Marc Elliot’s NXIVM Claim: 42 Billionaires; & Raniere’s Take Home IQ Test

Marc Elliot made an extraordinary claim about NXIVM attracting billionaires.

Elliot appeared on Ethan Klein’sYouTube H3TV show.

Elliot said, “17,000 people from around the world took [NXIVM] courses… One in 400 of participants in the classes that Keith had created were billionaires. We had people from Stanford, Harvard. Entrepreneurs. These were very thoughtful rational people taking courses. “

These claims raised my eyebrows when I first heard them, so I decided to investigate further. The results of my inquiry were guided by several principles Marc apparently failed to consider: mathematics, reason, and common sense.

Marc’s brand of mathematics is awe-inspiring. It is the type rarely seen outside the chambers of power in Washington or Ottowa. Some call it “voodoo mathematics.” It would not win him a Fields Medal, but you cannot discount his efforts.
 
Children, sharpen your pencils for a word problem:
 

Keith and his NXIVM friends teach classes. Seventeen thousand (17,000) students have taken the classes. One in four hundred (400) students are billionaires. How many billionaires took the classes given by Keith and his NXIVM friends?

 
If you have 42, that is the correct answer. According to Marc Elliot’s statements, there are around 42 NXIVM billionaires.
 
Billionaires Bezos Gates Musk Zuckerberg Arnault
Bezos, Gates, Musk, Zuckerberg, and Arnault. Billionaires all. Viva Executive Success? Too bad none of them have any connection to NXIVM.
 
Who are these 42 NXIVM billionaires? I want to ask Marc to name some.
 
We know Clare and Sara Bronfman were never billionaires. Clare’s net worth statement for her bail application showed a net worth of $200 million in 2018.
 
Sara Bronfman inherited the same amount as Clare and spent a little less on Raniere. Both of them together are unlikely to be worth a billion. And they are the most famous of the wealthy students of NXIVM.
 
Clare and Sara Bronfman. Not NXIVM Billionaires
 
So who were the 42 billionaires? Their father, Edgar Bronfman, I believe, took some private instructions from Nancy Salzman, and he was a billionaire. That’s one, maybe.
 
What about the other 41?
 
Alejandro Junco might be a billionaire, and he seems to have taken a course before he turned against NXIVM, because he found out his daughter, a first line slave to Grandmaster Raniere, was branded with his initials.
 
Mexican media magnate Alejandro Junco attended at least one Vanguard Week.
 
While Mexico City NXIVM member Emiliano Salinas is certainly not a billionaire, his father, former Mexican President Carlos Salinas, might be a billionaire.
 
Carlos Salinas is not known to have taken any NXIVM classes, though his wife, son and daughter did. None of his family members have a known net worth anywhere close to a billion.
 
Carlos Salinas de Gortari. NXIVM Billionaire? Maybe.

NXIVM was in operation from 1998 to 2018. Forbes compiled a list of the world’s wealthiest people every year NXIVM operated. The median year for NXIVM was 2008, when Forbes ranked 1124 people worldwide as billionaires.

Okay children, let’s do another word problem:

Marc says 42 of his NXIVM friends are billionaires. There are 1124 billionaires in total. What percentage of billionaires are Marc’s NXIVM friends?

If you said four (4%) percent, you are correct.
 
So if Marc Elliot is right, one (1) in twenty-five (25) billionaires are NXIVM billionaires. To Keith, Marc, and friends, having all these billionaires hanging around makes perfect sense.
 
It is a core NXIVM principle to control the world’s money, wealth, and resources in an ethical manner, with ethics dictated by the Vanguard.
 
Remember the Twelve-point Mission Statement for Executive Success Systems, Inc., authored by Keith Raniere. Point 11 says:
People control the money, wealth and resources of the world. It is essential for the survival of humankind for these things to be controlled by successful, ethical people.| pledge to ethically control as much of the money, wealth and resources of the world as possible within my successplan. | will always support the ethical control of these things.
Not only did NXIVM collect billionaires, but the effort was “essential for the survival of humankind.” These weren’t just any billionaires. NXIVM billionaires must be the best billionaires. It stands to reason that these NXIVM billionaires should be easy to find.
 
