Alexander Nix

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Alexander Nix
Alexander Nix at Web Summit 2017 in Lisbon
Born
Alexander James Ashburner Nix

(1975-05-01) 1 May 1975 (age 48)
NationalityBritish
EducationEton College
Alma materUniversity of Manchester
Occupation(s)Director (formerly), Emerdata
Director (formerly), SCL Group
CEO (formerly), Cambridge Analytica
SpouseOlympia Paus
FamilyNix family

Alexander James Ashburner Nix (born 1 May 1975) is a British businessman, the former CEO of Cambridge Analytica[1] and a former director of the Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL) Group,[2] a behavioural research and strategic communications consultancy, leading its elections division (SCL Elections). Cambridge Analytica and its parent SCL were involved in psychological warfare operations for the British military and involved in influencing hundreds of elections globally; Cambridge Analytica helped Leave.EU with its Brexit campaign, according to both Leave.EU and Cambridge Analytica staff. The company was also engaged by the Ted Cruz and Donald Trump campaigns during the 2016 US presidential election. The company also ran Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta's campaign.[3]

A member of the Ashburner-Nix family of Crawley, Nix grew up in Notting Hill, attended Eton and studied art history. Nix started his career as a financial analyst with Baring Securities in Mexico before moving to the strategic communication industry and joining SCL Group, a private intelligence company active in the military and political arenas founded by Nigel Oakes and whose president was former Conservative minister Sir Geoffrey Pattie; Nix's father was also a co-owner of SCL. In 2013 he became CEO of SCL's new subsidiary Cambridge Analytica. The men behind Cambridge Analytica and its parent SCL were described as having close ties to the Conservative Party (UK), the British royal family and the British military, and included some of the Conservative Party's largest donors, and former Conservative minister Jonathan Marland, Baron Marland.[4] The company provided advice to the Foreign Office and Nix met with Boris Johnson in 2016.[5][6]

Both in the UK and the US campaigns, Cambridge Analytica used private information from over 87 million Facebook users harvested from their profiles without permission.[7] In 2018 Cambridge Analytica was dissolved after undercover video footage showed Nix claiming his company was using honey traps, bribery stings, and prostitutes, among other tactics, to influence more than 200 elections globally for his clients.[8][9][10] In 2019 Nix and his colleague Aleksandr Kogan settled with the Federal Trade Commission, agreeing to delete previously obtained data;[11] in 2020, Nix agreed to a disqualification undertaking prohibiting him from running U.K. limited companies for seven years after permitting companies to offer potentially unethical services, while denying any wrongdoing.[12][13]

Early life[edit]

Main article: Nix family
Tilgate House in Crawley, former estate of the Ashburner Nix family
Great hall at Tilgate House in Crawley, built for the Ashburner Nix family

Alexander James Ashburner Nix was born on 1 May 1975 to a banking family that belonged to the English landed gentry and had close ties to British colonial history both in the West Indies and British India, the Ashburner-Nix family of Crawley and London; Nix is mainly of English descent, and has some Black Jamaican ancestry in the 19th century as well as ancestors born in India and Peru.[14][15] His father Paul David Ashburner Nix (1944–2006[16]) was an investment manager who spent twenty-seven years with the M&G Group before joining Consulta in 1995, and was a shareholder of SCL Group.

Alexander Nix grew up in Notting Hill, in West London, attended Eton College, and studied art history at the University of Manchester.[17] During his 20s and 30s, he worked in Mexico and London.[18] He started his career as a financial analyst with Baring Securities in Mexico City[19] for Robert Fraser & Partners LLP, a tax and corporate finance firm.[20] In 2003, Nix left finance to work in the strategic communication industry with the SCL Group.

Family and personal life[edit]

In 2010 Nix married Olympia Paus, a wealthy Norwegian shipping heiress.

Career[edit]

Cambridge Analytica[edit]

In 2013, Nix set up Cambridge Analytica as an offshoot of the SCL Group, to target voters in "more than 40 political campaigns in the US, Caribbean, South America, Europe, Africa and Asia".[20] The company ran Uhuru Kenyatta's presidential campaign in Kenya.[3] In the United States, it was involved in the 2014 midterm elections and the 2016 presidential primaries and election, during which it received funding from the Mercer family. Nix's firm supported both the Ted Cruz and Donald Trump campaigns for the US presidency by using "psychographic" profiles of voters built on data harvested from Facebook.[21][22]

