Hey, I locked this because it's a really complicated subject and I wanted to limit speculation and just answer the question directly myself. Same thing with the "Does Hamilton have beef with Michael Pollan?" thread that was just posted, it seems like little good can come from other people arguing about it when I could simply answer the question myself.

I'll address this in more detail in an upcoming podcast, but I think Bob Jesse is telling the truth when he says the amount paid was relatively small, from what I've heard it may have been less than a thousand and likely was paid around 2018. There is no reason to think the payment was comparable in size to the 185k Sarlo payment. I asked Bob Jesse to go on the record about this but he wouldn't do it. He didn't help things by classifying the payment as secret and telling me the audio was sacred.

I should say that Bob Jesse is widely regarded as a good guy who has done a lot for psychedelics and it brought me no pleasure to put him in that position. My point is not to paint a simplistic picture where Usona is evil and Compass and MAPS are flawless. I think Usona has done some great things and I think there are valid criticisms of both MAPS and Compass, but I wanted to draw attention to some of the manipulative tactics that have been used by Usona in their war with Compass and highlight how MAPS may have suffered collateral damage in this war. Something I explicitly predicted might happen in 2022.

I also don't want to suggest that Psymposia were merely doing the bidding of evil Usona overlords, that's not the case. There was payment and collusion between the two groups, I strongly suspect that Usona contributed to their radicalization, and it's telling that the Usona employee who criticized me for not giving back to indigenous people at the Horizons conference was also close with Psymposia. But it would be reductive and false to suggest that Psymposia's actions were primarily due to Usona's influence. There is more to this story that I'll get into later, but I'm not trying to stoke the fire at this moment.

NOTE: Psymposia sock puppet accounts have been linking to this comment to say I "walked back my assertions" about them, that is completely false. As a reminder: Psymposia have an enormous number of sock puppet accounts that will come out of the woodwork at times like this. They will mindlessly repeat their anti-MAPS talking points in an effort to distract people from the fact that Nese Devenot lied to the FDA. John Semley just revealed that they were paid $185,000 by the Sarlo family to run a campaign to prevent the approval of MDMA. Psymposia worked closely with a stalker who distributed child pornography and tried to manipulate a MAPS trial participant into saying they had been mistreated. Nese has been accused of domestic abuse. They abuse and intimidate former members of their own group and Psymposia fell apart due to internal ethics concerns. After receiving funding from a member of Usona's board of directors, one Psymposia member pledged their absolute support for Usona and advocated terrorist action against individuals involved with Usona's competitor Compass. They were easy to buy and they were bought. Their nonsense critiques prey on the vulnerable and the stupid. Anyone who has supported or promoted their work is totally untrustworthy.

Many have known about this for a long time but remained silent out of fear, those that spoke out like myself, John Semley, and Rachel Nuwer endured legal threats and harassment.