He started a covid-19 vaccine company. Then he hosted a superspreader event.
With cases spiking, the Los Angeles area banned gatherings. One Silicon Valley entrepreneur thought he could beat the odds.
by Eileen Guoarchive page
February 13, 2021
technologyreview.com
At least 20 people contracted covid-19 at an indoor, mostly unmasked gathering for wealthy executives hosted by Peter Diamandis, the Singularity University and XPrize Foundation cofounder.
At the time, a regional stay-at-home order made the gathering illegal. The outbreak wasn't reported to authorities as required and rules on health data privacy may have been broken.
Diamandis is not sure how many people have tested positive, citing either 21 or 24 cases, not counting secondary infections.
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On Sunday, January 24, with Southern California’s intensive-care units (ICUs) at full capacity, a shuttle bus made the short trip from a beachfront hotel in Santa Monica to an open-plan office in Culver City, carrying business executives from as far away as Israel, Hawaii, and Vancouver.
Some had paid upwards of $30,000 to attend a pandemic-year rarity: an indoor, in-person, mostly unmasked business conference, called the Abundance 360 Summit.
Created by Peter Diamandis—who is also the founder or cofounder of several space companies and Silicon Valley innovation hub Singularity University, as well as of covid-19 vaccine developer Covaxx—the conference was a lucrative opportunity to hold court with a group of his “patrons.” These are businessmen (and a small handful of businesswomen) who pay large annual and conference fees for the privilege of gathering to talk about some of Diamandis’s favorite topics: AI, longevity, exponential growth, and “the abundance mindset.” Speakers at the 2021 event, some of whom appeared virtually, included Silicon Valley luminaries such as Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Jonathan Hofeller, the executive in charge of SpaceX's satellite mega-constellation, Starlink.
A360, as its organizers call it, was being held despite widespread recommendations from public health experts to limit contact with non-family members, wear masks, and hold any gatherings outdoors to limit the spread of covid-19.
And in California, this was more than a recommendation: on December 5, the state had banned all gatherings, public and private, until regional hospital ICU capacities rose above 15% again. The in-person portion of Diamandis’s gathering was illegal.
And at first, it seemed they were in the clear—even though staff and attendees were mostly unmasked. Everyone took daily coronavirus tests. Nobody fell sick during the January 24-26 meetings.
But covid-19 can take time to incubate. The first confirmed positive results came back on January 28, during the conference’s online-only virtual-reality day, after most participants had flown home.
Over the next few days, the number of positive tests climbed sharply. By the morning of February 3 at least five A360 employees, two speakers, and one family member who wasn’t at the conference had tested positive, while an additional three people showed symptoms, according to internal communications I viewed. (I granted anonymity to sources, who expressed fears of retaliation for speaking out.)
By the end of the day, that number would more than double. Another family member tested positive. Then, during a team Zoom meeting, Will Weisman, A360’s executive director, said that a large number of patrons had tested positive, including one who infected his wife and child, recounted an individual close to Diamandis on the call.
In a blog post published on the afternoon of February 12, Diamandis confirmed that 12 patrons had tested positive.
Less than a week after A360 attendees flew back to their pandemic home bases across the globe, at least 20 people, including not only those who were present at A360 but also some of their family members, had confirmed cases of covid-19.
Pandemic as business opportunity
When covid-19 first made its appearance in the United States, 59-year-old Diamandis, who has an MD from Harvard Medical School and degrees from MIT, was skeptical.
In mid-March, when six counties in the San Francisco Bay Area issued the nation’s first stay-at-home order, Diamandis tweeted, “We are witnessing the viral spread of fear that is definitively damaging both national economies and global markets” and, later, “The level of panic is doing as much damage.”
But ever the entrepreneur, Diamandis saw business opportunities in the pandemic. On March 26, the XPrize Foundation, which he chairs and which runs challenges using prize money to encourage innovative solutions to big problems, launched the XPrize Pandemic Alliance, with $7.5 million in prize money to fight covid-19.
He teamed up with Mei Mei Fu and Lou Reese, spouses and co-executives of biotech company United Biomedical. The three cofounded Covaxx, a vaccine development company that functions as a United Biomedical subsidiary (and is not to be confused with the global Covax effort to provide lower-income countries with vaccine doses).
Fu and Reese had already made news for providing free antibody testing for all residents of Colorado’s San Miguel County, home of Telluride, a resort town where many coastal millionnaires, including Fu and Reese, own second homes. “There are advantages to having biotech executives as neighbors,” as The Atlantic noted at the time.
In the days that followed, Diamandis praised the Chinese government’s “unprecedented” measures to contain the pandemic, from locking down an entire city to the “rapid national coordination of public action.”
Yet, by going through with the in-person portion of the Abundance 360 Summit, Diamandis ignored government notices and legal mandates implemented in the state of California.
Even A360’s parent company, Singularity University, had canceled its largest in-person gatherings due to the pandemic. “We have been closely monitoring the global pandemic situation and taking all measures to make sure our staff and program are safe. It’s been a difficult decision, but ... we have decided to postpone our November SU Executive Program,” wrote Singularity staff in an email dated October 8.
As the fall wore on and positive cases, death rates, and hospitalizations in Southern California grew precipitously, some team members charged with marketing A360 were dismayed that the event was set to continue.
On November 30, James Del, Singularity University’s head of content, conveyed his team’s growing concerns to Diamandis in an email, copying Singularity University CEO Steve Leonard, Singularity investor and board member Erik Anderson, and A360 executive director Will Weisman.
In his email, which was shared with me, Del urged SU to “consider the appearance of hosting an in-person gathering as cases in Los Angeles shatter their own records daily.”
“The current restrictions in LA county ban gatherings nearly completely,” he continued. “Going out and inviting the entire SU community to a city that is under strict lockdown seems like a PR crisis waiting to happen, and I suggest that we strongly consider changing our marketing focus to digital only.”
Just days later, on December 3, California enacted a regional stay-home order, to be triggered when ICU capacity fell below 15%. The order went into effect on December 5 and prohibited private gatherings of any size, other than constitutionally protected religious services and protests; closed nonessential businesses, except for critical infrastructure and retail; and required 100% masking outside the home. It also banned the use of hotels and lodging for nonessential travel.
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