Searching through the 2008 Forbes list and comparing them with known NXIVM students, we could not make a single match here at the Frank Report.
 
Searching through a few other years, we could not find any billionaire Nxians either. Where are these NXIVM students who were billionaires, the best billionaires, who would ensure the survival of humankind?
 

Forbes Billionaires List


Frank Report could not find any of Marc Eliott’s NXIVM Billionaires on the “Forbes World’s Billionaires List.” Was Donald Trump’s “The Art of the Deal” based on Raniere’s “Executive Success?” LaFontaine thinks not.

Perhaps the answer is locked away in Keith Raniere’s brain. His incredible talents are certainly worth billions. Maybe we will all be enlightened once the Vanguard speaks from his Arizona prison cell.
 
The actual evidence does not support Marc Elliot’s claims.
 
Indeed, the one in 400 billionaire claim is similar to another Nxian’s claim: that Keith Raniere made 1000 millionaires. A search through the known NXIVM files showed Keith did not even make a handful of people millionaires. 
 
NXIVM billionaires are hard to find, but Marc Elliot assures us that they exist and are more plentifully found at NXIVM classes than anywhere else on earth.
 
The only NXIVM millionaires we could find were people who had a million before they joined, and usually, they walked away with less, not more, from their coursework at NXIVM. I am thinking of Michael Sutton, Allison Mack, Clare and Sara Bronfman, Rosa Laura Junco, and others.
 
 
How will Keith Raniere respond to these figures? Can the sheer power of his brain overcome mathematics, reason, and common sense? Raniere would say yes, and Marc Elliot would agree.
 
More important than any old billionaire, any old day, is Raniere’s astounding claims about his IQ and his quantifying it. As he said in his bio at http://www.keithraniere.com [now offline], Raniere had a problem-solving rarity of one in 425 million people. That means roughly 19 people out of the 8 billion on Planet Earth are potentially on Keith Raniere’s level.
 


Keith Raniere says he is the most intelligent man in the world.
He once told followers that his brain is so powerful it can set off radar detectors. Maybe it can overcome the laws of mathematics.

So how did Raniere figure out his brain was muy bueno? Raniere took a take-home IQ test – in 1988. Then, based on his score on that take-home test, he did a study to prove how rare his genius was.

The IQ test Raniere took was called The Mega Test [not MAGA, though Donald Trump has never been disavowed as an NXIVM billionaire].

The Mega Society was founded in 1982 by a blind librarian named Ronald K. Hoeflin.

It was never a secret that the Mega IQ test is a take-home test, not monitored for cheating. It is also not timed. A person can take the test home and bring it back anytime. Keith said he never cheated on his Mega IQ test, because that would be dishonorable.

Keith Raniere’s bio stated: “Keith Raniere was honored in 1989 by the Guinness Book of World Records in the category of highest IQ.”

Actually, Raniere’s name appeared once in the 1989 Australian edition of the Guinness Book of Records. His name never appeared in the US or UK editions of the Guinness Book of World Records. In fact, it might not be a coincidence, but within months of his inclusion in the Australian edition of Guinness, the editors retired the “highest IQ” category forever.

Mass Market Paperback Guinness Book of World Records 1989 Book

WHAT ABOUT THE TEST? 

The Mega Society boasts that only super-geniuses [one in a million] could score high enough even to qualify to take the Mega test. By self-acclamation, the Mega test was the hardest IQ test in the world, offered by the most exclusive society of geniuses in the world. One had to take them at their word, for no one outside the organization could judge their genius.

Raniere modestly describes the Mega test and his taking it.

When I took the Mega Test, I did so because some of the problems looked interesting. At first glance, I thought 42 of the problems were trivial, the other six required a little work.

I solved 43 of the problems in about two straight hours; the other 5 problems and proofs of some of my assertions took me about eight more hours, spread out over the next 4 days.

I handed in my result sheet and found shortly thereafter I had copied one of my answers incorrectly (one of the easier problems on the test!).

I called Ron [Hoeflin] who had missed my mistake.

I scored 46 out of 48 on the mega test.

I thought 10 hours was inappropriately long (I thought I was really bending the “untimed” nature of the test), I later learned that was considered a short time.

