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Did Andrew Tate buy university.com for a “record-breaking” sum?

Kevin Murphy, October 6, 2023, Domain Sales

The category-killer domain name university.com appears to have been sold to the world’s biggest douchebag, Andrew Tate.

According to a press release from last-but-one owner VPN.com, the domain changed hands last month for “an undisclosed, but record-breaking amount”. The buyer, according to the release, is The Real World, and the seller is an individual name Syed Hussaini.

The Real World is Andrew Tate’s alleged pyramid scheme in which users pay $50 a month for access to tutorials on subjects such as online content creation, cryptocurrency, drop-shipping, and marketing.

It looks like your basic get-rich-quick scam, with testimonials from alleged members bragging about making tens of thousands of dollars a month.

The domain university.com currently leads to the same offering as therealworld.co on a redesigned site. The Real World was in turn the second iteration of Tate’s Hustler’s University offering, which shut down last year.

The Real World’s app was banned from Apple’s App Store last month due to claims it is an illegal pyramid scheme and is used to spread misogynistic views.

If the domain sale was indeed a “record-breaker” — and I don’t think the source is 100% reliable in this case — it would have to have topped the $30 million paid for voice.com back in 2019.

Tate could probably afford it. If his scheme does in fact have 200,000 subscribers at $50 a month, he’s pulling in $120 million a year.

If you’ve never heard of Tate — lucky you — he’s a former kickboxer and social media influencer best known for turning a generation of teenage boys into misogynists. He’s currently out on bail in Romania following charges of sex trafficking and rape, which he denies.

Cancelled misogynist Andrew Tate moves domain to (drumroll)… Epik!

Kevin Murphy, August 26, 2022, Domain Registrars

Andrew Tate has become the latest high-profile controversy magnet to move his domain to Epik, at the end of a week that saw him thoroughly “cancelled” over reportedly violently misogynistic speech.

Tate, a former kick-boxer and reality TV contestant who made his money through a large social media following and an online course called Hustler’s University, reportedly told Fox News host Tucker Carlson yesterday:

When they go to cancel you, ladies and gentlemen, it comes hard and fast. You lose your Facebook, then your Instagram, then your Gmail, your Discord, then your website hosting, your domain name, like then your payment processor, and your bank.

Tate reportedly had his accounts on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Tiktok deleted this week. He was getting banned so much it briefly became a meme.

The domain name in question appears to be cobratate.com, based on his apparent nickname “Cobra”, and it appears to still be in his possession, although he has changed registrars.

Up until an hour or two ago the name was managed by Tucows, via United-Internet-owned reseller Fasthosts, but the Whois record now shows it’s with Epik.

It’s not clear right now whether he jumped or, as he implied to Fox, was pushed. Tucows tells me it had not received any complaints about the site, had not investigated, and had not asked Tate to leave. I’ve asked United for comment.

Epik has over the last few years become the safe-haven registrar of choice for people and groups who become internet persona non grata, typically those with far-right or violent views, such as Infowars, 8chan, Gab and The Daily Stormer.