Money to Burn by William D. Cohan and the Leon Black Record

Snapshot

• Subject: William D. Cohan’s Money to Burn: The Unvarnished Truth About Leon Black, Apollo, and the Rise of a New Wall Street.
• Publication: Portfolio, September 8, 2026. The United States hardcover is listed as 688 pages, ISBN 9780593716342.
• Scope: A documentary review of the book’s publicly accessible opening material, publication record, author interviews, promotional framing and relevant primary records. It is not a review of the complete book.
• Central finding: Public sources establish extensive cooperation by Black and a sympathetic interpretation of parts of his story. The sources examined do not establish that Black paid Cohan, financed the book or controlled the manuscript.
• Most important distinction: An author’s belief, a private investigation, a civil release, a congressional allegation and a court ruling are different forms of evidence.
• Related coverage: See the existing Leon Black profile for the wider chronology. This article focuses on the book and how to evaluate its claims.

What this review examines

A useful assessment of Money to Burn begins with a question that can actually be tested: how does its account of Black compare with the documents, and how much of that account rests on Black’s own explanation?

That question is narrower than alleging that a billionaire bought a favorable biography. Access can improve reporting, but it can also shape which explanations receive the most space. Sympathetic language can be criticized without inventing a financial arrangement. Conversely, a harsh allegation should not become a finding simply because it appears in an official letter.

The available material supports a close examination of sourcing, attribution and narrative framing. It does not support a verdict on every chapter, every source note or every omission in a book that has not been examined in full.

The publication record

Cohan’s own announcement says Portfolio publisher Adrian Zackheim acquired world rights from Joy Harris at The Joy Harris Literary Agency. It promotes access to Black and Apollo insiders. Zackheim’s description includes the phrase “tragic destiny.” These are documented publication and marketing choices. The announcement does not disclose the advance, expense arrangements, manuscript review rights or any payment by Black.

The publisher’s description presents Black’s departure through poor judgment, his Epstein relationship and an affair partner portrayed as seeking a shakedown. That is the publisher’s framing, not a court finding. The accessible opening preview likewise presents a story of financial achievement and personal downfall. Readers should distinguish this framing from what the underlying evidence establishes.

The table of contents identifies Acknowledgments at page 619, A Note on Sources at 621, Notes at 625 and the Index at 645. The lawful preview examined does not supply those sections in full. Their existence is verified; their complete disclosures are not.

Chronology of the public account

1. January 22, 2021: Dechert issues its report to Apollo’s conflicts committee. The report becomes an SEC filed exhibit on January 25.
2. January 29, 2021: Cohan challenges Black’s explanation and the adequacy of independent verification in Vanity Fair.
3. January 20, 2023: Black and the US Virgin Islands execute a settlement and release.
4. April 3 and October 6, 2024: Cohan publishes his interview with Black and later describes Dechert’s work as broadly supporting Black’s explanation.
5. March 11, 2025: Senator Ron Wyden writes to federal agencies about a higher payment total and discrepancies in the tax planning account.
6. March 20, 2026: Wyden dates another letter to Black citing newly released records.
7. August 30 and 31, 2026: Puck publishes an art collection discussion; On with Kara Swisher releases its Cohan interview.
8. September 1 and 8, 2026: Semafor reports the dispute over the book’s treatment of Times reporting; Portfolio publishes the book.
9. October 20, 2026: John Berman interviews Cohan on CNN News Central.

What is documented about access

Cohan’s April 2024 interview introduction places him with Black at the Elysium Partners family office, sharing lunch with Black’s public relations team before their discussion. This is firsthand evidence that representatives were present around the interview. It does not establish that they approved questions, dictated answers or controlled publication.

