Just when you thought this guy couldn't get any worse, he manages to go and put his grubby hands in the music industry. Martin Shkreli, the hedge fund kid who bought the rights to an anti-parasitic drug Daraphin that was used to treat HIV through his pharmaceutical company Turing Pharmaceuticals. He then raised the price of the drug from $13.50 to $750, causing outrage that reached all the way to presidential candidate Hilary Clinton. Now Shkreli has taken his loads of cash and used it to buy Wu-Tang Clan's rare, one-of-a-kind new album, Once Upon A Time in Shaolin for the reported price of $2 million.
Bloomberg reports that Shkreli successfully bid for the LP on upstart online auction house Paddle8, beating out a slew of other bidders. He became interested in the piece of music after attending a private listening event where he was able to meet with Paddle8 executives and have lunch with RZA.
"Then I really became convinced that I should be the buyer," Shkreli said about the meeting. "We didn't have a ton in common," he says. "I can't say I got to know him that well, but I obviously like him."
The sale had been finalized in May, but the resulting paperwork had taken several months until last month when the sale was finally disclosed to the public. RZA told Bloomberg in a statement, "The sale of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin was agreed upon in May, well before Martin Skhreli's [sic] business practices came to light. We decided to give a significant portion of the proceeds to charity."
As of this writing, Shkreli is hosting a YouTube live stream and asking commenters to give him recommendations on what album to buy next. He is putting those into a spreadsheet for future conquests. This could turn into a real rare library of music.
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