LIVES JET-SETTING, PLAYBOY LIFESTYLE
In 2023, Boston Magazine described Mr. Slater as a “billionaire.”
Mr. Slater’s lifestyle raises significant questions about his ability to relate to the concerns and needs of middle-class air travelers. While AAF does not begrudge Mr. Slater’s private choices, they nevertheless suggest that Mr. Slater could be out of touch in a way that renders him unqualified for the position to which he has been nominated. Over 45 million passengers travel through Reagan and Dulles airports each year, a qualification of a Board Member of MWAA would be someone who is more familiar with the travails of passengers traveling through a crowded airport during the holidays rather than an individual who is often traveling via private jet.
PART-OWNER OF NHL’S SEATTLE KRAKEN
In 2021, Mr. Slater became a part owner of the NHL’s Seattle Kraken. To join the league, the Kraken paid a record setting expansion fee of $650 million.
FLIES PRIVATE (SOMETIMES IN PLAYBOY’S OLD JET)
Mr. Slater’s wife, Jessica, has posted pictures to social media of the family’s use of private jets for travel. The photos below show the Slaters on the tarmac as the jet off to the tony Yellowstone Club in Montana, and as Slater mocks Montanans by posing in his private jet in a sleeveless camo t-shirt when his wife asks him if he’s” Ready for Montana.“ In 2018 the Yellowstone Club costs $400,000 to join, with annual dues of $41,500.
The Slater family’s use of private jets raises obvious questions about their level of familiarity with commercial air travel. In 2022, Mr. Slater bought the former Playboy jet, as Boston Magazine described:
…One morning in August 2022, Slater attended a secret meeting in a private airplane
hangar at Van Nuys Airport in southern California to check out a possible investment.
He climbed the steps of a private plane, walked through the door—the interior side
of which was embossed with the signature Playboy Bunny logo—and noted the
details inside: herringbone carpets, custom-dyed cognac leather seats, crocodile
embossed wallcoverings, and a top-of-the-line sound-and-entertainment system.
Slater had been in the market for a company jet, but this was a deal like none other.
The aircraft was in mint condition after the publicly traded Playboy company
poured a fortune into its renovation—resurrecting the name Big Bunny from
Hugh Hefner’s original jet and giving it its own Instagram handle—as part of a high
profile campaign to market the dawn of a new era at Playboy. Just a year later,
however, the company was financially stressed, and the plane represented a
significant chunk of its assets. It had to go.
Slater recognized that the plane’s rare pedigree made it a unique asset with the
prospect for some serious chartering traffic on the days it was not in use for the family
company—meaning it had the potential to function as its own money-making
business. There is a certain irony to the fact that a man who doesn’t want people to
see him as a party boy would consider snapping up the physical embodiment of a
young playboy’s pleasure palace at 35,000 feet. Still, it checked all the boxes for a
good investment, Slater says, so he bought it…
Beyond private jet use, Jessica Slater posted a picture of her on a yacht to her Instagram last March, raising further questions if Sam Slater is the type of leader who is personally familiar with the concerns of the traveling public.
“BOSTON PARTY GUY” (WHO PARTIED WITH PLAYBOY MANSION REGULAR)
One might excuse Mr. Slater’s connection to the Playboy empire as a one-off “investment,” were it not for other aspects of his past. In the summer of 2010, Mr. Slater hosted a concert for his twenty-sixth birthday. A blog which covered the event described Mr. Slater as a “Boston party-guy.”
Most notably, however, Mr. Slater’s guests that night included actor Verne Troyer.
While he passed away in 2018, Mr. Troyer was best known for portraying the character “MiniMe” in the 1999 film, “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.”
During his lifetime, Troyer was reportedly a regular guest of Hugh Hefner at the Playboy Mansion.
As former Playboy Mansion butler Bryant Horowitz explained on the “Girls Next Level” podcast:
Horowitz: I’ve seen a lot of the incidents involving Verne Troyer.
Holly Madison: Like sexual?!?
Horowitz: Um, hmm.
[AWKWARD LAUGHTER]
Horowitz: Some of the girls were really…intrigued…by him. And, so, there
would be times where I’d be serving a drink or something and I’d…TURN
RIGHT BACK AROUND BECAUSE I DID NOT NEED TO BE PART OF THAT.
The rest of the discussion about Troyer continues in this vein but is too graphic to
republish but includes discussion of Troyer and porn stars engaging in acts described
in the Steele Dossier.