Andrew Marshall’s September 2026 review reproduces a passage in which Cohan thanks the interview facilitators. It names Whit Clay and Mark Herr at Black’s interviews, Steve Lipin at Marc Rowan’s interviews, and Jonathan Rosen, with earlier involvement by Cristina Alesci, at Josh Harris’s. Marshall says the representatives did not appear to interfere much. This remains a secondary quotation until the relevant book pages are checked directly.

Clay’s professional biography describes financial and crisis communications work. Herr’s biography describes work on litigation and reputational recovery. Those roles make the access arrangements relevant to a sourcing audit. Professional expertise in reputation management is not evidence of improper influence on this book.

The important unresolved questions concern the terms of access: who selected documents, whether transcripts were checked against recordings, whether subjects could review passages, and whether any review was limited to factual corrections. The public material examined does not settle these questions.

How Cohan’s public framing changed

In January 2021, Cohan explicitly rejected Black’s explanation and questioned the transparency of a paid private review whose underlying evidence was not independently available. His skepticism is part of his own published record, not a later critic’s reconstruction.

By October 2024, Cohan wrote that Black’s explanation had been “pretty much confirmed” by Dechert. He also attributed the stronger description of total exoneration to Black. The distinction matters: the column contains both the author’s assessment and the subject’s characterization. A fair critique should identify what new evidence changed the author’s assessment rather than assume that a change of view proves corruption.

There is a separate attribution issue in the August 30, 2026 art discussion. Its introduction says, “There has been no evidence of wrongdoing on Black’s part.” The introduction is framed in Marion Maneker’s voice, although the discussion is jointly credited to Maneker and Cohan. It should not be presented as a verbatim Cohan remark. The sentence is substantially broader than a description of what a particular private investigation found within its reviewed materials.

Semafor reported that Cohan viewed the book in part as a rebuttal to Times coverage. It also reported the Times’s defense of its reporting and Cohan’s response that a disputed March 2026 development arrived late in the publishing process. This establishes a live dispute over framing and reporting choices. It does not independently prove the alleged omission or resolve whether the final manuscript addressed the records adequately.

What the October 20 CNN appearance establishes

The October 20 appearance is documented in CNN’s own rush transcript. Berman’s interview starts after the 08:55 marker in the 8:30 to 9 a.m. Eastern archive block and continues into the next block. There is no exact start timestamp for Cohan’s introduction.

Cohan describes extensive interviews on the record, says Black answered his questions directly and says he believes the answers were honest. He also acknowledges uncertainty about the full relationship. He repeats Black’s explanation that Epstein supplied valuable financial, tax and estate advice. This documents Cohan’s public assessment, rather than independently verifying Black’s explanation.

The exchange also presents a former partner as having attempted extortion. That characterization requires attribution and a separate check against the legal record, discussed below. In the continuation, Cohan explains that another purpose of the book is to describe the transformation of Wall Street after 2008. That broader subject should not disappear from a fair account of what the book is trying to do.

The financial documents the narrative must confront

The Dechert review

The January 2021 report was commissioned by Apollo’s conflicts committee. It describes reviewing more than 60,000 documents and interviewing more than 20 witnesses. It reports no evidence in its investigation of Black, the family office or Apollo participating in Epstein’s criminal activities. It identifies $158 million in payments for work over 2012 to 2017. The schedule lists $50 million in 2013, $70 million in 2014, $30 million in 2015 and $8 million in 2017.

This was a private investigation. Filing its report with the SEC did not convert it into an SEC finding or judicial clearance. Its conclusions and the limits of the materials it reviewed should travel together whenever they are cited.

The higher Senate figure

Wyden’s March 11, 2025 letter says federal records identified additional transfers and describes payments of approximately $170 million. It also questions descriptions of Epstein’s role in the tax planning work. This is an investigative finding reported by the senator, not an independent review here of the underlying bank filings or a court judgment.

The totals require careful reconciliation. The letter discusses additions to a bank’s earlier $156 million filing, while Dechert’s $158 million already includes an April 2017 payment discussed in the letter. Adding every amount mentioned to $158 million would risk counting the same transfer twice. A defensible ledger must separate advisory fees, loans, charitable transfers, gross transfers and any repayments before comparing totals.