In an exposé of the company, Nix was filmed stating that "we are not only the largest and most significant political consultancy in the world, but we have the most established track record. We're used to operating through different vehicles, in the shadows" and offered a "secretive relationship."[23]

Before the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, Nix's firm was involved in supporting Leave.EU with its Brexit campaign, according to both Arron Banks of Leave.EU, former Cambridge Analytica employee Christopher Wylie, Cambridge Analytica's business development director Brittany Kaiser, and Leave.EU's communications director Andy Wigmore.[24][25][26]

During Boris Johnson's tenure as foreign secretary, the Foreign Office sought advice from Cambridge Analytica[5] and Boris Johnson had a meeting with Alexander Nix in 2016.[6]

According to Wigmore, the work for Leave.EU was done pro bono, without any money changing hand: "Because Nigel [Farage] is a good friend of the Mercers. And Robert Mercer introduced them to us. He said, 'Here's this company we think may be useful to you.' What they were trying to do in the US and what we were trying to do had massive parallels. We shared a lot of information. Why wouldn't you?" Behind Trump's campaign and Cambridge Analytica, he said, were "the same people. It's the same family."[25]

In February 2018, Nix told the British parliament's Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee that his company had not received data from Facebook;[26] following further media reports the committee's chairman, Damian Collins, said "We will be contacting Alexander Nix next week asking him to explain his comments."[27] Nix denies deliberately misleading the parliamentary Select Committee.[28]

In March 2018, The Observer reported that Nix talked "unguardedly about the company's practices" when he was secretly filmed by Channel 4 News reporters posing as prospective clients and that Cambridge Analytica was trying to stop the broadcast of the resulting programme.[27] Nix offered "beautiful Ukrainian girls" to discredit political opponents in Sri Lanka.[29] The secret filming was screened on 19 March as part of a 30-minute segment, with a follow-up scheduled for the next day, focusing on its involvement in the Trump campaign. The conversation appears to portray Nix including entrapment and bribery as potential Cambridge Analytica services.[30]

On 20 March 2018, Nix was suspended from Cambridge Analytica.[9]

On 11 April 2018, The Wall Street Journal published an article about the CEO position at Cambridge Analytica, saying Nix "has officially resigned from his position, according to a person close to the company", but also that a "company spokesman ... denied that Mr. Nix had submitted his resignation".[31]

On 2 May 2018, Cambridge Analytica announced they were "closing and starting insolvency proceedings".[32]

Christopher Wylie described Nix as "born in the wrong century" and "the type of person that would have been ideal at the height of the British Empire to go and become a governor of a colony, because he's the right station and class and went to Eton and all that."[33]

On 8 October 2018, The Guardian reported that Nix referred to Mia Mottley, the elected Prime Minister of Barbados, and other government figures via the racial slur of "Niggers" in email communications.[34]

Emerdata[edit]

On 23 January 2018, Nix was appointed director of Emerdata Ltd.,[35] a new company incorporated in August 2017, along with SCL chairman Julian Wheatland and Cambridge Analytica chief data officer Alexander Tayler. On 16 March 2018, Rebekah and Jennifer Mercer were also appointed directors,[35] members of the Mercer family which backed Cambridge Analytica financially (by at least $15 million, according to the New York Times).[21] Another director of Emerdata is Chinese businessman Johnson Chun Shun Ko [zh], deputy chairman and executive director[36] of Frontier Services Group, a private security firm which mostly operates in Africa and is chaired by US businessman and strong Trump supporter Erik Prince, who is best known for founding private military group Blackwater USA and being the brother of US education secretary Betsy DeVos.[37] On 13 April 2018, Nix's role of director was terminated.[35]

FTC settlement and disqualification from running UK limited companies[edit]

In 2019 Nix and his colleague Aleksandr Kogan settled with the Federal Trade Commission, agreeing to delete previously obtained data.[11]

In 2020 Nix signed a disqualification undertaking, accepted by the UK Secretary of State on 14 September 2020.[38] The Insolvency Service commented that "Within the undertaking, Alexander Nix did not dispute that he caused or permitted SCL Elections Ltd or associated companies to market themselves as offering potentially unethical services to prospective clients; demonstrating a lack of commercial probity." The unethical services offered included "bribery or honey trap stings, voter disengagement campaigns, obtaining information to discredit political opponents and spreading information anonymously in political campaigns." Effective from 5 October 2020, Alexander Nix is disqualified for seven years from acting as a director or directly or indirectly becoming involved, without the permission of the court, in the promotion, formation or management of a UK company.[39][40] Nix said he had made "no admission of wrongdoing" or broken any laws.[13]

