Michael Milken

Chairman, Milken Institute · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

investorfounderexecutiveauthormikemilken.com ↗Wikipedia ↗

At Drexel Burnham Lambert, he pioneered the modern high-yield bond market before pleading guilty to securities violations in 1990 and receiving a pardon in 2020. He later transitioned to philanthropy and public policy, founding the Milken Institute, FasterCures, and the Prostate Cancer Foundation.

35statements → 25claims → 19claims resolved → 58%fully supported → 3.89/5average certainty → 2/5average debate potential → ≈4.0/5argument clarity, estimated → 180said about them ↓

11 supported 5 partly supported 3 contradicted 1 not yet assessed 5 not checkable as stated how the 25 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

4 predictions · 21 assertions · 1 opinion · 7 insights · 1 disclosure · 1 what if · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 25 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 19 are resolved, 1 is not yet assessed, and 5 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Michael argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported

Milken: Non-investment grade debt has outperformed higher-rated debt and equities

“Going back particularly to the work that I had done in the sixties, so we're 60 years later now, the rates of return have been significant and have exceeded higher rate of debt and often equity rates of return.”

Michael Milken Feb 26, 2024 ▶ 24:43 Michael Milken – Innovations in Finance, Medicine, and Education (EP.371)

Their most notable contradicted claim

Assertion Contradicted

Milken: Private equity owns nearly 50% of America's 20,000 largest companies

“Almost 50% of the 20,000 largest companies in America are owned by private equity.”

Michael Milken Feb 26, 2024 ▶ 42:09 Michael Milken – Innovations in Finance, Medicine, and Education (EP.371)

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1

none yet certainty 2

100% certainty 3

71% certainty 4

50% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Michael Milken on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

What they said35 What others said180 Episodes1

Everything Michael Milken said on Capital Allocators that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Assertion Supported

Milken: US Added Decade of Schooling by 1960, Now Ranks 31st

“Between 1870 and 1960, The United States added one year of formal schooling every decade, and by 1960, the U.S. Was the most educated country in the world by two years more than any other country. Since then, other countries have caught us and passed it, and s…”

Michael Milken Feb 26, 2024 ▶ 56:59 Michael Milken – Innovations in Finance, Medicine, and Education (EP.371)

Assertion Supported

Milken: Increased weight costs the United States $1.5 trillion annually

“We did a study back as far as 20 years ago showing that just the change in weight in America cost the country one and a half trillion a year.”

Michael Milken Feb 26, 2024 ▶ 1:10:37 Michael Milken – Innovations in Finance, Medicine, and Education (EP.371)

Assertion Supported

Milken: Drexel eventually made markets in 7,000 different securities

“So you had to be a market maker, and we eventually made markets in 7000 different securities.”

Michael Milken Feb 26, 2024 ▶ 19:07 Michael Milken – Innovations in Finance, Medicine, and Education (EP.371)

Assertion Supported

Milken: Roughly 99.5% of companies worldwide are non-investment grade

“99.5 or something of all the companies in the world are non-investment grade debt companies. Very few are investment grade”

Michael Milken Feb 26, 2024 ▶ 24:05 Michael Milken – Innovations in Finance, Medicine, and Education (EP.371)

Assertion Supported

Milken: Annual births in China fell 60% to under 10 million

“But second, they've gone from having 23 to twenty-five million children born a year to less than 10. So they've had a 60% reduction in the number of children born.”

Michael Milken Feb 26, 2024 ▶ 34:08 Michael Milken – Innovations in Finance, Medicine, and Education (EP.371)

Assertion Supported

Milken: Lockheed's 15-cent debt never missed a principal or interest payment

“And the company eventually survived and built, and the debt that traded at 15 cents on dollar never missed an interest or a principal payment, and today, I believe, is the largest government contractor.”

Michael Milken Feb 26, 2024 ▶ 39:38 Michael Milken – Innovations in Finance, Medicine, and Education (EP.371)

Assertion Supported

Milken: Tesla Lacked an Investment-Grade Rating Even Near a $1T Market Cap

“Tesla was not investment grade that even it was approaching a trillion dollars in market cap.”

Michael Milken Feb 26, 2024 ▶ 46:29 Michael Milken – Innovations in Finance, Medicine, and Education (EP.371)

Assertion Partly supported

Milken: Moderna dosed first human 63 days after virus sequencing

“It was only seven weeks, 63 days, between the sequencing of the DNA of the virus and the first human being that Moderna gave the vaccine to”

Michael Milken Feb 26, 2024 ▶ 51:24 Michael Milken – Innovations in Finance, Medicine, and Education (EP.371)

Assertion Partly supported

Milken: Focused ultrasound is approved for 50 to 60 diseases

“But it's now been approved for 50 or 60 diseases. I have a good friend who had terrible tremors all these years. He went in. When he walked out, he had no tremors. So there's enormous potential. It's been approved for Parkinson's and other diseases.”

Michael Milken Feb 26, 2024 ▶ 1:04:03 Michael Milken – Innovations in Finance, Medicine, and Education (EP.371)

Assertion Partly supported

Milken: Mother-to-child HIV transmission rate has fallen to 2%

“A woman today has a two percent chance of passing AIDS on to her child. Down from 95% 20 years ago.”

Michael Milken Feb 26, 2024 ▶ 1:05:14 Michael Milken – Innovations in Finance, Medicine, and Education (EP.371)

Assertion Partly supported

Milken: China now has the world's largest diabetic population

“We can see what's happened in China, where almost 40 years ago, no one had diabetes, and now they have the most people with diabetes in the world.”