So my quick time was likely luck of the draw and my emotional obsessive-compulsive problem solving nature made me the perfect candidate to score high on such an exam.

After Keith joined the Mega Society in the 1980s, he quickly assumed control of the Mega Society.

After Keith got control, the membership of the Mega society went from 26 members down to three. Raniere said:

I was a member of the Old Mega society. I originally renamed it, The Hoeflin Research Group to brand it.

Since so few had taken the Mega test, there was no way to prove how tough it was.

Raniere, always thinking, volunteered to conduct a study. His study ended up “proving” something remarkable about himself.

Raniere’s bio states, ‘He has an estimated problem-solving rarity of one in 425,000,000 with respect to the general population.’ and he is ‘one of the top three problem solvers in the world.’

Raniere said:

VERY, few people from the non-problem-solver realm stand a chance against me on [IQ tests]– they do not have the experience, they do not have the drive, they are like not “primed” to solve problems.

 

The symbol of the Mega Society looks like one of Raniere’s logos. The name Mega is Greek for “tremendous.” The name sounds like one of Keith’s names for a business or organization.

Raniere, along with a [perhaps fictional] man named Dean Inada, authored the study that concluded Raniere was one of the three top problem solvers in the world.

Raniere calculated his IQ was 240+:

Raniere and Inada developed a means to pinpoint the mega (one-in-a-million) level on an intelligence test by utilizing the percentage of people who can solve progressively more complicated problems in the test based on Raniere’s definitions.

Raniere worked earnestly to make his study accurate, obtaining from the “chief Educational Testing Service statistician” SAT scores for students for 1984-1988.

The ones he could not get in writing, he got orally.

In the end, we know Raniere took a take-home IQ test designed by a blind man, a society he later controlled. He made his own calculations based on data he alone selected, including oral data, to decide how many people worldwide could solve problems at his level based on how he rated his own take-home IQ test.

This proved he was one of the top three problem solvers in the world for he solved the ancient problem faced by millions of bullshitters the world over: which is how to bullshit people into believing nonsense. In his case that he really was the smartest man in the world. 

In addition, Raniere made a thousand millionaires and, according to Marc Elliot, one in 400 people who attended Raniere’s classes were billionaires.

Marc, I’m sorry. None of this comes anywhere near passing the “smell test.”

I would be interested in what the Frank Report readership thinks about Elliot’s claims. Can they be true? Forty two billionaires in NXVM.

Are they bloody bluster? Or are they pure bullshit? You decide.

No, it is not a patent pending Raniere invention to detect bullshit.

About the author

Dick LaFontaine

Dick LaFontaine chases gripping, thorny, and precarious stories around the world as a correspondent for the Frank Report.

45 Comments

Click here to post a comment

Please leave a comment: Your opinion is important to us! (Email & username are optional)

  • I find those still in the cult mindset very interesting as they are so sure (and so very wrong). Clearly Nm never had al those billionaires within it and KR is not the smartest man in the world etc.

  • Elliot is just trying to get his hands on the filthy Bronfman money. That is the ONLY reason why any of the Dead-enders are still backing Keith. When Horseface gets out of prison, they will love-bomb her in hopes of getting a piece of the pie. Horseface is EVIL! She will reward whoever backed Keith the most.

  • When Kristin Keeffe was active here last year and trying to launch her blog, I asked her on her blog:

    ICE: How did Keith fake it through the Mega IQ test? I was told that a bunch of people spent weeks in a library figuring it all out. So just what happened there?

    KK: I DO NOT believe Keith faked the Mega test. There are a lot of fictional stories like that circulating. Before Keith was a “cult leader” I was around him when he would talk with some of the members of the Mega Society and went to their events. They took him seriously. Including the founder. You have to understand, in terms of raw brain power – Keith has it. It’s his psychopathic personality traits that were his downfall.

    ICE: Did you meet then Marilyn Vos Savant at the Mega meetings, and if so, what did she think of keith?

    KK: I never met Marilyn but in the 90s Keith was very friendly with her boyfriend and founder of the Mega Society, Ronald Hoeflin.