In popular culture[edit]

Nix has been compared to "a Bond villain" with "the sinister-sounding surname, the cut-glass accent and his position at the centre of a conspiracy theory involving Brexit, Trump and dodgy data."[41][42][43]

Nix is to be portrayed by Paul Bettany in an upcoming film on the Cambridge Analytica affair produced by the Russo brothers.[44]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Butcher, Mike (6 November 2017). "Cambridge Analytica CEO talks to TechCrunch about Trump, Hillary and the future". Techcrunch. Oath Tech Network. Archived from the original on 24 November 2018. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  2. ^ "SCL GROUP LIMITED Companies House data". Company Check. Archived from the original on 9 September 2018. Retrieved 21 March 2018.
  3. ^ a b "Cambridge Analytica stage-managed Kenyan president's campaigns - UK TV". 19 March 2018. Archived from the original on 24 February 2020. Retrieved 24 February 2020 – via af.reuters.com.
  4. ^ Brown, David. "SCL Group's founders were connected to royalty, the rich and powerful". Archived from the original on 23 September 2020. Retrieved 22 September 2020 – via www.thetimes.co.uk.
  5. ^ a b Correspondent, Catherine Philp, Diplomatic. "Foreign Office sought advice from Cambridge Analytica chiefs". Archived from the original on 4 March 2019. Retrieved 26 September 2020 – via www.thetimes.co.uk.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  6. ^ a b "Boris Johnson's undisclosed meeting with Alexander Nix of Cambridge Analytica | the Spectator". 21 March 2018. Archived from the original on 27 September 2020. Retrieved 26 September 2020.
  7. ^ Hern, Alex (16 April 2018). "Far more than 87m Facebook users had data compromised, MPs told". the Guardian. Archived from the original on 12 April 2020. Retrieved 23 November 2018.
  8. ^ "Cambridge Analytica CEO 'admits to dirty tricks'". The Week. 20 March 2018. Archived from the original on 20 March 2018. Retrieved 20 March 2018.
  9. ^ a b "Cambridge Analytica: Facebook row firm boss suspended". BBC News. 20 March 2018. Archived from the original on 28 June 2018. Retrieved 20 March 2018.
  10. ^ Gilbert, David (19 March 2018). "Cambridge Analytica Bragged About Using Fake News, Bribes, And Ukrainian Hookers to Influence Elections". Vice News. Archived from the original on 22 March 2018. Retrieved 25 March 2018.
  11. ^ a b "Aleksandr Kogan and Alexander Nix, In the Matter of". Federal Trade Commission. 24 July 2019. Archived from the original on 12 October 2020. Retrieved 26 September 2020.
  12. ^ "Former Cambridge Analytica chief receives seven-year directorship ban". the Guardian. 24 September 2020. Archived from the original on 16 January 2021. Retrieved 27 February 2021.
  13. ^ a b Shead, Sam (24 September 2020). "Former Cambridge Analytica boss banned from running companies". CNBC. Archived from the original on 26 September 2020. Retrieved 26 September 2020.
  14. ^ Dwilson, Stephanie Dube (18 March 2018). "Alexander Nix: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know". Heavy.com. Archived from the original on 4 May 2019. Retrieved 20 March 2018.
  15. ^ Brittany Kaiser, Targeted: The Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower's Inside Story of How Big Data, Trump, and Facebook Broke Democracy and How It Can Happen Again, HarperCollins, 2019, ISBN 9780062965806
  16. ^ "ASHBURNER NIX - Deaths Announcements - Telegraph Announcements". announcements.telegraph.co.uk. Archived from the original on 25 September 2020. Retrieved 21 September 2020.
  17. ^ Fildes, Nic (20 March 2018). "Cambridge Analytica's Alexander Nix pushed into centre stage". Financial Times. Retrieved 6 April 2023.
  18. ^ Adam, Karla; Booth, William (27 March 2018). "Cambridge Analytica's Alexander Nix: Bond villain, tech genius or hustler?". The Seattle Times. Retrieved 7 April 2023.
  19. ^ "Executive Profile: Alexander Nix BA: Director, SCL Group Limited". Bloomberg L.P. Archived from the original on 20 March 2018. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  20. ^ a b "Alexander Nix Profile". Campaign. Archived from the original on 20 March 2018. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  21. ^ a b Rosenberg, Matthew (17 March 2018). "How Trump Consultants Exploited the Facebook Data of Millions". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 17 March 2018. Retrieved 21 March 2018.
