[imagesource: Liverrch Media / Instagram]

Dan Bilzerian styles himself as the “King Of Instagram”, and has amassed around 32 million followers on the platform.

If you’re inclined to pop past his account, you’ll see scantily clad women, a life of luxury, lots of weapons, and some marijuana smoking.

Bilzerian has turned the smoking into a business, Ignite, although that has come with its fair share of criticism for being ‘sexist’ (gee, what a shocker) and attempting dumb publicity stunts with bears.

According to reports, Bilzerian recently purchased what is known as the Beverly Hills “marijuana mansion” for $65 million, which is also where he held the launch party for Ignite.

If you fancy a tour, Dan’s obliging, and he recently gave one to CNBC for their ‘Secret Lives of the Super Rich’ series:

Not a bad digs.

If we’re talking about ‘secret lives of the super rich’, though, we should also mention the lawsuit filed last week by the former president of Ignite, Curtis Heffernan, who claims that Bilzerian actually rents his house, and charges the rest of his lifestyle to a credit card that someone else pays off.

The lawsuit has been covered by Forbes:

The lease on his home in the ritzy Los Angeles hills, for example, is $200,000 a month. Dan Bilzerian does not pay this rent.

The house and everything else—the models, the flights, the yachts, etc.—is charged to the corporate tab of Ignite International Ltd., the company Bilzerian founded and serves as CEO and majority shareholder, according to Heffernan…

And according to Heffernan’s suit, complaining about Dan Bilzerian’s addiction to spending company money—and objecting to various sleight-of-hand tricks that would hide this spending—are what got him fired.

Heffernan is seeking damages for defamation, and wrongful termination, among other grievances.

Bilzerian has threatened to countersue Heffernan, denying the allegations, but they’re backed up by former employees who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of repercussion:

“Ignite pays for everything,” one said. “Models, events, yachts. Dan would just have it wrapped with the Ignite logo, and all of a sudden it was an Ignite expense and he would send them the bill.”

Image: GETTY IMAGES FOR IGNITE INTERNATIONAL BRANDS, LTD.

“Pools, trampolines,” the employee added, “his ‘personal events’ that had nothing to do with the business.”

Heffernan claims that when he raised the issue with Bilzerian, after other Ignite board members pressured him to sign off on the expenses as legitimate business charges, Bilzerian accused Heffernan of using drugs, before firing him.

Must be nice to have a business cover all of your expenses, but it’s not exactly a great business model, because Ignite lost a staggering $50 million last year.

When Forbes dug deeper into the company’s annual report, they found some strange spending habits:

Ignite “made” money in two ways last year. The company issued and sold shares of its company stock, and the company also raised money via debt…

That is, Dan Bilzerian’s company has (had) a lot of other peoples’ money.

With that money, Ignite went on a spending spree, even as its stock tanked…

Ignite hosted lavish parties, threw events, and did all kinds of stuff a company flush with cash does. Parties with platoons’ worth of models are expensive!

In 2019, Ignite lost [Canadian] $43 million on operational costs alone, mostly marketing and promotion, leases on offices, and compensation for staff and executives.

The report showed that for every dollar in sales, the company spent almost two dollars on “general and administrative” costs, under which you can apparently file party like a rockstar.

It sure is a lot easier to live like a king when you’re blowing through the money of investors.

Oh, and you can also fall back on the Bank of Dad:

Complicating all of this is the unavoidable fact that Dan Bilzerian receives at least some of his fortune from his father, Paul Bilzerian, a felon and Wall Street fraudster whom the Securities and Exchange Commission says owes them (that is: owes you, the American taxpayer) $62 million.

In past interviews, Bilzerian has copped to being a beneficiary of trust funds set up by his father…

If the models, yachts, cars, guns, and stacks of cash that populate Bilzerian’s Instagram feed are in any way related to his company—and seeing as the models, and his house, and his jet all bear the goat-horned logo that’s Ignite’s brand, there is a good chance that they are—and are paid for with company cash, the answer to “how does Dan Bilzerian do it?!” is simple.

Like any good businessman, it seems Bilzerian sticks someone else with the bill.

You can read the rest of that dive into Ignite’s reports here.

Maybe one day it will all come crashing down, and Bilzerian’s Instagram account will be a treasure trove of evidence for investigators, similar to the recent arrest of Ray Hushpuppi.

Anyway, just something to bear in mind while you’re working from home, and Dan’s smoking blunts with 10 models again.

[sources:cnbc&forbes&forbes]