    —-

    Note: Marilyn vos Savant is a bonafide candidate for the highest IQ in the world. She was included in the three top problem solvers in the world referenced by keith’s study, along with another person that I believe was also from New York. It seems statistically unlikely to me that of all three of the smartest people in the world would also all just happen to live in New York [Im’ going on memory on that fwiw so I could be wrong].

    In any case, I would attest that labeling Marilyn as one of the top three problem solvers in the world is legit as part of this study. Perhaps the study itself was manipulated to include Marilyn and keith together. I would not be so sure about how keith got included. It’s almost certain he cheated, he is a con man after all. In my opinion, the con here is unlikely the manipulation of the study, but rather keith somehow getting enough right answers to be included.

    A great interview with her on Letterman back in 1986: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsGc3jC9yas

    Marilyn’s column where she’s worked for Parade since 1986: https://parade.com/author/marilynvossavant

    • How many legitimate geniuses go on academic probation and graduate with a 2.26 GPA? Where is the “raw brainpower” in that?

      Was Keith so lazy that his alleged genius level 240 IQ could not compensate for it in school?

      Like guys whose other head sometimes dictates the thinking when they are captivated by a woman they are really attracted to, methinks that a lot of these previous ladies in NXIVM were maybe too enamored by Keith for one reason or another that it deconstructed and affected their judgement capabilities.

    • Another case where Kristin doesn’t know it all.

      Karen U says there was a group that helped him take they test. She was one of them.

      She lived with Raniere during college at RPI.

      So who do you believe?

      I’d put my bet on Karen U

  • I’m a Mensa member, or well I was last time I took the test which was in the 1990’s. They held meetings at our university and I sat the test for a laugh really. Turned out I was the smartest person in the room, 159. Some people took it way more serious than they should have, especially the guys. I beat one of them by 3 points, he wanted to resit the test as soon as he found out. After university he became an osteopath. And I was reading the local paper one evening and was surprised but not shocked to discover he had been struck off the register, due to his predilection for finding his clients under the guise of helping them. I wasn’t shocked because when he was 19 he was creepy. And at 59, he is still creepy.
    Intelligence, intellect, the ability to manipulate people, sexual assault of minors, sex trafficking, taking the family apart sister by sister and fracturing their family structure. You don’t really need a high IQ to do that, just willing participants like Nicki, Michele, the ugly female doctor can’t remember her name, Suneel, Mark, Eduardo et al. Keep your kids away from these people.

    • Thanks Peaches There are two more on the Ethan’s Basement channel and while I was watching these, which feature other interviews with Marc, I noticed just how he mimics Keith in his demeanor and speech. It’s actually really striking and bizarre. At times his voice is very similar. Makes me shudder.

  • ‘Lies about nxivm’, is now on part 13 by Eduardo. Eduardo is in a padded room and cannot get out until all of the false narratives are corrected.

      • Most everyone listening to Marc Elliott’s “kinky. Underage woman” comments etc. Also Independently heard them in the exact way that the above commenter did.

        At the very least, Marc Elliot is a horrible communicator. Just dreadful.

        Giving Marc the absolute benefit of the doubt (which he does not deserve) at tge very least, Marc is not good at effectively communicating.

        Marc Elliot made the statement in several ways more than once and contextually and otherwise it absolutely sounded like he was calling a 15-year-old victim a kinky underage woman.

        That’s on Marc. Many people heard and received Marc’s comments as such. Most people listening.

  • Marc Elliot is sick and uses the victim blaming technique. Can women not be kinky and a sexual abuse victim? What fucked up statements on the victim just being kinky. He is a walking, talking advertisement of the vile, sick teachings of NXIVM.

    • As for you question about can women both be kinky and a victim I believe Nice Guy could expound on that and possibly with photographs.

      • Frank-

        Don’t bring me into this.

        Anonymous 3:56 is correct.

        A grown man saying a 15 year old
        victim is kinky is completely immoral and disgusting.

  • Excellent article, Dick, and well researched.

    What I find most fascinating is how these people actually think they can get away with such spurious claims. Do they really believe people are as stupid and gullible as they are? I guess you have to be pretty damn stupid and gullible in the first place to believe that, so I suppose I’ve answered my own question.

    • It is a fascinating human phenomenon. When someone cites statistics, no matter what they are, the human mind tends to automatically give the argument more credence. The problem only really comes when you try to do analysis and realize that things do not add up. But most human beings are passive, not active listeners.

