Fuel has been added to that fire both in the press and in whispers [also a half dozen in our tips inbox], but now the Uptown society set has come to acknowledge that the better half of this hedge fund couple is in a relationship with another woman who is also a member of that social scene and recently separated from her own long-term partner. The two are attending events together and everyone seems to be cool with it, including our big-time hedgie.

In fact, the whole thing seems to be a paean to the progressive mindset of NYC's one percent, and the only people who should maybe fret are investors in our mystery man's fund...but they've had many other reasons to worry for a while now.

Thanks for playing. 

But the one thing that we, and really no one, seems to be able to figure out for certain is how or if this guy actually did finance. Considering that the business of moving money requires actual counterparties. We have yet to see one example of a person in the world claiming that they were on the other side of a transaction from Jeffrey Epstein [except Deutsche Bank of course, but it's a given that they would be involved in anything this messy]. And we will count pimping and blackmailing as "Financial transaction" [we call this "Sage Kelly Rules"].

So, let's do it here! We're a well-known receptacle of rumor and innuendo that is morally comfortable believing anonymous sources if they can prove basic legitimacy, so reach out and tell us if you're a person - or know a person - who has done actual business with Jeffrey Epstein. We will tell your story for you.

To keep things anonymous email tips@dealbreaker, DM us on twitter @dealbreaker  or hit us up on Signal at TCM718.

We have recently become acquainted with something called the "Aftershock Podcast" hosted by a former Howard Stern intern named Steve Grillo. It listens like a wild carnival of New York City-based filthy gossip brought to your ears by minor celebrities and people inside the wondrous world of Big Apple sex work.

On the most recent episode, a young lady named Martha Duke was Grillo's guest. After a pretty wild entree into the narrative of the podcast (you can listen for yourself if you're curious about who's not wearing underwear in a podcast studio), Duke [who seems to occupy a nebulous role in this community that we can best describe as falling somewhere between escort and strip club promoter] fell into a yarn about a creepy billionaire she once knew biblically who had a potent curiosity about whether she would ever be interested in fucking a horse or a dog.

And that was the cute part.

As the interview goes on [cue up to about the 20-minute mark for what we're about to delve into] Duke lets it be known that her bestiality-curious paramour was also way into sex with other men, very young girls, and card tricks. He was also, according to her "like the world's worst hedge fund manager." Our interest, needless to say, was piqued.

The sordid sexual tastes of this mystery man are deep, dark and discussed in the podcast. While we have no real judgments on paying (or in this case apparently not paying) for sex, or interest in your own gender, we are pretty freaked out by Duke's assertion that a billionaire hedgie [and therefore definitely someone we're aware of] is at least vocally curious about pedophilia.

So, let's maybe unpack the clues and see who we think this three-comma, asset-managing sex criminal might be...

Here are the clues we found in the podcast:

• Likes very soft, very expensive suits.
• Does card tricks to impress drunk sex workers at fancy restaurants.
• Was on the Forbes list at one point in recent years.
• Is building a casino in Thailand [seems odd considering gambling laws there, so it might be a different Asian nation].
• Had a place in St. Bart's that he recently sold.
• Was prone to cruising the beaches of St. Bart's.
• Is New York-based.
• "Stuck" in a bad marriage.
• Doesn't understand how Venmo works.
• Is personally acquainted with many porn stars and strippers.
• A frequenter of Manhattan strip clubs.
• Is oddly cheap.

We, of course, have some working theories as to who it might be, but we're not going to play. This is for you, our sick creepy readers.

Happy Friday.

A tipster inside Credit Suisse's NYC office reached out to let us know of a little summer scandal brewing over at Madison Square East.

According to our source, an MD of the M&A persuasion apparently let himself get carried away on the summer vibes and let himself get sadly gross and cliche with his interns. Our anonymous Credit Suisser is reputed to have "Got stoned at a company sponsored summer outing, and then proceeded to head back to office after said outing only to start harassing summer interns - allegedly gave an summer associate an extremely uncomfortable massage in full view of all the other interns and then lock another intern in an office and other interns ended up calling security for rescue."

Wow. That's all so dumb! And nobody tell Thad about the locking up part. We're saving that surprise for 4th of July weekend.

