Many of the accounts appear to belong to local and national politicians and political operatives, ranging from representatives of Texas Dan Crenshaw to former mayor of Deltona, Florida, venture capitalist, defense industry entrepreneur and executives like Christian Brows, president of defense technology giant Andrill. (Crenshaw’s office and Andrill did not respond to requests for comment.)
One of the most notable ones appears to belong to Wills, one of Trump’s most trusted political advisers. The account’s 182 friends list includes accounts that share the names of influential figures, such as US Attorney General Pam Bondi and Trump’s former White House Communications Director Hope Hicks.
Venmo transactions for accounts listed on Waltz, Wiles, or Barrett were not publicly available, but it appears that they are not opting out of sharing contact lists, making it impossible for the friends list to be visible to the public. After Wired reached into the White House for comment, it appeared that both Waltz and Wiles would change Venmo’s privacy settings to hide their friends list.
Venmo spokesman Erin Mackey said in a statement: “Because we take your privacy seriously, you can choose Venmo’s privacy settings for both individual payments and friends lists. This comment is roughly the same as the Venmo offered on wired, in response to the current President JD Vance story of Venmo.
Last July, Wired reported that Vance had kept his Venmo account open and released a network of connections with Project 2025 architects, DOJ officials, Yale Law classmates and far-right media figures. (Wired analysis of that public venmo account, although not reported at the time, and a network of friends of his listed shows that the Michael Waltz Venmo account appears on Vance’s extended network, including friends and friends.
When your Michael Waltz account is set up in 2017, the app will prompt users to sync phone contacts and automatically register a friend list with someone in your address book that is already using the platform. Privacy advocates including the Electronic Frontier Foundation; It was criticized The design claims that by default, it exposes users to unnecessary risks. Until BuzzFeed News was revealed in 2021, then-President Joe Biden was easily spotted on the PayPal-owned app, which added the option of hiding the friend list. However, that setting remains opt-in. According to its privacy policy,Unless users actively change their privacy settings, the network is visible to everyone.
Mixed with the famous names connected to the apparent Waltz Venmo account are many accounts that appear to belong to ordinary people, including some doctors, real estate agents, tailors and more. These are the types of low-level connections that experts say spies are looking for basic information. A relationship with a healthcare professional may reveal that you are undergoing treatment for an unpublished illness, as a pattern, pressure point, or method called a “soft target.”
