Patrick Byrne, ex-CEO of Overstock and an ally to former President Donald Trump, has reportedly moved to Dubai after alleging that he learned the government of Venezuela has a $25 million bounty on him, according to court documents.
Byrne has been a vocal supporter of the Republican presidential nominee, including backing his unproven claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. His support for Trump has cost him legal troubles, including a $1.7 billion lawsuit leveled by the Dominion voting machine company and a defamation suit filed by Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden.
Court documents filed on September 18 in the Hunter Biden defamation suit showed that Byrne’s lawyers said their client has left the country.
The documents center on disputes over efforts to lock down Byrne’s deposition in the case. The filing from Biden’s lawyers says that they were informed last month that Byrne has fled the U.S. after he was allegedly informed of the bounty by a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent.
Steven Ferdman/Getty Images
“Defendant currently resides and conducts business in Dubai and moved there because of threats made on his life and a bounty put on him in the sum of $25,000,000 by the Venezuelan government in July of 2024,” the filing reads.
It says that Byrne allegedly “offered to pay all travel expenses for one plaintiff’s attorney, the court reporter and videographer to travel to Dubai to personally depose him.”
Hunter Biden’s lawyers, however, pointed to previous discussions held September 2 to conduct the deposition in Florida. They wrote that Byrne’s lawyers told them on September 11, just over a week later, that Byrne allegedly left and “would not be returning to the United States for the foreseeable future.” Biden’s council described the claim as “unverified and unsupported.”
More details about Byrne’s allegations have not been made public. Newsweek reached out to Michael Murphy, an attorney representing Byrne, for comment via email on Wednesday.
The filings were first reported in September by journalist Seth Hettena, who wrote on X, formerly Twitter, “Former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne has relocated to Dubai and won’t be returning to the US for the foreseeable future because Byrne says a DEA agent told him that the government of Venezuela has put a $25m bounty on his head.”
Byrne resigned from his position at Overstock in 2019 after his romantic ties to convicted Russian foreign agent Maria Butina became known, as well as after he wrote a letter to investors about the “deep state.”
Hunter Biden’s lawsuit, filed in November 2023, focuses on an accusation by Byrne, who claimed that Hunter sought to have President Biden unfreeze $8 billion in funds in exchange for an $800 million bribe. Hunter Biden’s lawyers assert those claims are “completely false,” and that Byrne “knew them to be false,” CNN reported.
