funds. (Shkreli’s attorneys portrayed him as an eccentric genius whose investors ultimately made millions. He was also acquitted of charges related to allegations that he took money from his drug company Retrophin to repay them.)

Authorities seized several of Shkreli’s high-value assets, including a $US2 million, one-of-a-kind, Wu-Tang Clan album, an Enigma coding machine used by the Nazis in World War II and letters by Charles Darwin. He was also ordered to pay nearly $US65 million in a separate Daraprim antitrust case.

Released from prison in 2022, Shkreli now operates in a grey area as a financial personality/influencer, where potential conflicts of interest are rife.

In addition to livestreams on YouTube, where he has more than 93,000 followers, Shkreli has a private, paid Discord channel, and publishes his investment views on Substack and X.

Shkreli’s reinvention is a well-trodden path for those who have been barred from working in finance, according to Jake Zamansky, a securities lawyer who represents individual investors. He cites a provision in securities law that allows operators of newspapers, magazines and financial publications to post impersonal investment advice without registering as investment advisers.

Almost all of Shkreli’s published reports and online posts lack investment disclosures, boilerplate language designed to provide greater transparency about possible conflicts and minimise market manipulation.

“A lot of these brokers get thrown out of the industry for misconduct, lying to customers, or fraud and this is how they make their money,” Zamansky said. “They go in these chat groups and then try to recruit investors.”

Short King

Unlike internet personalities who tend to dish on the hottest stocks, Shkreli is notable because he also consistently highlights and targets shares of companies he believes are overvalued. In his past life, one of his hedge funds blew up partly after his aggressive, but ultimately badly executed, short-selling calls.

Lately, Shkreli has spent much of his time sharing those opinions in his livestreams, which can run up to nine hours.

In one, Shkreli kicked things off with a montage of spliced scenes, mainly of himself, interspersed with memes and images with his cat. Another starts with a three-minute intro that includes a rant from Alex Jones of Infowars fame. In all of them, his Godel software platform is displayed prominently in the background, which Shkreli uses to call up ticker after ticker as he interacts with viewers and responds to their comments.

Some are big fans. Stephen Phillips, a 53-year-old day trader, has followed Shkreli off-and-on over the past decade and says he gets a bad rap. Phillips appreciates the way Shkreli breaks down complicated topics for everyday investors and applauds the free advice — despite finding the bearish calls too risky.

“I saw him being hoisted up as an avatar of evil, but I was like, ‘This guy’s funny and he’s smart,’” Phillips said. “He’s a good man, albeit unconventional.”

Francesco Fasulo, a 22-year-old who watches the livestreams from his home in Italy, is drawn by Shkreli’s encyclopaedic knowledge.

“Most of the time he mentions the penny stocks or less-known pharmaceutical stocks that, honestly, I don’t think anybody who generally knows the stock market could even know,” he said. “But I really trust the guy.”

Track record

Since Shkreli began publishing more often in November 2024, his track record, at least on his short calls, has included plenty of hits and a few big misses.

Beyond a slew of big-name companies, including SpaceX, Intel and Moderna, which he rattled off in an early July livestream, his deeper research has largely consisted of smaller biotech and quantum computing firms, published mainly on Substack and X. There have been at least a dozen such write-ups, detailing why their shares should decline.

Of those 12, eight of them, including Capricor Therapeutics and Anavex Life Sciences, fell on the day he publicised his bearish bets, with declines ranging from 9 per cent to 45 per cent, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Yet, as a group, the average gain was 10 per cent, as advances in four stocks offset those that declined. Up to a year later, seven of 12 stocks were trading lower. But the misses outweighed the hits again, and on average, share prices were up roughly 40 per cent.

To be fair, none of his calls have been total wipeouts. (His misses were either up after one day or one year, but not both.) To date, his SpaceX, Intel and Moderna calls have been timely. What’s more, betting against the market has been a brutal exercise for years. Dedicated practitioners are in retreat from a relentless bull market, regulatory crackdowns, and bands of retail traders looking to squeeze short sellers. Biotech in particular can be prone to wild and unpredictable swings.

The Fumble

Exhibit A is Shkreli’s call on Capricor, which is developing an experimental treatment for a rare, fatal muscle-wasting disease. The company was the subject of a 46-page treatise Shkreli co-authored in late November.

His take? “It will not work. This is the company’s only asset.”

On the day Shkreli tweeted about his short call, shares of Capricor tumbled 19 per cent – but less than two weeks later, the stock more than quadrupled after reporting a positive readout. It’s still up more than 300 per cent since his call.

Shkreli issued a mea culpa of sorts in December, saying on X that “while I believe $USCAPR is lying about their data, like they have before, this was a bad call and I apologise to anyone who followed me in it. Onward and upward!”

More recently, Shkreli touched on Capricor again. During the third hour of his July 8 livestream, he was upfront about the hit he’s taken betting against it. (Shkreli has been putting his returns in the titles of his livestreams since late June, and on that day, he was down 3.6 per cent.) Yet he repeated his claim that Capricor was committing fraud.

“I gotta make back the Capricor losses. F—ing stupid thing … It’s all a scam.”

Back in November, when Shkreli first made the allegations, Linda Marban, Capricor’s chief executive officer, told Bloomberg that his short report was an “unwarranted and unfounded attack on science”. The company declined to comment further when reached by email.

Wall Street doesn’t share his view either. Of the 10 Capricor analysts tracked by Bloomberg, all have buy ratings, and on average, expect the company’s stock to appreciate by about 170 per cent in the next year.

Shkreli, as is his wont, doesn’t seem particularly fazed. “When you see me looking at these biotech stocks, it’s just like Picasso, baby,” he said during another livestream. “You get to see Picasso in his prime.”

Bloomberg

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