But the behavior is not really what grabbed our eye when we read this tip. What we found way more interesting and worthy of a blind item is that this MD has apparently gotten away with it, even in the Summer of #MeToo.

Per our tipster, "Group is now telling interns to hush or face repercussions if it leaks...They are going to let him off with a HR lecture."

So, if you're a Credit Suisse summer intern or staffer and would like to discuss this further [we have a second independent source telling us that this a live rumor inside 11 Madison Ave.], please get active in the comments or via tips@dealbreaker.com and let us know more about this first dumb intern scandal of the summer.

We have to go soothe Thad, he takes these stories rather hard.

A source exclusively confirms that architecture and design aficionado Pitt recently met accomplished Oxman through an MIT architecture project and they have since become friends. Pitt was referred to Oxman to collaborate on an architectural project he was working on, we’re told.
As first revealed on “Page Six TV,” a source told us, “Brad and Neri instantly hit it off because they share the same passion for architecture, design and art. This is best described as a professional friendship.”
But the source added, “Their friendship has not turned into romance … as both are cautious and this is, again, more of a professional friendship, but Brad is very interested in spending more time with Neri, she is fascinating.”

We here are dealbreaker dot com however found this story to be a gothic tragedy and have spent the last few weeks trying to ignore and curse this flirtation.

You see, every absurd romantic comedy plot needs a Baxter, and in this telling of the tale, the Baxter was reportedly none other than Dealbreaker Patron Saint of Pain, William Ackman. According to that April report, Oxman was dating our boy Bill...

But Pitt may have a challenge on his hands — multiple sources also confirm to Page Six that Oxman has recently been dating billionaire activist investor Bill Ackman, 51.
New York-based Ackman — who has been battling to reassure investors of his hedge fund Pershing Square after losses — has been seeing Oxman for seven months, we are told.

These words cut us deep back in April. We went so far as to ignore commenting on it because even we felt that Bill has dealt with enough shit in the last two years that he doesn't need to be the Bill Pullman role in a movie about a mousey professor letting her hair down, taking her glasses off, realizing she's crazy hot and then dumping Bill Pullman for, well, Brad Pitt.

We hoped for the best, but we also had to face the reality that a human woman who we can only assume is not legally blind was being presented with the choices of Bill Ackman and Brad Pitt. Our heart was heavy.

But today, a shining ray of hope and light from PagesSix!

Rock-star MIT professor Neri Oxman — who was reportedly being wooed by Brad Pitt — is still going strong with billionaire hedge funder Bill Ackman.

What what what?! Ackman over Pitt? You are a fascinating lady, Neri Oxman. And maybe you're also a muse. After all, Pershing Square's May was the best performance that Ackman has laid down in many moons and he's cashing out his personal investments to show everyone how ride-or-die he's feeling.

This newfound confidence cannot be unrelated to the knowledge that you're cockblocking Tyler Durden himself. Bill Ackman is not coming back...Bill Ackman is fucking BACK and hotter than ever.

We love this story, and we cannot wait to read PageSix in a few weeks and learn about Carl Icahn's angry, desperate attempts to spitefully seduce Neri Oxman,

Brad Pitt spending time with rockstar MIT professor [PageSix]
Brad Pitt’s MIT crush still going strong with billionaire hedge funder Bill Ackman [PageSix]

Milken is nothing if not a guy who knows everybody and he is never afraid to talk about it. Usually, stories from masters of the universe about their peers rarely manager to register on our interest meter, but Milken's terse penny psychological take on Carl Icahn is kind a fun...especially for a Friday afternoon.

Check this out this exchange with Bloomberg:

How do you approach negotiations?
Even if you have a price that a person would want to do the transaction, sometimes you have to let a person feel like they can negotiate. A person like Carl Icahn, for example: It would take the thrill out of it if he couldn’t negotiate.

You gotta know how to keep it hot with an older guy, and who better than another older guy who loves to wheel and deal. We would love to watch Milken and Carl haggle over a check...at Marea.

Junk Bond King Milken on Drexel’s Legacy and Negotiating With Carl Icahn [Bloomberg]

Michael Wolff's new book about the goings on inside the Trump White House was obtained by CNBC and excerpted in New York Magazine this afternoon. While the whole thing sounds like quite the read, one part in particular has us eager to pick up a cope.

