Who is Max Keiser?

Personal history

Max Keiser, named Timothy Maxwell Keiser at birth, was born in New York in 1960. He studied theater at New York University and worked in radio and stand-up comedy during his early career before landing on Wall Street.

In 1998, Keiser co-founded the Hollywood Stock Exchange (HSX), a financial simulation game that effectively acts as a prediction market for Hollywood assets. It allows players to speculate on derivatives based on Hollywood movies or stars using a native virtual currency, the Hollywood dollar. It was acquired by the financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald in 2001.

Broadcasting career

Keiser’s work on the Hollywood Stock Exchange led to a presenting role on a show called “Rumble at the Box Office” for NBC’s Access Hollywood, which kicked off his media and broadcasting career. Over the coming years, he went on to produce “People & Power,” a series of financial documentaries on Al Jazeera, and “The Oracle,” a show on BBC World News.

In 2003, Keiser met his wife, Stacey Herbert, a Canadian media producer and presenter. The couple have worked together extensively on several broadcasting projects, with Herbert co-presenting alongside Keiser on several shows.

Role in the crypto community

“The Keiser Report” is one of Max Keiser’s best-known broadcasting endeavors. Focused on financial matters and presented alongside his wife, Stacey Herbert, “The Keiser Report” ran from 2009 until 2022 on the Russian network RT. Keiser frequently used the program to espouse his distrust of the financial system and established economic paradigms.

In 2010, Keiser began discussing Bitcoin and peer-to-peer currencies on “The Keiser Report,” a move that is thought to be one of the first times Bitcoin had been discussed on a relatively mainstream media show. At the time, BTC was trading at around $0.30. Over the coming years, Keiser would become one of Bitcoin’s most prominent proponents in the media. In 2011, he called Bitcoin “the biggest story of the decade,” and by 2013, he was one of the first people to become a millionaire after investing in BTC, as the price rose above $30.

In 2020, Keiser and Herbert started a YouTube podcast called “The Orange Pill,” which they co-presented. The show discussed Bitcoin alongside economic and political topics. As of January 2025, there have been no new episodes for more than six months.

In February 2022, Keiser and Herbert resigned from RT following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent widespread boycott of Russian networks, including RT and Sputnik, from several TV carriers.

In 2021, President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador issued a ruling making Bitcoin an official national currency, a move for which Keiser stated his support. Since late 2022, Keiser and Herbert have been living in El Salvador, with Keiser serving as a senior Bitcoin adviser to President Bukele. In this role, he is responsible for policies and initiatives that help integrate Bitcoin into the local economy.

Views and controversies

Keiser is a staunch and outspoken Bitcoin maximalist who has become known for his flamboyant, provocative statements. He states that his support for Bitcoin comes from the fact that it is the only genuinely decentralized currency, which Keiser believes means it is the only currency beyond regulatory reach.

He’s also espoused some highly controversial views regarding ETH and other altcoins, and their developers. For example, in August 2024, Keiser stated on X that ETH, SOL, ADA, XRP, and other alts were “centralized garbage” and predicted their value would go to zero. In 2023, he called for the incarceration of prominent founders in the crypto community, citing their platforms and tokens as “financial terrorism.”

Following the approval of several Bitcoin ETFs in January 2024, Keiser labeled ETF investors “quintessential dumb money” who were generating losses.

In response to a proposal from MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor for the US government to create a Bitcoin-backed stablecoin, Keiser labeled the US dollar “the ultimate Proof of Stake shitcoin.”

Keiser’s controversial views aren’t limited to the crypto space. He has also applied the “financial terrorist” label to JPMorgan Chase, alleging that they manipulate the price of silver. He has campaigned for investors to buy silver to push up the market value, which he asserted will foil short sellers working on behalf of the company.

Max Keiser essentials

• Max Keiser is a financial broadcaster who started his career on Wall Street and later founded the Hollywood Stock Exchange.
• In his later career, he’s become renowned as a provocative and outspoken proponent of Bitcoin who frequently criticizes other types of cryptocurrencies, assets, and the broader financial system.
• Following his resignation from his RT finance talk show “The Keiser Report” in 2022, Keiser has been working as an adviser on Bitcoin to the government of El Salvador.