‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli releases Wu-Tang songs after Trump’s win
The pharmaceutical CEO who achieved notoriety for hiking up the price of an AIDS drug has lived up to his promise to leak unreleased Wu-Tang Clan songs following Trump’s election win.
Martin Shkreli paid $2 million to buy the only copy of the hip-hop collective’s album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin at auction, and until now has refused to share any of the music with anyone else.
That was until he made a promised to release the music if Donald Trump won the US presidential election however, and yesterday he made good on his pledge.
During a livestream Shrkeli played a portion of the record, though said that there’s more he has yet to share.
“I’ve got to decide how to put out — there’s about 30, 35 tracks,” he said during the clip.
“I actually have a contract with the Wu-Tang Clan where I’m not allowed to do this. Obviously, I own the music and I bought it and paid a lot of money for it. In many ways, the contract shouldn’t matter that much.
“But I am a man of my word; I had to play a little bit of it…but I’ve got to keep my word to them, too.”
Shkreli drew infamy last year when his company Turing Pharmaceuticals bought the rights to 62-year-old drug Daraprim, used to treat conditions including AIDS-related toxoplasmosis.
Despite costing less than $1 per pill to manufacture, Shkreli hiked the drug’s price up by 5500%, charging $750 per pill.
He eventually appeared before US Congress to answer question’s about the company’s actions, but mostly stayed quiet throughout the hearing.
He was quiet and detached throughout, but smirked and at one point even giggled during discussion of the impact of his price hike.
He later said that he wished he’d raised the price of the drug even higher, to “maximise profit.”
Releasing the Wu-Tang music isn’t Shkreli’s only recent publicity stunt though.
In September, he began accepting bids for people to punch him in the face, claiming the funds would be used to support the son of one of his friends who had passed away.
A woman named Katie from Florida won the auction, promising to donate $50,000 in exchange for the right to “repeatedly pummel [Shkreli] in the face.”
It may seem unsurprising that Shkreli is a Trump supporter, but it’s a little more unusual if you know what Trump himself thinks of him.
He drew the President-elect’s ire at the time of the price hike, and was branded a “spoiled brat.”
“I thought it was a disgusting thing, what he did. I thought it was a disgrace,” Trump said at the time.
“That guy is nothing. He’s zero. He’s nothing. He ought to be ashamed of himself.”