In what CNBC seems to report is part of an email that made its way around the West Wing and was "purporting to represent the views of Gary Cohn," we get a real glimpse into The Big Grundle's mental state over the last 12 months. While we're unclear on how these thoughts came to be collected, we are choosing to believe that a Trump acolyte junior staffer in White House IT saw an email from Gary's account addressed to Lloyd Blankfein on the office server and shared it with staffers in an attempt to undermine a traitor.

Because, holy fuckeroni, does Gary sound like a disloyal snowflake:

"It's worse than you can imagine. An idiot surrounded by clowns. Trump won't read anything - not one-page memos, not the brief policy papers; nothing. He gets up halfway through meetings with world leaders because he is bored. And his staff is no better. Kushner is an entitled baby who knows nothing. Bannon is an arrogant prick who thinks he's smarter than he is. Trump is less a person than a collection of terrible traits. No one will survive the first year but his family. I hate the work, but feel I need to stay because I'm the only person there with a clue what he's doing. The reason so few jobs have been filled is that they only accept people who pass ridiculous purity tests, even for midlevel policy-making jobs where the people will never see the light of day."

And if that wasn't all good enough, Gary ends his (probable) email to Lloyd with the one phrase we've wanted to hear him say for months now:

"I am in a constant state of shock and horror."

Gary, you have no idea how happy we are to read these words.

It was the case of the missing cabinet member in the Hamptons last week when — well-heeled sources tell us — Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross seemed to lose his security detail leading to an awkward search at a tony takeout joint.
A source tells Page Six that guests grabbing grub at the Golden Pear cafe in Southampton were taken aback on Friday when agents entered asking if anyone had seen the secretary.

We knew that Wilbur was acting confused lately - the guy doesn't even know how much he's worth anymore - but we didn't know that the face of American business around the world had entered the "wandering" phase of his dotage. Maybe we're making too much of this...

“His security people lost him in the Hamptons,” an area regular told Page Six of Ross. “They went into the Golden Pear in Southampton and said, ‘Has anyone seen him?’ ” The source added, “They said they had lost him and asked anyone who spotted him to call them. They gave out cards that said ‘Commerce Department security’ — and told the owner, ‘If you see him, will you call us immediately?’ ”

Sundowning in The Hamptons must be very dramatic what with those famously gorgeous sunsets. And whether or not Wilbur is truly losing the thread of his own mind, it is a perfect time for him to start being publicly "confused." If Wilbur is 'not all there,' it would explain the napping, the bad math, the love of oppressive theocracies and even the alleged insider trading.

Maybe Wilbur Ross has gone goofy. Goofy like a fox!

Security detail loses Wilbur Ross in Hamptons takeout joint [PageSix]

Without drunken interns, little person-filled "charity" bacchanalias or a David Tepper ATM visit, we were getting borderline depressed about how boring life must be "Out East" this summer. But then - like a shiny, naturally doe-eyed angel - an old friend steps forward to rescue us from the doldrums of late August...

Socialite Lisa Maria Falcone is infuriating Hamptons residents by allowing her thoroughbred horses to freely “dump” on Gibson Beach in Sagaponack, while others are dutifully picking up after their dogs.

Lisa Maria, you've outdone yourself. Literally leaving pounds of shit for your neighbors is the kind of thing we'd celebrate using a prayer hands emoji if we were capable of such technology...or understood emojis.

A resident tells us that the fashionista wife of former hedge fund manager Phil Falcone will “bring eight horses in a truck and ride them on the beach and in the water from 6 p.m. until after sunset with her friends, and then leave without picking up the horse dung.”

You would think that she'd be interested in keeping some of that horseshit. After all, Halloween is right around the corner.

While cleaning up after the horses seems far too stinky for Lisa and pals, they do have time for the finer things.
“They even have a refreshment stand set up.”

Wilbur Falcone could not be reached for comment.

Hamptonites peeved after socialite refuses to pick up after her horses [PageSix]

Billionaire activist investor Bill Ackman and his wife Karen Ann Herskovitz have split after 25 years and are heading for a big-money divorce, Page Six can exclusively reveal.