Michael Milken Feb 26, 2024 ▶ 1:10:04 Michael Milken – Innovations in Finance, Medicine, and Education (EP.371)

The other half of the tape: Michael Milken's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 168 times in 21 episodes on Capital Allocators. 12 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Ted Seides 79 Richard Sandler 45 Joel Greenblatt 9 Josh Friedman 8 Todd Boehly 5 Jordi Visser 5 John Barber 5 Katie O'Reilly 3

Statements about Michael Milken, by other people (12)

Opinion

Sandler: Wall Street establishment targeted Milken after Drexel enabled hostile takeovers

“So Mike was an attractive target because he really wasn't liked by a lot of people in the business round table and in the established firms. He was getting a lot of publicity. He was very successful. And so people complained to the SEC, they complained to Cong…”

Richard Sandler Mar 4, 2024 ▶ 22:34 Richard Sandler – The Prosecution of Michael Milken (EP.372)

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Sandler: Prosecutors threatened to destroy Princeton Newport unless it aided Milken prosecution

“The prosecutors at the time had told the principals and the lawyers for Princeton Newport that they're going to run over them. They're going to destroy them unless they help them against Michael Milken and another Case that was under investigation at the time,…”

Richard Sandler Mar 4, 2024 ▶ 37:38 Richard Sandler – The Prosecution of Michael Milken (EP.372)

Assertion Contradicted

Sandler: Milken's sentencing judge told parole commission no further wrongdoing was proven

“The judge who sentenced Mike, who held the Fatico hearing, wrote a letter to the parole commission on Mike's behalf, indicating that she held the Fatico hearing, and she did not believe that any further wrongdoing other than what he pled to could be shown, eve…”

Richard Sandler Mar 4, 2024 ▶ 56:53 Richard Sandler – The Prosecution of Michael Milken (EP.372)

Assertion Contradicted

Sandler: Judge assessed market damage from Michael Milken's violations at zero

“Interesting enough, when the judge assessed the economic damage to the marketplace from everything Michael pled to, included on the three counts that related to Bosque, that the total economic effect of these violations was zero. Not one penny was lost.”

Richard Sandler Mar 4, 2024 ▶ 46:31 Richard Sandler – The Prosecution of Michael Milken (EP.372)

Assertion Supported

Sandler: Michael Milken did not go to prison for insider trading or bond fraud

“And then as time passed, and some of the same lies kept getting repeated, you went to jail for insider trading, or you went to jail for fraud in the bond, none of which is true.”

Richard Sandler Mar 4, 2024 ▶ 57:57 Richard Sandler – The Prosecution of Michael Milken (EP.372)

Assertion Supported

Sandler: Milken received a 10-year sentence via consecutive two-year terms

“And she gave him a ten-year sentence, which number one, negated what we thought was a cap of five years. Because she gave him two years on five counts to Z serve consecutively, not concurrently.”

Richard Sandler Mar 4, 2024 ▶ 53:31 Richard Sandler – The Prosecution of Michael Milken (EP.372)

Assertion Supported

Sandler: Drexel collapsed after funding unsold inventory with commercial paper

“What had happened is, to prove they could still get deals done, they were taking a lot of securities that they couldn't sell into inventory, and they were financing it by issuing commercial paper in the commercial paper market. So in financial parlance, they w…”

Richard Sandler Mar 4, 2024 ▶ 48:34 Richard Sandler – The Prosecution of Michael Milken (EP.372)

Assertion Partly supported

Sandler: Milken pled to violations never previously criminally prosecuted

“We actually found things to plead to, none of which had ever been subject to criminal prosecution before, many of which hadn't probably even been enforced as regulatory violations before, but we found things that he could admit to.”

Richard Sandler Mar 4, 2024 ▶ 42:57 Richard Sandler – The Prosecution of Michael Milken (EP.372)

Assertion Supported

Sandler: Non-investment-grade original debt issuance was unheard of before Michael Milken

“The idea of a new issue of a high-yield security, our new issue of debt security for a company that Could not get an investment grade was unheard of when Mike came to the market.”

Richard Sandler Mar 4, 2024 ▶ 20:25 Richard Sandler – The Prosecution of Michael Milken (EP.372)

Assertion Contradicted

Friedman: Drexel and Milken Created the Original New-Issue High-Yield Bond Market

“There was no such thing as a new issue high yield bond before Mike and Drexel. The only high yield bonds were fallen angels, investment grade bonds that had been downgraded.”

Josh Friedman Jul 25, 2022 ▶ 10:16 Josh Friedman – Master Class in Credit Investing at Canyon (Capital Allocators, EP.263)

Assertion Supported

Sandler: Michael Milken was charged with 98 counts across 12 transactions

“I think there were 12 transactions in the indictment. 98 counts.”

Richard Sandler Mar 4, 2024 ▶ 32:47 Richard Sandler – The Prosecution of Michael Milken (EP.372)

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Six broken deals in 1986 slashed Gotham's returns from 80% to 30%

“I had in my portfolio five or six merger deals that were going on, whether I had a piece of a security or I had some iteration of it, and I thought that was diversity. In my portfolio, but it turned out it was all the same bet. You know, is the financing going…”

Joel Greenblatt Nov 23, 2020 ▶ 17:42 Joel Greenblatt – Common Sense for Value at Gotham Capital (Capital Allocators, EP.165)