The letter predates publication by about eighteen months. Whether the book satisfactorily addresses it must be checked against the actual pages and source notes. The existence of this earlier public source can be established now; an omission from the complete book cannot.

The March 2026 records

Wyden’s March 20, 2026 letter raises questions about unusually large compensation, proposed charitable payment arrangements, tax treatment and payments involving women. It cites EFTA documents and reproduces some excerpts. The letter’s allegations are not adjudicated findings. In particular, discussion of a proposed structure does not itself establish how a payment was finally booked or whether a deduction was claimed.

The letter’s numerical comparison of professional fees is another audit target. Its stated multiple should not be repeated as an independently calculated result without matching time periods, services and payment categories. The relevant question for the book is how these records were evaluated and how conflicting explanations were attributed.

The Virgin Islands agreement

The executed January 20, 2023 agreement specifies $62.5 million. Its recital says Epstein used Black’s payments to help fund his Virgin Islands operations. It releases a broad category of USVI claims against Black and specified related parties through the agreement date, preserves claims belonging to private individuals and contains an express denial and no admission provision.

The agreement should be described in its own terms. The funding recital does not itself use the phrase sex trafficking operations. Wyden characterizes the agreement’s protection as criminal immunity, but the agreement does not use that phrase. This review does not independently determine the release’s full legal reach. Those descriptions should not be inserted into quotations or silently substituted for the signed language. Neither the agreement’s payment obligation nor the no admission clause proves the disputed conduct true or false.

Controversies, Denials and Court Outcomes

The January 16, 2025 New York appellate decision in case 2023 05694 affirmed dismissal of a former partner’s claims because of the agreement’s release provisions and ratification through acceptance of benefits. The majority reasoned that ratification applied even assuming the agreement had been signed under duress; one justice dissented about continuing duress. The decision was not a criminal extortion judgment or a trial finding that abuse allegations were false. Leave to appeal was denied in September 2025.

A separate March 6, 2025 appellate decision dismissed Black’s malicious prosecution claim under New York’s law protecting public participation, because he had not shown the required substantial basis, and remanded for proceedings on attorneys’ fees. These separate outcomes should not be compressed into a claim that every court vindicated one side’s factual account.

Black’s June 26, 2026 House interview records his denial of abusing women, participating in trafficking or paying Epstein for access to women. The later House contempt action concerned compliance with deposition and document subpoenas. It was not a finding that he committed sexual abuse or extortion. These records illustrate why denials, testimony and procedural enforcement belong in separate categories.

Evidence appearances and document identifiers

The following identifiers are a research map, not a claim that every underlying record has been reviewed in full.

• D01: Dechert report dated January 22, 2021, SEC Exhibit 99.1 in accession 0001193125 21 016405. The existing archive locator is EFTA02730996. The substantive findings above were checked against the SEC exhibit; the archive viewer did not expose its full document text in this review.
• D03 references: EFTA00621341, cited at footnote 3 for a professional invoice summary; EFTA00396545, EFTA01915809 and EFTA01376741, cited at footnotes 4 to 6 for payment correspondence; EFTA00589520, cited at footnotes 7 and 8 for an agreement; EFTA02348528, cited at footnotes 10 to 15 for charitable payment correspondence. These identifiers were checked in the Senate letter. Full originals remain to be compared with its excerpts.
• D04: Executed USVI settlement dated January 20, 2023. Read the recitals, release, exclusions and no admission wording together.
• D05 and D07: 2025 NY Slip Op 00271 and 2025 NY Slip Op 01284. They concern different civil actions and different legal issues.

