Washington Free Beacon
Daily Beast owner Barry Diller, Lincoln Project patron David Geffen, and German prince Alex von Fürstenberg suspected of insider trading
Federal authorities are investigating three Democratic megadonors who made an enormous bet on shares of Activision Blizzard just days before Microsoft agreed in January to acquire the video game company for $69 billion.
The U.S. Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission are both looking into the suspiciously timed trading activity of Barry Diller, owner of the Daily Beast, his stepson Alex von Fürstenberg, and his friend David Geffen, a longtime Democratic donor who gave $500,000 to the scandal-plagued Lincoln Project in 2020.
“Suspicious” is perhaps too generous a word to describe the three men’s decision to buy roughly $108 million worth of Activision stock options on Jan. 14. The transaction, privately arranged through JPMorgan Chase, allowed the wealthy Democrats to buy more than four million shares of Activision at the bargain price of $40 per share. Four days later, Activision announced that Microsoft would pay $95 per share to acquire the company. Imagine that!
