'Relentless private hustle' has let RFK Jr. make millions from conspiracy crusades: report

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., well known for his legal advocacy particularly when it comes to vaccination conspiracy theories, has cashed in on it to the tune of "tens of millions," according to The New York Times.

"Behind much of his public career has been a relentless private hustle: board positions and advisory gigs, side deals with law firms, book contracts and an exhausting schedule of paid speeches, once upward of 60 a year by his own count," according to the report.

Kennedy, the report continues, has spent decades looking for other streams of income besides his "six-figure salary" from nonprofits: "[H]e has entwined his loftier missions with opportunities for enrichment. In addition to his salary at Children’s Health Defense, for instance, he stands to profit personally from lawsuits, including against the pharmaceutical giant Merck over a common vaccine for children."

All of this, the report continued, is distinct from the roughly $4 to 5 million in inherited assets from the Kennedy family, held in trusts.

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His environmental law work, for which he was best known before his crusade against vaccines, had a similar pattern, said the report: "When Mr. Kennedy was still best known as an environmentalist, he met Alan Salzman, an investor in clean technology companies," said the report.

"Mr. Kennedy would earn millions of dollars over at least eight years from work connected to Mr. Salzman’s venture capital firm, VantagePoint, including promoting a project that other environmentalists opposed."

Kennedy, who has been disavowed by much of his family, initially announced his 2024 campaign as a Democrat, but from the start got much of his financial backing and public support from Republicans. He ultimately abandoned that path to run as an independent.

He has repeatedly come under fire for his attacks on vaccination, both the ordinary pediatric schedule and the more recent COVID-19 vaccination drives — and his claims have often taken an antisemitic slant. At the height of the pandemic, Kennedy claimed vaccine mandates were worse than living under Nazi Germany, because at least there "you could hide in the attic like Anne Frank did." And earlier this year, he suggested that the COVID virus may have been "ethnically targeted" to leave Jews unharmed.