      • Like some type of cognitive bias, and as the saying goes, there are lies, damned lies and statistics. The one I like to remember is: “Politicians use statistics like a drunkard uses a lamp post – for support rather than illumination”

        • Based on recent studies, 76.63 percent of people who comment on Frank Report have a problem-solving rarity of over 1 in a 24.6 million.

          • I prefer to make my own statistics, because I know their truth content.
            The same should apply to opinion polls. You don’t have to believe everything that is presented to you, not even by the established media. There are too many who use it to pursue their own interests rather than to serve the truth.

  • Excerpt from “Sex Wars 044, Inside NXIVM with Nicki Clyne” as featured on her website

    “LP: And again, I do think that that’s a good..I agree with your principles that he [Raniere] deserves due process and that if they need to take a really serious look at the evidence and everything, but in terms of was he dishonest, I mean there’s all this stuff about him being the highest IQ man in the world, and being like a judo champion, and a bunch of stuff that just seems like made up.

    Nicki: Honestly, I think that other people have said those things, I’ve never heard him…

    Annika: I think that was in jest.

    Nicki: Yah, he did take…he’s part of the MENSA.

    Annika: Wasn’t there a famous podcast…

    Nicki: What’s that?

    Annika: This is the most famous life..

    LP: He’s in MENSA? Annika’s in MENSA too.

    Nicki: Like the above, MENSA, like the top things, right? [gesticulating, with her hand going higher and higher in the air] Like the top things, right? I know that he is in the Australian Book of Records as the highest IQ as calculated by a very specific test, like the guy’s very smart, OK? He doesn’t go around saying that…”

    Talk about deluded, guys, this one’s on a par with Marc Elliot.

    LMFAO!!!

    • No one in the Nxivm cult said anything about Keith unless:

      (a) Keith told them the “information” himself

      (b) Keith wanted the cult members to tell the “information”about Keith

  • Dick, this is laughable. Epstein attracted more billionaires than this mental midget (literally AND figuratively). Funny headline though. Keep ‘‘em coming. This stuff reads like the Babylon Bee. 🤣

  • Marc can’t stop pulling bagels same as he can’t stop pulling his wienerwurst whilst watching the Capital Pride parade! 🤦‍♂️

    👉👌🫳👌🔥🌡💥🥒💦👅

    • Alex-

      The Capitol pride parade is the gayest thing in America. LOL

      It’s like the gays want to alienate 1/2 of America on purpose. It’s like a out door strip club. Scott Johnson could amplify it.
      ***

      A short story:
      Hungry Frank heard the parade was a wiener roast so he grabbed a bottle of mustard and ran over. Frank loved free food. When Frank, showed up, he asked where the buns were, a parade participant bent over and said, “there right here baby.” Then Frank asked, “butt where’s the beef?”

  • Thank you for illuminating this laughable and outrageous claim made by Marc Elliot.

    Those dead-enders parrot way too much highly improbable cult propaganda that goes unquestioned.

    What legitimate proof do the dead-enders even have of Nxivm having 17, 000 take classes (without any problem)?

    Seems like a number that just gets repeated until widely accepted as plausible truth.

    This cult notoriously cooked its books. They were bringing cash in from other countries. Laundering money. Who knows how many people actually took a class? And paid for it?

    Any number that a dead-ender just keeps throwing out there because Keith or Nancy told them to do so is very suspect.

    Keith and Nancy had a vested interest in making this company look legit. The government exposed that it was mainly financed by the Bronfman money. And a rather small pool of other wealthy marks.

    Frank, didn’t you report a crazy long list of dozens and dozens of dubious companies that were formed under the auspices of Nxivm/Esp/founding principles/genuis babies/Dr. FrankenPorter’s medical experimentation laboratory and movie clip restaurant/big bush pubic hair ethic emporium of slaves Inc. And so forth?

    It’s really good that the credibility of the Tourette’s cure is finally getting more scrutiny.

    It can’t be underestimated how heavily this kind of medical cure/scam was used in an attempt to legitimize the bogus “tech” of ESP.

    As a manipulation tool Marc Elliot was held up as proof that the dangerous and unregulated therapy could produce actual medical miracles.

