Blaze Media
© 2024 Blaze Media LLC. All rights reserved.

Two-Thirds of Wikileaks Salary Budget Goes to Assange

Wikileaks has a $130,000 salary budget. Two-thirds of that goes to Julian Assange.

According to the Wall Street Journal, and reported by the Daily Mail, the main financial arm of the organization is the German-based Wau Holland Foundation. According to the report, Wau Holland brought in about $1.3 million, with $130,000 designated for salaries. Assange paid himself $86,000 of that last year and dispersed the rest of the money among his staff. The salaries, the Daily Mail say, are an attempt by Assange and Wikileaks to legitimize the whistleblower organization:

It has established a Greenpeace-like system of salary payments, as WikiLeaks attempts to legitimise its organisation by moving away from purely volunteer-based work.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the move towards salaried employees came after a year-long intense internal debate about whether to do so.

Founder Julian Assange has raked in around $86,000 in salary this year, and Wau Holland has paid more than $130,000 in salaries to the entire WikiLeaks staff.

While it appears that Mr Assange is taking the bulk of the money, the Wall Street Journal is quick to point out that Wau Holland is not WikiLeaks' sole monetary provider.

Under the Greenpeace salary structure, department heads are paid about $7,200 in monthly salary, a Wau Holland spokesman said.

Among the many revelations from the journal report are several indications that donations to WikiLeaks have dropped off significantly in the second half of the year.

By August, WikiLeaks had raised just over $1m, which means it has only raised about $300,000 since then.

Read more at the Daily Mail.

Want to leave a tip?

We answer to you. Help keep our content free of advertisers and big tech censorship by leaving a tip today.
Want to join the conversation?
Already a subscriber?
Jonathon M. Seidl

Jonathon M. Seidl

more stories