Tony Ortega today did a piece on singer Stephen Ridley coming out publicly as a Scientologist.

Just exactly who is Stephen Ridley?

A quick check shows he worked as a junior investment banker at USB but left banking to pursue his passion for music. The Financial Times reported earlier this year that Ridley has  launched his own cryptofund:

Stephen Ridley is also a shameless fanboy of his fellow Scientologist Grant Cardone:

Grant Cardone emphasizes the need to have multiple streams of income. This is hardly original to Cardone. Accordingly, Grant Cardone became a private equity fund manager in 2017 when he opened Cardone Equity Fund LLC. His SEC filing (see below) showed he was looking to raise $40,000,000. This fund is another income stream for Cardone.

We recently reported on Grant Cardone opening a non-accredited investment fund. Elena tweeted about it and mangled the details, i.e. she confused the FCC with the SEC:

Why are the Cardone’s looking for non-accredited investors given Cardone’s claim to have $540+ million in real estate? A half-billion dollar real estate portfolio should attract accredited investors. The obvious answer is that Cardone wants as many streams of income as he can create.

Stephen Ridley and his money guru Grant Cardone show the emphasis on money, self-promotion, and the Art of the Hustle amongst many Scientologists. Part of this is because what we call the Scientology Money Club is an extremely expensive club to join.

Scientology fancies itself a religion, but in our view it is really just a money club at the top. In our opinion, it takes a $5,000,000 IAS donation to buy one’s way into this club. In return comes the glorified IAS bowling trophy and access into the club. We have written about our Scientology Money Club hypothesis and documented financial relationships among Scientologists we discovered in the Panama Papers. These relationships include billionaire Bob Duggan.

We can plot Grant Cardone’s rise in Scientology on a seemingly date-coincident basis with he and Elena’s first major IAS trophy:

Predictively, Stephen Ridley will donate his first $1,000,000 towards joining the Scientology Money Club very soon. After all, access to the top is everything in Scientology — and access takes big money; completing all three L’s; OT status; and publicly promoting Scientology.

Stephen Ridley studies investment systems. Here is a video in which he promotes the HVF System (Francis Hunt’s Volatility Funnel Trading Method):

Grant Cardone’s SEC filing. Note: Please hover your cursor over the document to invoke the page up/page down controls at the bottom of the page frame:

Cardone SEC FORM D