The Ack-Man has never been anything but than a good sport putting up with our bullsh!t over the years so we wish him and his family the best.

Billionaire investor Bill Ackman and wife in ‘big-money divorce’ [PageSix]

As you've certainly heard, Yahoo has agreed to terms with Verizon on $4.8 billion sale of its "Core assets" (ie, the stuff that may or may not be worth salvaging from a once-proud web portal behemoth). With the two companies moving into the actual nitty gritty of finalizing the deal, we'll hear about all the violent nature of M&A in which the conquerer tears apart the conquered to see what it wants to keep, and what it doesn't. One major part of that process will be what becomes of Yahoo's lightning rod CEO Marissa Mayer.

Before we forget, while Mayer has taken a beating from a certain snarky finance blog in recent months, she deserves no small amount of credit for hauling in $5 billion for her decrepit company and for increasing Yahoo's stock price more than 150% during her four-year tenure (although Jerry Yang could take credit for almost all of that with his 2005 bet on Alibaba). It's been something of a nightmare run for Yahoo shareholders under Marissa's reign, but they are walking away with something, and that's...not nothing(?)

But that said, almost immediately upon Verizon signing on the dotted line, Marissa Mayer will be shoved out the Moon Door of the tech executive penthouse. Mayer's departure from the new entity is certain for a number of reasons not the least of which being that it should happen.

Sure, Mayer inherited a former mansion that had been reduced to a rickety house, but while trying to shore up the foundation she proceeded to fill it with airplane fuel and set it on fire. She has become the face of Yahoo's struggle, so she needs to go away if this acquisition has any hope of success. Mayer staying on at Yahoo under a Verizon regime would not be unlike if Angelo Mozilo had been handed the title of "Vice Chairman of Mortgage Lending" at Bank of America.

So it's more than a little sad to hear Mayer tell anyone who will listen that she intends to stay on in the Purple Kingdom.

Here's what Mayer said in an internal memo to Yahoo staffers obtained by Kara Swisher:

The teams here have not only built incredible products and technologies, but have built Yahoo into one of the most iconic, and universally well-liked companies in the world. One that continues to impact the lives of more than a billion people. I’m incredibly proud of everything that we’ve achieved, and I’m incredibly proud of our team. For me personally, I’m planning to stay. I love Yahoo, and I believe in all of you. It’s important to me to see Yahoo into its next chapter.

These kind of memos are tough and she's trying to make everyone feel okay. Maybe she just got over her skis and said something she didn't mean.

But here's what she said to CNBC later this morning:

She said AOL CEO Tim Armstrong "and I are old friends and colleagues and I very much respect him and am looking forward to working with him again."

Again, a nice post-announcement sentiment, but also only half honest...at best. We have yet to see an account of Mayer and Armstrong's time together at Google that paints them as anything but bitter rivals who worked together about as well as Bill Gross and Mohamed El-Erian. AOL is Armstrong's kingdom and Verizon is buying him Yahoo as a shiny new toy, one that he will not be sharing with anyone.

Mayer does not want to work for Armstrong and Armstrong is does not want to deal with Mayer. That is not a great starting point for a new relationship. Perhaps Mayer is negotiating in public and hoping to get axed in order to pick up her platinum parachute and pile on a few more tens of millions onto the more than $200 million she's believed to have scooped up in her time at Yahoo.

But that's literally the best Mayer can hope for here. Perhaps she thinks that she might forge a relationship with Marni Walden, the Verizon exec in charge of putting this thing together. Walden (who is sort of Armstrong's boss) might share the most superficial of traits with Mayer (hair color, caucasian, not men) but she appears to be the anti-Marissa in almost every other possible way.

Walden is a career telecom exec with a flinty-eyed revenue-based realism. She is not the type to be swayed by Mayer's Silicon Valley-inflected philosophizing about staying on at Yahoo to keep "making the world a better place." One can only imagine Walden taking one look through the details of Marissa's Tumblr acquisition and giving her the full Shark Tank treatment.

We want to congratulate Marissa Mayer on the sale of Yahoo, we really do. But how can we respect her if she won't go away?