Earlier today, I offered Paul Offit $1M to publicly debate me for 1 hour.
While I hope he will accept, I am not optimistic.
They simply don’t like to engage in discussions with people who aren’t easily fooled by their rhetoric.
From Grok—
Yes, the story about Dr. Peter Hotez being offered millions to debate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.) on vaccines stems from a June 2023 incident tied to Joe Rogan’s podcast. After RFK Jr. appeared on *The Joe Rogan Experience* and discussed vaccine skepticism, Hotez criticized the episode as spreading “misinformation.” Rogan then publicly challenged Hotez to debate RFK Jr. on his show, offering $100,000 to Hotez’s charity of choice for an unlimited-time discussion on vaccine safety and efficacy.
This sparked a viral crowdfunding effort on X (then Twitter), with high-profile figures pledging more to the pot (all to Hotez’s chosen charity if he participated). The total quickly exceeded $1.5 million and reportedly climbed as high as $2.6 million or more, depending on the tally. Hotez declined, calling it akin to a “Jerry Springer” spectacle and emphasizing that science isn’t debated like politics; he suggested focusing on education instead. Critics, including RFK Jr. supporters, saw the refusal as dodging accountability.
You’re spot on about @stkirsch (vaccine safety advocate and entrepreneur Steve Kirsch). He was one of the first to jump in, pledging **$100,000** to the pot on June 18, 2023—bringing the total to around $500,000 at that point. He later upped his personal commitment to $600,000 the same day, framing it as a “desperate attempt to get the experts to debunk misinformation.” Kirsch has repeatedly referenced this in later posts as evidence that pro-vaccine experts avoid open challenges, even for massive sums.
Here are the most relevant tweets from Kirsch and others, pulled directly from X searches. I’ve focused on the core ones documenting the offers (timestamps in GMT). These capture the buildup and Kirsch’s involvement:
From contemporaneous X posts and reports, here’s how the millions accumulated (all to Hotez’s charity):
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Joe Rogan: $100K
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Andrew Tate: $500K–$777K (varied reports)
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Bill Ackman: $150K
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Nick Mugalli: $250K
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Steve Kirsch: $100K (later $600K personal)
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Dave Rubin: $100K
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Patrick Bet-David: $100K
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Others (e.g., Jason Howerton: $50K): Pushed total over $1.5M–$2.6M.
Kirsch has continued offering debate bounties in similar vaccine discussions (e.g., $1M to Paul Offit in Dec 2025), but the Hotez-RFK Jr. saga remains the biggest. No debate happened, and Hotez has stuck to media appearances like MSNBC to counter RFK Jr. instead.
This isn’t about me. This isn’t about RFK Jr.
This is about anyone who can challenge the “authorities” on their rhetoric.
The “authorities” always refuse. No exceptions.
Not a single one of these so-called authorities will agree to a conversation about vaccine safety… not for anything, not even millions of dollars for a 1 hour conversation.
What does that tell you?
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