The only thing more toxic than the emissions spewing from the smokestacks at Koch industries are the relationships between the four adult heirs to the family fortune. This story has EVERYTHING court battles, private investigators, homosexual blackmail, ANNA NICOLE SMITH, sibling rivalry, and libertarian summer camp! Join Becca and Adam as they wade into the stinky, polluted waters of the Koch family dynasty in this two part episode!!
The Koch Family Tree
Fred Koch Sr: Founded what would become Koch industries in the 1920s. Died suddenly while duck hunting in 1967, left his namesake company to his second son, Charles.
Mary Clementine Koch: Fred’s wife. Patron of the arts and theater, she was popular in fancy Wichita social circles where she’d party with oldest son, Freddie Jr.
Freddie Jr: The eldest boy, Freddie was ostracized by his brothers and father and ultimately joined in a shareholder coup to take the company public with his younger brother Billy.
Charles: CEO of Koch industries after the death of his father. Grew Koch industries from a mid-sized oil refinery to a behemoth conglomerate. Real piece of shit.
Bill: Flamboyant twin of David. Detested his older brother Charles so much that he tried to oust him as CEO in a coup Bill organized with brother Freddie. Like many of characters in this podcast, tried to heal generational trauma by winning a sailing trophy.
David: Twin of Bill but acts more like a twin of Charles. David and Charles are the disgusting brothers. Funding American political division and spilling dinosaur juice in protected wetlands.
Elizabeth: Eldest daughter of Charles, we don’t really talk about her in this episode, but she was the subject of a hilariously out of touch New York Times profile here.
Chase: Son of Charles Koch, may be the heir to Koch industries but is currently a VC bro.
Wyatt: Acclaimed fashion designer. He is the moment. He is what everyone is talking about. He is WYATT INGRAHAM.
Family portrait: Mother Mary, sitting; Bill, David, father Fred, Charles and Fred.
Fred Koch senior’s close friend, J Howard Marshall, and Anna Nicole Smith. Anna Nicole Smith married J. Howard Marshall II in 1994 when she was 26 and he was 89 and this picture was on EVERY gossip mag in the mid 90s.
An undated picture of Fred Koch Sr.
The Koch family in a 1950s Christmas card: From left to right, Charles, David, Fred, Mary, Bill and Frederick. Photo via Wichita State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives.
The Koch boys. (From left to right) top: Charles & Freddie Jr. bottom: Billy & David
Frederick R. Koch at Lincoln Center in New York in an undated photo. A major benefactor of cultural institutions, he was on the board of the Metropolitan Opera. via F.R. Koch
Tribune Media MCT From left: Fred Koch reads to David and Charles, December 21, 1947.
Tribune Media MCT David (left) and Charles Koch at Beaverhead Ranch in Montana in 1952.
Twins Billy (left) and David (right)
David and Bill’s MIT Engineers portrait in 1961 Courtesy of MIT Museum
An undated picture of Fred Koch sr. and second son, Charles Koch.
Bill, Charles, and David in Lincoln, Massachusetts, 1968 Photo: Mikki Ansin
Welcome to Libertarian summer camp! (source)
Mr. Koch, left, the Libertarian Party’s vice-presidential candidate, appeared at a rally in Los Angeles in 1980 with the party’s presidential candidate, Ed Clark. At right was Mr. Clark’s wife, Alicia Garcia Clark.Credit...Randy Rasmussen/Associated Press (source)
Koch family of Wichita KS at Commencement 1962. Charles Koch '58, Fred C. Koch '22, Mrs. Fred C. Koch, William I Koch '62, David H. Koch '62. (source)
I’m obsessed with Bill Koch’s 1994 Vanity fair shoot (source)
Another great shot of Billy for Florida Weekly
Bill Koch winning the 1992 America’s Cup (from the Vanity Fair article linked above)
Bill Koch impregnated one of these women (unclear which one).
Bill Koch holding his son, Wyatt, in Newport, R.I., at the launch of his boat, Matador
Local Wichita paper clipping from around the time Chase Koch was sentenced for killing a kid with his car.
Bill and David Koch at New York’s Lincoln Centre in 2017 (Getty)
William Koch outside a courthouse in Topeka, Kan., in 1998 after a jury ruled against him and Frederick in a lawsuit against their brothers Charles and David; William and Frederick had accused them of cheating them in a stock sale
Rich Glickstein/Topeka Capital-Journal, via Associated Press
Undated photo of Charles standing in a cornfield in front of a building with his name on it.
Bill Koch describes Oxbridge Academy, the progressive prep school he founded in West Palm Beach, as a place where there’s “no group of cool kids and it’s cool to get good grades.”
Charles Koch sitting in front of an oil painting of daddio
The picture that accompanied the WSJ article - look guys, it’s me, grandpa chuckie. Come sit on papas lap and tell me what you want for christmas!!!!
Designs from Wyatt Ingraham’s palm-beach-borroque men’s blouse line
An actual screengrab from an actual promotional video for Wyatt Ingraham clothing
More life!