What is not established

• A payment from Black to Cohan, a commissioned biography or subject financing of publication.
• A contract giving Black or his representatives editorial approval, a veto or manuscript control.
• A bulk purchase arrangement, paid advertising tied to favorable coverage or an undisclosed media booking agreement.
• Complete disclosure or nondisclosure in acknowledgments and source notes that have not been read in full.
• A comprehensive absence of contrary evidence merely because the author says he could not refute an interview answer.
• The accuracy of provisional Swisher quotations before comparison with the original audio. The original episode and its public audio enclosure have been located, but the relevant passages were not audio verified for this review.
• The precise broadcast wording of the CNN appearance beyond the network’s rush transcripts. A matching video has not been verified.

These limits cut both ways. They prevent an unsupported accusation that the book was bought, and they prevent an unsupported claim that access or a favorable legal outcome resolves every factual question.

Questions for further research

1. Complete the source note audit. Obtain the correct edition lawfully and examine pages 619 onward. Record the wording of disclosures, interview ground rules, documentary access, assistance and any right of review. A preview gap is not evidence of an omission.
2. Build a claim and page index. For every disputed passage, retain the exact page, surrounding context, cited note and evidence category. Separate Cohan’s conclusion from a quotation, a lawyer’s position and promotional copy.
3. Reconcile the money. Construct a transaction ledger from full records with date, payer, recipient, purpose, gross amount, repayments and duplicate references. Do not combine the Dechert and bank reporting totals by simple addition.
4. Audit publication timing. Identify the manuscript cutoff and what could have been updated after the March 2026 Senate letter. Distinguish a documented production constraint from a complete absence of treatment.
5. Verify the interviews. Check the Swisher audio around the provisional 28:48, 31:54, 37:43 and 38:44 locations, allowing for advertisement offsets. Compare CNN’s rush copy with its original broadcast. Record exact timestamps only after listening.
6. Test independence with evidence. Look for attributable statements or documents concerning compensation, expenses, access agreements, manuscript review and purchase commitments. Do not treat a representative’s attendance, a favorable description or missing public paperwork as proof of a secret deal.
7. Check legal descriptions. For each reference to exoneration, dismissal, settlement or extortion, identify the court, claim, procedural posture, exact holding and appeal status. Preserve material denials and dissenting reasoning.
8. Keep the test falsifiable. Record what would support a criticism and what would weaken it. A documented response, contrary source note or corrected quotation should change the article rather than be left out.

Sources

1. S01. Portfolio and Penguin Random House book record. Metadata, description and lawful preview entry.
2. S02. Cohan’s official announcement. Rights acquisition and promotional framing.
3. S03. Cohan’s January 29, 2021 Vanity Fair column.
4. S04. Puck interview introduction, April 3, 2024.
5. S05. Puck newsletter containing the October 6, 2024 article.
6. S06. Maneker and Cohan art discussion, August 30, 2026.
7. S07. On with Kara Swisher episode, August 31, 2026. Episode verified, quotations awaiting audio comparison.
8. S08. Ben Smith’s Semafor report, September 1, 2026.
9. S09. CNN News Central transcript, October 20, 2026, and continuation. Rush copies.
10. S10. Andrew Marshall’s September 29, 2026 review. Secondary quotation of a thank you passage.
11. S11. Google Books contents and edition record.
12. S12. Longacre Square professional biographies and Mark Herr’s professional biography.
13. D01. Dechert report, January 22, 2021, SEC Exhibit 99.1.
14. D02. Wyden letter to DOJ, Treasury and FBI, March 11, 2025.
15. D03. Wyden letter to Black, March 20, 2026.
16. D04. Executed USVI settlement, January 20, 2023.
17. D05. New York appellate decision, January 16, 2025, case 2023 05694.
18. D06. New York Court of Appeals order denying leave, September 18, 2025.
19. D07. New York appellate decision, March 6, 2025, 2025 NY Slip Op 01284.
20. D08. House interview of Black, June 26, 2026.
21. D09. Congressional Record, September 16, 2026, H5931.