John David McAfee, who made his name by creating antivirus software, ended his life as a global fugitive, a Bitcoin billionaire, and a man wanted in three countries.
He built a company in the ‘80s, gave his product away for free, turned that into a fortune, walked away, and then spent decades running from governments, building private compounds, hacking police, dodging assassination attempts, and predicting his own death.
On June 23, 2021, Spanish authorities found him dead in a prison cell after the United States requested his extradition for tax evasion. He was 75.
Johnny was born in 1945 in England and raised in Virginia, where his father, a violent alcoholic, died by gunshot when John was 15. John found the body himself. The story people don’t tell is that some believe John pulled the trigger. Nobody could prove it.
What’s confirmed is that he was already brilliant. In the 1960s, NASA brought him on to work on the Apollo missions. While others were just learning to type, John was coding software that helped launch astronauts to the moon.
McAfee created antivirus, became rich, then disappeared
In the 1980s, John was working at Lockheed Martin, drinking hard but still ahead of his peers in tech. In 1986, when the world’s first computer virus, called Brain, started spreading, John locked himself in his apartment, cracked it, and built a tool to destroy it.
He named it McAfee Antivirus. He gave it away for free, knowing companies would pay to keep using it. By the early 1990s, 67% of the world’s biggest corporations were using it.
They were paying millions. By 47, Johnny was a multimillionaire. At his peak, Johnny made Forbes’ Top 100 list with a net worth of $100 million. He left the company in 1994, selling all his shares. Then, he vanished from the corporate world.
He used his fortune to buy properties, luxury cars, and a helicopter he used to fly to work. He moved to Belize, where he built a private compound guarded by ex-soldiers, equipped with its own surveillance network and personal drug lab.
According to John, people in power were after him. That paranoia led him to hack police radios, monitor government offices, and create systems to spy on everyone.
By the mid-2000s, locals in Belize were scared of him. Rumors began spreading that Johnny was testing drugs, experimenting with weapons, and possibly involved in human trafficking.
Then, his neighbor was shot in the head. John was the main suspect. He ran. He took his girlfriend, who had originally been hired to assassinate him. Instead, she fell in love and joined him.
While on the run, Johnny sent free laptops to government workers—each rigged with spyware. He claimed to have hacked into multiple government systems, including Hillary Clinton’s office. He told people he had information that could bring powerful figures down.
When Guatemalan police arrested him in 2012, he faked a heart attack to stall for time, then escaped. When asked why he was running, John said, “If they catch me, they’ll kill me.”
Johnny used the growing Bitcoin market to rebuild his wealth. He endorsed crypto projects, pumped coins, and posted nonstop on Twitter. He claimed to be a Bitcoin billionaire. He also said, “I haven’t paid taxes in 10 years because I blackmailed the U.S. government.”
He got into politics, fled on a yacht, and warned the world about his death
In 2016, John ran for U.S. President under the Libertarian Party. He ran again in 2020. His campaign was focused on ending government surveillance, legalizing drugs, and stopping what he called “the war against freedom.” His slogan was, “Privacy is freedom.”
By 2019, U.S. authorities filed federal charges for tax evasion. He didn’t show up. Instead, he boarded a yacht in the Caribbean, posted videos of himself surrounded by prostitutes and armed bodyguards, and mocked the government. He refused to cooperate. He was wanted in three countries and didn’t care.
In 2021, he was arrested by Spanish police. Facing 30+ years in prison if extradited to the U.S., he was found hanging in his cell on June 23, 2021. Before his death, Johnny had tweeted: “Know that if I hang myself, it will be no fault of mine.”
He also had a tattoo that read “$WHACKD.” Hours after his death, a photo of a black “Q” was posted to his Instagram account, a clear reference to QAnon. Some people still believe he faked his death.
John didn’t just build products. He built stories. His life was a non-stop stream of surveillance, paranoia, crypto, and media stunts. In 1994, he also started Tribal Voice, a company that built one of the world’s first instant messaging platforms called PowWow.
By August 2009, John’s net worth had dropped to $4 million, down from $100 million. The 2008 crash wiped out his investments. But in 2016, he became CEO of MGT Capital Investments, a tech holding firm.
The company planned to rename itself John McAfee Global Technologies, but Intel blocked it because of trademark issues. So, the company pivoted to cybersecurity.
John said, “Antivirus software is dead, it no longer works,” and pushed a new product called Sentinel, which was supposed to stop hackers before they could attack.
Soon after, Johnny said his team had found a flaw in Android that let him read encrypted WhatsApp messages. When Gizmodo found out he had sent out infected phones, John responded:
“Of course the phones had malware on them. How that malware got there is the story, which we will release after speaking with Google. It involves a serious flaw in the Android architecture.”
John then moved MGT into Bitcoin and crypto mining to make money and to gain experience with blockchain technology. In August 2017, he stepped down as CEO and took a new role as “chief cybersecurity visionary.”
In January 2018, he cut ties with the company entirely. He said he wanted to focus on crypto full-time. MGT claimed investors had pressured them to distance from him. On August 13, 2018, he became CEO of Luxcore, a company focused on enterprise-level crypto products.
By July 2017, Johnny made another wild statement. He tweeted that Bitcoin would reach $500,000 in three years. Then, in 2019, he raised the prediction to $1 million by the end of 2020. He said if it didn’t, he’d “eat his own dick on national television.”
But in January 2020, John tweeted that the prediction was fake. He called it “a ruse to onboard new users and added that Bitcoin had limited use and was “an ancient technology.”
“I understand Bitcoin completely. I was the world’s 6th largest Bitcoin miner in 2016 while running MGTi. If you think Bitcoin has value then you are the one who understands nothing.” – John McAfee
So there you have it. John McAfee spent his life building, running, hacking, tweeting, and surviving. His story didn’t end with the company that still bears his name. It ended with a body in a Spanish prison and a tattoo that warned the world it would happen.
Whether he’s dead or not, John changed how people saw privacy, surveillance, and crypto. He made enemies, millions, headlines, and chaos, which is just how he wanted it.
And now, nearly four years after he died—or maybe didn’t—President Trump is back in office, crypto is still alive, and McAfee’s name keeps popping up. Some men disappear. Others turn themselves into a myth. And oh, Johnny’s Twitter account is still active. It reposted a post from March 18th and March 21st, 2025.
This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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