  22. ^ Auchard, Eric (19 March 2018). "May very concerned by Facebook data abuse reports". Reuters. Archived from the original on 29 June 2018. Retrieved 20 March 2018.
  23. ^ "Revealed: Trump's election consultants filmed saying they use bribes and sex workers to entrap politicians". Channel 4 News. 19 March 2018. Archived from the original on 19 March 2018. Retrieved 24 February 2020.
  24. ^ Business Insider 21 March 2018: "All the times Cambridge Analytica gave brazenly contradictory accounts of its murky work on Brexit" Archived 23 March 2018 at the Wayback Machine; retrieved 22 March 2018.
  25. ^ a b The Observer, 26 February 2018: Robert Mercer: the big data billionaire waging war on mainstream media Archived 27 February 2017 at the Wayback Machine; retrieved 22 March 2018.
  26. ^ a b Cadwallader, Carole (17 March 2018). "The Cambridge Analytica Files : 'I made Steve Bannon's psychological warfare tool': meet the data war whistleblower". The Observer. Archived from the original on 17 March 2018. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  27. ^ a b Cadwalladr, Carole; Graham-Harrison, Emma (19 March 2018). "Facebook and Cambridge Analytica face mounting pressure over data scandal". The Observer. Archived from the original on 28 June 2018. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  28. ^ Rajan, Amol (19 March 2018). "Data and the threat to democracy". BBC News. Archived from the original on 16 April 2019. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  29. ^ "Cambridge Analytica sends 'girls' to entrap politicians Archived 20 March 2018 at the Wayback Machine". The Times. 20 March 2018.
  30. ^ Rosenberg, Matthew (19 March 2018). "Cambridge Analytica, Trump-Tied Political Firm, Offered to Entrap Politicians". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 19 March 2018. Retrieved 20 March 2018.
  31. ^ Hagey, Rebecca Ballhaus and Keach (11 April 2018). "Cambridge Analytica CEO Post Goes to Julian Wheatland". Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 14 April 2018. Retrieved 15 April 2018 – via www.wsj.com.
  32. ^ York, Olivia Solon Oliver Laughland in New (2 May 2018). "Cambridge Analytica closing after Facebook data harvesting scandal". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 17 July 2019. Retrieved 2 May 2018 – via www.theguardian.com.
  33. ^ Cadwalladr, Carole (17 March 2019). "Cambridge Analytica a year on: 'a lesson in institutional failure'". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 8 May 2019. Retrieved 9 May 2019 – via www.theguardian.com.
  34. ^ Garside, Juliette; Osborne, Hilary (8 October 2018). "Former Cambridge Analytica chief used N-word to describe Barbados PM". the Guardian. Archived from the original on 15 February 2019. Retrieved 8 October 2018.
  35. ^ a b c "EMERDATA LIMITED Filing History". Companies House. Archived from the original on 11 April 2019. Retrieved 21 March 2018.
  36. ^ Bloomberg, Executive Profile of Chun Shun Ko (cached) Linked 2018-03-22
  37. ^ Business Insider, Mar. 21, 2018: "The power players behind Cambridge Analytica have set up a mysterious new data company" Archived 24 March 2018 at the Wayback Machine Linked 2018-03-22
  38. ^ Osborne, Samuel (24 September 2020). "Former boss of Cambridge Analytica banned from being company director over 'shady political services'". The Independent. Retrieved 7 April 2023.
  39. ^ "7-year disqualification for Cambridge Analytica boss". gov.uk. 24 September 2020. Archived from the original on 24 September 2020. Retrieved 24 September 2020.
  40. ^ "Cambridge Analytica's former boss gets 7-year ban on being a business director". TechCrunch. 25 September 2020. Retrieved 25 September 2020.
  41. ^ "Cambridge Analytica's Alexander Nix: Bond villain, tech genius or hustler?". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 23 April 2020. Retrieved 24 February 2020.
  42. ^ "Is Alexander Nix gravely misunderstood?". Coffee House. 8 June 2018. Archived from the original on 2 July 2019. Retrieved 24 February 2020.
  43. ^ Shrimsley, Robert (22 March 2018). "Alexander Nix, a fake Bond villain obscuring the real mastermind". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 25 September 2020. Retrieved 24 February 2020.
  44. ^ Katz, Brandon (13 March 2020). "Exclusive: Paul Bettany to Co-Star in Cambridge Analytica Drama From 'Avengers' Team". Observer. Archived from the original on 26 June 2020. Retrieved 24 June 2020.
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