    So if a student was fighting the program because they realized intuitively that it was nonsense or instinctively could tell it was being used for malevolent purposes; then the upper management could showcase Marc Elliott’s miraculous cure as proof that the ESP tech could legitemately snd measurably cure ANY perceived problem. Even the incurable medical ones.

    That is so dangerous.

    Wonder if Jim Del Negro still be alive if he hadn’t bought into the medical cure legitimacy of this cult? What about all those women close to keith eho died?

    How many other people in ESP did not seek out proper medical assistance in a timely fashion because they bought into the Nxium miracle medical cure?

    Who else went off medication without a doctor’s supervisor or made other potentially catastrophic medical decisions based on a fallacy presented as truth in ESP?

    People like Isabella’s parents were so desperate for a potential cure that they didn’t even listen to their own daughter’s first person testimony of how she was being deeply damaged by the so-called treatment for Tourette’s.

    • Did you ever consider that Jim Del Negro just didn’t have the available cash to take care of his teeth?
      Dental work is the most expensive of all medical products, especially if one is saving for implants, etc. ?
      Its a long process even with insurance, which many just don’t have!

      • It’s expensive. But a dental medical emergency must be treated as such.

        When Daniella was being kept isolated the cult denied her dental care and she lost part of a tooth. But there could have been a lot worse of an outcome.

        Dental infections are very very serious and can lead to death. As seems to have happened to Jim. Which is tragic. And avoidable.

        These people were taking an executive success program for decades, so how come so many of them didn’t have proper medical or dental insurance or the ability to pay for even basic healthcare?

        It seems odd that Jim would be leading a men’s movement and yet be unable to take care of himself in the most basic ways.

        It’s a sad outcome. Truly.

      • You know abortions cost money. But the cult always seemed to scrounge up the money to pay for those procecures. STAT. Many, many of them.

  • Question for anyone; if someone made these claims about KR or the organization to make them look good, and the claims are false, should the people who made these claims, and most importantly, profited from them, be held liable to anyone who bought in?

    • Instead of asking more of your fake questions why don’t you go examine another man’s dirty drawers again? It seems like your preferred way to spend free time Kevin.

      • If NXIVM unlocked all this hidden human potential, why are they all bussing tables for a living now? I mean, I did that shit when I was 14. These dumb fucking bimbos were wealthy talented actresses before NXIVM. Post NXIVM they hit the fucking skids.

        BUTTER MY BAGEL, BITCH!!

    • If the person wilfully caused damage, perhaps. If they were employed by someone to make certain claims unwittingly, then it would be the employer / company that is primarily responsible.

About the Author

Frank Parlato is an investigative journalist.

His work has been cited in hundreds of news outlets, like The New York Times, The Daily Mail, VICE News, CBS News, Fox News, New York Post, New York Daily News, Oxygen, Rolling Stone, People Magazine, The Sun, The Times of London, CBS Inside Edition, among many others in all five continents.

His work to expose and take down NXIVM is featured in books like “Captive” by Catherine Oxenberg, “Scarred” by Sarah Edmonson, “The Program” by Toni Natalie, and “NXIVM. La Secta Que Sedujo al Poder en México” by Juan Alberto Vasquez.

Parlato has been prominently featured on HBO’s docuseries “The Vow” and was the lead investigator and coordinating producer for Investigation Discovery’s “The Lost Women of NXIVM.” In addition, he was credited in the Starz docuseries 'Seduced' for saving 'slave' women from being branded and escaping the sex-slave cult known as DOS.

Parlato appeared on the Nancy Grace Show, Beyond the Headlines with Gretchen Carlson, Dr. Oz, American Greed, Dateline NBC, and NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, where Parlato conducted the first-ever interview with Keith Raniere after his arrest. This was ironic, as many credit Parlato as one of the primary architects of his arrest and the cratering of the cult he founded.

Parlato is a consulting producer and appears in TNT's The Heiress and the Sex Cult, which premieres on May 22, 2022.

IMDb — Frank Parlato

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Parlato,_Jr.

Contact Frank with tips or for help.
Phone / Text: (305) 783-7083
Email: frankparlato@gmail.com

Archives