When Joe Rogan Publicly Turned Down $100 Million

Ever since Joe Rogan's podcast became a sensation, there have been some observers who haven't understood its success. However, the key to Joe's success since he was a reality show star has been his willingness to be very frank about his opinions. For example, Joe has millions of listeners because he does things like call out The View, make comments about Taylor Swift that outrage her fans, and anger a UFC legend.

While Joe's scandals have inspired Howard Stern to defend him and Jon Stewart to have his back, he is rich enough that fans want to know how much his staff gets paid. Despite how wealthy Joe clearly is, however, it was mind-blowing when he publicly turned down $100 million.

Joe Rogan Turned Down $100 Million To Move His Podcast

Since "The Joe Rogan Experience" premiered, the podcast has gone from a little production to a cash cow. On top of that, there has been a lot of discussion about how Joe's podcast has affected the opinions of some listeners.

The debates over Joe's influence have led to him being embroiled in several scandals. Most notably, Joe was at the center of a lot of drama based on two massive backlashes he had. Over the last several years, a compilation of Joe using the N-word and his comments about COVID-19 have caused scandals.

At the height of the criticism of Joe's coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic, he was offered a huge money deal to move his podcast. As remarkable as that was, the truly staggering thing was that Joe turned down the $100 million offer.

In February 2024, Billboard published an article about the huge money offer Joe was given.

As that article revealed, the YouTube competitor Rumble offered Joe $100 million to move his podcast to their website.

Of course, most people will never make anywhere close to $100 million in their lifetime. As a result, there are a lot of people who would jump through almost any hoops to make that kind of money.

On Rumble's corporate website, there is a statement from the company's founder and CEO about its mission statement. "Rumble is designed to be the rails and independent infrastructure that is immune to cancel culture. We are a movement that does not stifle, censor, or punish creativity and believe everyone benefits from access to a neutral network with diverse ideas and opinions. We are on a mission to restore the internet to its roots by making it free and open once again."

The day after Billboard published their article on Rumble's offer, The Hollywood Reporter covered Joe's return to the stand up stage. As THR's article revealed, Joe explained why he was rejecting Rumble's offer when he was asked a fan question during that performance.

No, Spotify has hung in with me, inexplicably. Let’s see what happens.

Before Joe turned down the offer, Rumble's CEO, Chris Pavlovski, released a statement about how they would treat the famed podcaster.

While Joe Rogan didn't sign a deal with Rumble, other famous figures have. For example, Rumble's corporate website announced in January 2023 that Donald Trump Jr. agreed to produce a show called "Triggered With Don Jr." that would be exclusive to the website.

As a part of Billboard's article, they quoted Rumble's CEO stating that they would support Joe in response to attempts to censor him.

“We stand with you, your guests, and your legion of fans in desire for real conversation… How about you bring all your shows to Rumble, both new and old, with no censorship, for $100 million bucks over four years? This is our chance to save the world. And yes, this is totally legit.”

Considering that Joe's has been at the heart of many scandals, a statement like that seems like it would be compelling for him. However, Rumble was late to the game.

The day before Billboard reported on Rumble's offer, The Hollywood Reporter revealed how Spotify was reacting to Joe Rogan's scandals at that time. As the February 2024 THR article revealed, Spotify's CEO Daniel Ek sent a letter to his employees pledging to continue working with Joe.

“I want to make one point very clear — I do not believe that silencing Joe is the answer. We should have clear lines around content and take action when they are crossed, but canceling voices is a slippery slope.”

While Spotify wasn't going to cut ties with Joe, that doesn't mean they didn't take any action at that time.

As a part of Billboard's article about Rumble's offer, it was revealed that Spotify pulled roughly 70 episodes of "The Joe Rogan Experience" in response to the scandal.

How Joe Rogan Responded To His COVID-19 Scandal

After there was a huge backlash against Joe Rogan for his coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic, he responded to the scandal. While he was supported through the drama by his many fans, Joe addressed the people he'd angered.

As an NBC News video uploaded to YouTube about an Instagram video Joe uploaded about the scandal revealed, he stated that it wasn't his intent to promote misinformation.

"I'm not trying to promote misinformation. I'm not trying to be controversial. I've never tried to do anything with this podcast other than just talk to people and have interesting conversations."

As a Variety article about Joe's video reported, the podcaster explained that he believed his podcast was misunderstood. “I think there’s a lot of people that have a distorted perception of what I do, maybe based on sound bites or based on headlines of articles that are disparaging.”

Joe also defended having Dr. Robert Malone and Dr. Peter McCullough on his podcast to talk about COVID-19. Joe described those two doctors as “very highly credentialed, very intelligent, very accomplished people and they have an opinion that’s different from the mainstream narrative.”

Joe notably also discussed what he would try to do in the future to address concerns. “I don’t know what else I can do differently other than maybe try harder to get people with differing opinions on right afterwards. I do think that’s important and do my best to make sure that I’ve researched these topics — the controversial ones in particular — and have all the pertinent facts at hand before I discuss them.